SANNAZZARO, Jacopo.

by Jacopo Sannazzaro

£17,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Fourth and best Aldine edition of the Latin works of the Neapolitan poet Jacopo Sannazaro (1458-1530), published posthumously by the Aldine Press and containing new material, in a beautiful French-style binding of the mid-sixteenth century and from the library of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, Scottish patriot, adventurer and politician. = This edition is the first to be dedicated entirely to Sannazaro and issued under the title opera omnia, gave the first appearance of many of his epigrams (only some of which had appeared in the previous edition), to which the divisional title refers: nuper emissi. Renouard described our edition as being better organised and more complete than previous Aldine editions of Sannazaro s Latin verse; the elegies have indeed been reorganised and the epigrams are properly set out with individual titles, unlike in earlier editions. The first work included is Sannazaro s De partu Virginis, i.e. On the Virgin Birth, a retelling in three books of the Annunciation in classical epic style (Sannazaro borrowed heavily from Virgil), notable for its simile describing the Virgin Mary as being like a young girl by the sea who, seeing an approaching ship, fears that it might portend the arrival of pirates; some contemporaries were upset by the suggestion that the Virgin was excessively fearful at the time of the Annunciation. Also contained here are some of Sannazaro s eclogues, the pastoral Salices ( Willows ), some of his elegies and the newly published epigrams

• Binding: Hardcover

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