Cicerone - Rhetoricorum… ad Herennium - 1534

HOW TO PERSUADE, MOVE, AND CONVINCE – THE GREAT HANDBOOK OF RHETORIC
An fascinating sixteenth-century manual devoted to the art of persuading through words, a cornerstone of the political, legal, and literary culture of ancient Rome. Printed in Lyon in 1534 by Vincent de Portonariis, this edition of the famous Rhetorica ad Herennium transmits one of the oldest and most influential Latin treatises on eloquence. For centuries it was attributed to Marcus Tullius Cicero; the work teaches how to build effective arguments, capture attention, arouse emotions, organize ideas, and memorize speeches. A fundamental text that traversed the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, contributing to the formation of generations of orators, jurists, and humanists. The exemplar, preserved in its contemporaneous parchment binding, features woodcut initials, handwritten annotations, and ancient underlinings: tangible testimonies of nearly five centuries of reading and study.

Published in Lyon in 1534, the Rhetorica ad Herennium belongs to the great tradition of classical rhetoric, a discipline considered essential for intellectual formation and for the exercise of public life. Composed probably between 86 and 82 BC by an anonymous author, the work constitutes the oldest systematic treatise on Latin rhetoric to have come down to us in its entirety. Across four books, it presents the techniques necessary to devise, order, express, and deliver a convincing speech, with particular attention to argumentative strategies, rhetorical figures, and the art of memory. Its fortune was extraordinary: for centuries regarded as a work of Cicero, it became a foundational text in medieval and Renaissance teaching. This Lyonese edition of the 16th century preserves the charm of the first humanist printing, with woodcut initials, a parchment binding from the period, and ancient marks of study. A significant document of the transmission of classical knowledge in Renaissance Europe.

WHY TO BUY
- UN CLASSICO DELLA PERSUASIONE: One of the fundamental texts of Roman civilization, devoted to the techniques of discourse, argumentation, and eloquence.
- EDIZIONE LIONESE DEL 1534: A testimony to the Renaissance diffusion of rhetorical studies, printed by Vincent de Portonariis in one of Europe's leading printing centers.
- UN ESEMPLARE CHE RACCONTA LA PROPRIA STORIA: Ancient annotations and underlinings document the book’s use as a tool for reading and intellectual formation.
- FASCINO BIBLIOFILICO: Contemporaneous parchment binding, woodcut initials, colophon and printer’s mark, features characteristic of early sixteenth-century book production.

MARKET VALUE
Indicative market value: €400–€600, depending on completeness, conservation state, binding integrity, and the quality of handwritten annotations. The presence of the contemporaneous parchment, woodcut initials, and evidence of ancient reading contribute to its collecting interest.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Latin edition of 1534, preserved in contemporaneous parchment binding, with signs of use. Spine with abrasions; title handwritten on the edges. Text adorned with woodcut initials. Colophon and printer’s mark on the final leaves. Present are ancient handwritten annotations and underlinings, testimony to reading and study of the text. Small wormholes near the last leaves have been restored. The binding preserves the historic character of the specimen and adds to its antique charm. Collation: pp. (2); 268; 4 unnumbered; (2). Total: 276 pages. In old books with a multisectional history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. This listing contains AI Visuals. Refer to the original photographs to verify the object’s actual condition. Images are an integral part of the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
M. Tullii Ciceronis, Rhetoricorum... ad Herennium.
[Work by an anonymous author, traditionally attributed to Cicero].
Lugduni: Apud Vincentium de Portonariis, 1534.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
In Republican Rome, eloquence was one of the most important instruments of power. The ability to speak before the Senate, persuade a court, steer a assembly, or publicly defend a cause could determine the political and social success of an individual. Rhetoric was thus far more than a literary exercise: it was an essential discipline of civil life. The Rhetorica ad Herennium arose in this context and offered an organic arrangement of persuasion techniques, translating and adapting to Roman culture the teachings of the Greek rhetorical tradition. The treatise distinguishes five fundamental components of the art of oratory: inventio (the search for arguments); dispositio (their organization); elocutio (the choice of style and words); memoria (learning and mental retention of the speech); pronuntiatio (its execution through voice, gesture, and stage presence). Particularly interesting is the treatment of artificial memory, based on the association of ideas with loci and mental images, one of the oldest and most influential examples of mnemonic technique in the Western tradition. Equally important is the analysis of rhetorical figures, expressive forms, and different stylistic registers. The work teaches not only how to speak correctly, but how to choose the most appropriate words, modulate emotional intensity, refute objections, and win the listener’s assent. Its influence extended far beyond antiquity: in the Middle Ages it became a reference for the study of rhetoric, while during the Renaissance it became part of the educational program of studia humanitatis. The 1534 exemplar materially documents this long continuity, in an era in which the rediscovery of the classics helped redefine the models of European education.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
The identity of the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium remains unknown. The composition of the treatise is generally dated to the last decades of the Roman Republic, around 86–82 BC. The work is dedicated to a certain Gaius Erennius, whose exact identity has not been established. Even in ancient tradition it was associated with Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC), the most famous orator of Republican Rome, and for many centuries circulated under his name. That attribution enormously contributed to the work’s fortune and authority, though modern scholarship recognizes its anonymous origin. Cicero, a central figure of Latin culture, was a lawyer, philosopher, statesman, and author of important rhetorical treatises, including De inventione, De oratore, Brutus, and the Orator. His conception of eloquence as a synthesis of intellectual training, moral knowledge, and persuasive ability profoundly influenced European culture. It is precisely the association between the Rhetorica ad Herennium and the Ciceroan corpus that made the treatise a fundamental reference for generations of students and teachers.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The textual tradition of the Rhetorica ad Herennium traversed many centuries before the rise of printing. Copied in medieval manuscripts and frequently associated with Cicero’s De Inventione, it was known in scholarly culture as Rhetorica nova, in contrast to Rhetorica vetus, the designation given to the genuinely Ciceroan treatise. This distinction helped consolidate a didactic tradition in which the two texts were studied as complementary parts of rhetorical training. With the invention of printing, the work gained new and wide diffusion, fostered by humanist interest in classical sources and by the expansion of Latin teaching. Lyon, an important commercial and intellectual crossroads, became in the sixteenth century one of Europe’s principal editorial centers, capable of distributing religious, legal, scientific, and literary texts to an international audience. It was here that Vincent de Portonariis operated, a publisher and bookseller active in the first half of the Cinquecento. The 1534 edition belongs to the mature phase of the print diffusion of ancient rhetorical works and reflects the demand for texts designed for learning and practicing eloquence. The small format favored consultation and made the volume especially suitable for study. The annotations and underlinings preserved in the exemplar testify to the direct relationship between reader and text, giving the image of a book used and interrogated, not merely stored. The presence of the colophon and the printer’s mark also heighten interest in the material history of its production.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Baudrier, Bibliographie lyonnaise; Sybille von Gültlingen, Bibliographie des livres imprimés à Lyon au seizième siècle; Friedrich Marx, Incerti auctoris ad C. Herennium libri IV; Harry Caplan, Rhetorica ad Herennium, Loeb Classical Library.