Calepino - Calepinus - 1648

RARA VERSIONE SECENTESCA DEL CALEPINO DELLE 9 LINGUE : LINGUISTICA UNIVERSALE
This rare sixteenth-century edition of Ambrogio Calepino’s great polyglot dictionary represents one of the most ambitious attempts to organize European linguistic knowledge. Born as a Latin dictionary, Calepino here becomes a true universal machine of language, capable of crossing cultures, confessions, and geographic areas. The work reflects a Europe still founded on Latin as the common language of culture, but now oriented toward the full dignity of vernacular languages and toward a modern conception of communication and knowledge.
MARKET VALUE
The sixteenth-century editions of the Calepino polyglot in in-4to format, complete with the nine languages and in contemporary binding, generally occupy a market range between 900 and 1,200 euros. Copies with an engraved title page and original bindings on wooden boards tend to sit at the higher end of the range.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
2 parts in 1 volume in-4to. Engraved title. Collation: [8], 702 ; 628 pages, text in two columns. Some oxidized leaves, but overall in good condition. Beautiful contemporary pigskin binding on wooden boards, dry-stamped decoration, with blue edges. In old books, with a centuries-long history, there may be some imperfections not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Ambrosii Calepini Passeratii, Linguarum novem, hoc est Latinae, Graecae, Hebraicae, Gallicae, Italicae, Germanicae, Hispanicae, Anglicae & Belgicae dictionarium. Accuratissima editio.
Leiden Abraham Commelin [1648?]
Ambrogio Calepino

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
Calepino was one of the most widespread and influential dictionaries of the early modern era, to the point that the author’s name became synonymous with “vocabulary” itself. This nine-language edition represents an advanced stage in the evolution of the work, transformed from a scholastic Latin tool into a European encyclopedic repertoire. The inclusion of Hebrew alongside Greek and the major vernacular languages meets the needs of biblical and philological studies, while the presence of English and Dutch signals attention to the new centers of commercial and cultural power in Northern Europe. The Leiden edition, an important university and printing hub of the seventeenth century, places the work in a context of high international circulation of knowledge.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Ambrogio Calepino was born in Bergamo around 1435 and died in 1511. An Augustinian monk and humanist, he devoted much of his life to compiling a Latin dictionary conceived as a didactic instrument. After his death, the work was expanded and enriched by other scholars, becoming one of the longest-lived and most successful lexicographic repertoires of early modern Europe, reprinted and updated for over two centuries.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The dictionary enjoyed extraordinary editorial fortune between the 16th and 17th centuries, with editions in various linguistic combinations. The nine-language versions are less common than the four- or five-language ones and are particularly valued for the breadth of the cultural project. This edition is attributed to the workshop of Abraham Commelin, active in Leiden and specialized in academic and philological editions intended for an international audience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
ICCU – OPAC SBN: Ambrosius Calepinus, Linguarum novem dictionarium, sixteenth-century editions printed in Leiden; multiple records relating to in-4to and folio copies held in Italian and European libraries.
USTC (Universal Short Title Catalogue): Calepinus, Ambrosius, Linguarum novem dictionarium, Leiden, Abraham Commelin, chronological attributions between 1640 and 1655; catalogued copies in Dutch, German and British libraries.
VD17 (Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts): records of the polyglot editions of Calepino printed in the Netherlands and circulating in the German-speaking area.
Brunet, Jacques-Charles, Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur de livres, Paris, 1860, vol. I, s.v. “Calepin”, with distinction between editions in 4, 7 and 9 languages and notes on relative rarity.
Graesse, Johann Georg Theodor, Trésor de livres rares et précieux, Dresden, 1859, vol. II, pp. 12–14, entry “Calepinus”, with indication of the most sought-after sixteenth-century editions.
Schäfer, Jürgen, Geschichte der Lexikographie, Tübingen, Niemeyer, chapter dedicated to the Calepino tradition and its role in European lexicography.
Blair, Ann, Too Much to Know. Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age, Yale University Press, 2010, pp. 156–162, section on the great humanist dictionaries and on the Calepino’s function as a tool of knowledge control.
Grafton, Anthony, Worlds Made by Words, Harvard University Press, chapter on the role of polyglot linguistic repertoires in Early Modern Europe.
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Cambridge University Press, references to Calepino as a emblematic case of standardization and diffusion of linguistic knowledge.