Lodovico Ricchieri - Coelius rhodiginus lodovico ricchieri dit Sicuti antiquarum lectionum commentarios concinna - 1516

1 volume of large folio size

POST INCUNABLE

title: Coelius rhodiginus lodovico ricchieri called
So-called ancient readings comments completed formerly
vindex ceselius, thus now those same intercepted through negligence repaired
Lodovicus Caelius Rhodiginus

by: Lodovico Ricchieri Latin text and in Greek

bound in full vellum, plate mounted in a frame with a gilded scrollwork decoration
with floral corners, smooth spine, marbled edges and corners in gilded metal.

year 1516 - VENICE - printed by Alde

Very fine copy titled and rubricated in red ink,
throughout the work enriched with numerous red and blue drop initials,
as well as several illuminated pages in 24‑carat gold and floral scroll decorations.

Posthumous note in brown ink on the title: Clement Cherubini 1733

The author Lodovico Ricchieri, better known under the Latinized name Ludovicus COELIUS Rhodiginus,
was an Italian philologist born in Rovigo, in the Venetian state, in 1450, died in 1525.
Banished in 1505 from his native city, where he had taught since 1497, he lived in Vicenza,
then taught at Padua before being named, after a stay in France, by Francis I, in Milan as the first professor of Greek and Latin languages
from 1515, and this until 1521.
He was recalled to Rovigo in 1523, reinstated in his chair and shortly after assigned
an embassy mission to Venice.

According to a letter from Celio Calcagnini to Erasmus in July 1525, he died of despair
after the Battle of Pavia which marked the definitive defeat of the French in Italy.

This first edition of his Lectiones antiquae was made during his lifetime,
and contains only 16 books, one of which is dedicated to Jean Grolier, treasurer of the duchy of Milan.
Camille Ricchieri, his nephew, and Jean Marie Goretti added 14 more,
in a later edition of 1542 (Froben) more complete: yet this one remains
precious for its beauty and as having come from Aldine presses in Venice.

This work falls under the category of philological miscellanies, constituting
a collection of notes and commentaries on Greek and Latin authors,
and it enjoyed great success among the humanists of the 16th and 17th centuries,
as evidenced by the large number of editions from that period.
Authors such as Rabelais or Montaigne, who mention it in his travel journal,
draw extensively from it.

863 pages plus the tables and a portion of the text not numbered

condition: dampstains on the title page and at the end of the volumes on the margins of the text