Ciceronis Orationum

£550 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

Vols. 2 3 of the 10-volume Elzevier Cicero, but also sold separately and here numbered I II. Provenance: James Alban Ghibbes or Gibbes (1611-77), physician and neo-latin poet, with his ink inscription on the verso of the titles “Ex libris Jac: Albani Gibbesii M.D. Romae 1653” and a very few neat ink annotations in the text. Ghibbes was a physician and neo-Latin poet who was regarded in his lifetime as the “Horace of this age”. James Alban Gibbes (he later Italianised his name to Gibbesio or Ghibbesio) was born at Valognes in northern France where his parents were then living in exile. His father William, a doctor from Bristol who was later physician to Queen Henrietta Maria, married Mary Stonor, from a leading catholic family who converted him. The family returned to England in 1620 but James was sent to the English College at St. Omer to be educated and then studied medicine at Padua University (1641-44) before moving to Rome where he spent most of his life as a doctor. “His handsome face, wonderful power of mimicry, entertaining conversation, and mastery of six living languages, coupled with his medical skill, gained him a succession of patrons, viz. Cardinal Caponi, Cardinal Spada, in whose house he resided till Spada’s death, and Prince Giustiniani, with whom [he] henceforth resided. He composed several Latin eulogies on Pope Leo X, and enjoyed the favour of his three successors. Alexander VII in 1647 gave him a professorship of rhetoric at Sapienza College worth £60 a ye

• Year: 1642

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