First combined edition of Symmachus's letters together with Mehmed II's fictitious letters 19

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

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Actuellement indisponible via Gallerease

• Sur l'oeuvre d'art
  Epistolae familiares.
  Including: ZACCHIA, Laudivius. … in epistolas Turci magni traductio.
  (Colophon: Strassburg, Johann Schott for Georg Übelin, 8 August 1510). 4to. 19th-century half calf, tiger marbled sides, tiger marbled paste-downs (rebacked, with original backstrip laid down).
  
  First dated edition of Epistolae familiares containing 343 letters by the Roman statesman and orator Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (ca. 345-402), addressed to a wide circle of relations, friends, and acquaintances and all written in a refined style. Although many of them are only short notes, together they provide a fascinating window into the late Roman senatorial aristocracy. The priority of the editions is uncertain, but what is often considered the first was published in Venice between 1503 and 1513.
  The main text is followed by a spurious collection of letters from and to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (1432-1481), but actually written by the humanist Laudivius Zacchia. "The so-called Epistolae magni Turci begin with a letter from Mehmed … to Zancassanus, 'King of Persia'. As in the rest of the collection, the exchange follows a set pattern: angry, menacing boasts from the sultan, followed by a reply from the threatened party, which parries the worst of the bluster and thus rhetorically disarms the Turk" (Meserve). The book, first published in 1473, was a success and reprinted numerous times well into the 17th-century, undoubtedly because many Europeans feared the advancing Ottoman Empire (the Battle of Mohács was to give the Ottomans a decisive victory in Hungray in 1526).
  The present edition is the first combined edition of the two works. Another edition including both works was published only two months later by another Strassburg publisher Johann Grüninger on 9 October 1510. A line for line reprint of the present edition was published in 1511.
  With some underscoring and a few annotations in the margins. Paper slightly browned with a few occasional spots. Binding rebacked. Good copy.
  Brunet V, col. 612; Graesse VI, p. 538; VD 16, S10390 (8 copies); cf. Meserve, Empires of Islam in Renaissance historical thought (2009), p. 228; not in Adams.
• Sur l'artiste
  Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (vers 345 - 402) a fait ses études en Gaule. C'était un homme d'État romain aristocrate très éloquent. Symmaque fut proconsul (gouverneur) d'Afrique en 373, préfet urbain de Rome en 384 et 385, et consul en 391. Il chercha sans succès à préserver la religion traditionnelle de Rome. Il a été réfuté par Ambrose, évêque de Milan, dans la célèbre question de Victoria-autel. (Un certain nombre de sénateurs voulaient que l'autel de la déesse Victoria - enlevé par l'empereur Gratien - revienne au Sénat). Beaucoup de ses écrits ont survécu: neuf livres de lettres, un recueil de Relationes (dépêches officielles), trois panégyriques (éloges). Symmachus a également engagé la publication de l’ouvrage historique de Tite-Live Ab urbe condita (De la fondation de la ville), les livres I-X.