Quintiliano - Oratoriarum - 1548

Architecture of the Word: Rhetoric as an Ethical Discipline
This Basel edition of 1548 of the Institutio Oratoria represents one of the absolute high points of the humanistic transmission of Marcus Fabius Quintilian’s thought. Established on a rigorously philological basis by Gybertus Longolius, with the contribution of central figures of reformist humanism such as Camerarius and Sichardus, the work presents Quintilian not only as a theorist of the art of rhetoric, but as the builder of a comprehensive educational model, in which eloquence, ethics, and civil responsibility coincide. Printed in Basel, one of the principal print and intellectual workshops of the sixteenth century, and preserved in a splendid contemporary German binding in scofa leather blind-embossed on wooden boards, this edition combines textual authority, material quality, and symbolic force, placing itself fully at the heart of European academic and reformist culture.
Market value
The sixteenth-century editions of the Institutione oratoria, in particular those edited by leading humanists and preserved in contemporaneous German bindings, show a stable and qualified demand in the international market for ancient books. Comparable copies, with good structural integrity, complete textual apparatus, and original calfskin bindings on boards, regularly occupy a price range between €900 and €1,500, with higher values for copies that are particularly fresh, annotated in period or with historically relevant provenance. The presence of the original blind-stamped binding constitutes, in this case, a clearly premium collectible element.

Physical description and condition
Beautiful and solid German contemporary binding in scofa leather on wooden boards, finely blind-stamped with continuous rolls and figurative medallions in a Renaissance taste, expression of a high-level bookbinding craft intended for a qualified academic context. The dry decoration, still sharp and legible, enhances the sturdy structure of the volume, giving it evident material authority. Spine with three raised ridges and title handwritten in ink; inner edges beveled. Remains of original metal fittings, with oxidations coherent with the age. Minimal leather loss at the upper part of the front cover and slight stains to the edges, without compromising structural solidity. Frontispiece with a woodcut typographic mark, repeated at the end of the volume, small restorations. Presence of marginal handwritten notes and underlinings, indicating attentive and continuous reading in a school or university setting. In old books, with a multi-century history, there may be some imperfections, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 8nn; 716; 32nn; (2).

Full title and author
The Oratorian Institutions, Book 13.
Basel, by Nicolaus Bryling, 1548.
Marcus Fabius Quintilian.

Context and Significance
The Institution of Oratory constitutes the most detailed and ambitious treatise on rhetoric of antiquity, conceived as a true educational system that accompanies the orator from early childhood training to full civic and moral maturity. The celebrated ideal of the vir bonus dicendi peritus defines a conception of the word as an ethical tool before it is a technical one. The 1548 edition, critically established by Gybertus Longolius, reflects the humanistic project of recovering Quintilian as a moral and pedagogical model, in contrast to a rhetoric reduced to mere formal exercise. The contributions of scholars such as Camerarius and Sichardus testify to the centrality of the text in the university curricula of Reform-era Europe, while Basel printing places the work at the crossroads between classical philology, humanistic pedagogy, and the political theory of the word.

Biography of the Author
Marcus Fabius Quintilian was born in Calahorra, in Hispania, around 35 CE and died after 95 CE. He was the most influential theorist of Roman rhetoric and the first officially salaried teacher of the imperial state. Active in Rome as a lecturer and lawyer, he developed in his Institutio Oratoria a unified educational project grounded in the balance between eloquence, moral virtue, and civil responsibility. His work exerted a deep and lasting influence throughout the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and beyond, becoming one of the foundational texts of Western education.

Printing history and circulation
The edition was printed in Basel in 1548 by Nicolaus Bryling, at a moment of particular vitality in German humanistic publishing. Edited by Gybertus Longolius, a Dutch humanist active in the Rhineland area, the work enjoyed wide and lasting circulation among educational and university circles in Northern Europe. Complete copies preserved in original bindings with traces of the clasps are today relatively uncommon, especially in structurally solid condition and with historically coherent signs of use such as the copy described here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
VD16 Q-96.
Adams, Q-67.
Schreiber, F., The Quintilian editions of the 16th century, Leipzig, 1908.
Reynolds, L. D., Texts and Transmission, Oxford, 1983, pp. 307–312, s.v. Quintilianus.