Quintiliano - Institutionum libri XII - 1534

Rhetoric, Morale, and Discipline: How to instruct men with a clear conscience
Early sixteenth-century edition of the Institutio oratoria by Marcus Fabius Quintilian, printed in Cologne in 1534, at a crucial moment in the humanistic reception of Latin classics. The work, structured into twelve books, goes beyond teaching the art of speaking; it proposes an integrated model of training for the public man: ethics, pedagogy, speech discipline, and civic responsibility are combined into a single project. This edition belongs to the phase in which Quintilian is definitively removed from mere scholarly erudition to become the foundation of European humanistic culture. The volume is presented as a tool for work and education, designed for scholars, jurists, and officials, in a Europe reorganizing the relationship between knowledge, authority, and communication.
Market value
For a copy of the 1534 Coloniae edition of Institutio oratoria, bound in a contemporary decorated binding like the one visible, the market value is approximately between 1,000 and 2,000 euros. Well-preserved, complete copies with readable gilding on the spine and good paper freshness can fetch higher valuations in international auction contexts.

Physical description and condition - collector's copy
Full brown leather binding, spine with raised bands decorated with gilt tooling and title on a label; red edges. Pages with some browning and foxing. Typographic title page with publisher’s mark; wood-engraved initials. In ancient books, with a multi-century history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (6); 32nn; 786; (6).

Full title and author
M. Fabius Quintilianus's Twelve Books on Oratorical Institutions.
Colony of Agripp. in the gymnasium workshop, 1534.
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

Context and Significance
In the first half of the 16th century, Quintilian became the absolute reference point for the reform of humanistic education. Unlike medieval rhetoric, the Institutio proposes a progressive and moral educational model, in which the speaker must first and foremost be a just man. The 1534 edition is situated at a decisive stage of this process: the text is now stabilized but not yet rigidified into a purely technical scholastic tradition. This makes the volume particularly significant as a document of the birth of European educational modernity.

Biography of the Author
Marco Fabio Quintilian was born in Calagurris, in Hispania, around 35 AD. He was the first rhetoric teacher employed by the Roman state. His major work, the Institutio oratoria, is the most comprehensive treatise on the pedagogy of eloquence from antiquity, profoundly influencing European culture from the Renaissance to the modern age. He died after 95 AD.

Printing history and circulation
The Institutio Oratoria experienced extraordinary editorial success right from the beginning of the 16th century. The German editions, particularly those from Cologne, played a key role in spreading the text in the universities of Northern Europe. The 1534 edition belongs to the first major wave of humanist printing of the work, aimed at an educated and professionally active audience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Quintilianus, Institutes of Oratory, Books XII, Cologne, 1534.
BnF, catalog of the sixteenth-century editions of Quintilian.
WorldCat, censuses of Cologne editions of the 16th century.
G. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition.
J. Murphy, Quintilian on the Teaching of Speaking and Writing.