Initia doctrinae physicae, dicta in academia Vvitebergensi. Wittenberg: J. Lufft, 1549

£5,750 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

This beautifully preserved volume, in a strictly contemporary binding executed for one “C H” marries two important educational texts by the greatest educators of the sixteenth century, Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), ‘Praeceptor Germaniae,’ and Johann Sturm (1507-89) the great Strassburg teacher. I. First edition. Preparemus etiam nos ad illam aeternam academiam, in qua integram physicen discemus, cum ideam mundi nobis architectus ipse monstrabit. (A3r) (Let us prepare ourselves for that everlasting academy in which we shall learn all physics, when the architect of all shall show us the idea of the world). Melanchthon**, second only to Luther in the annals of German Protestantism, a man of deep religious conviction, was also the reformer of German higher education, teaching and writing a variety of textbooks. This introductory textbook - ‘exiguum vestibulum’ (A3v) as he calls it - of physics (and metaphysics) is a statement of Aristotelian doctrine, written in clear and elegant Latin and beautifully printed by Lufft. Clarity of exposition and presentation springs from every page. As Hartfelder wrote over a century ago ‘Melanchthon is no philosopher like Francis Bacon or Descartes. He is a man of learning… a humanist whose linguistic skills have enabled him to go to the best sources and from them create a philosophy’ (K. Hartfelder, Melanchthon als Praeceptor Germaniae, Berlin, 1889, p. 247). In no way was he a scientist; heliocentrism he rejects, placing his trust in Revelati

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