(INCUNABULA; PHILOSOPHY; RETHORICS; FIRST EDITIONS; RARIORA) Angelus POLITIANUS (Angelo AMBROGINI) (1454 - 1494) Angeli Politiani praelectio in Aristotelis Priora Analytica. Titulus Lamia.(Impressit Florentiae Antonius Miscominus Decimo octavo kal. Decembris M.CCCC.LXXXXII.) [14.XI.1492]. § 4to (210 X 145) [16] leaves; sign.: a-b8. 26 lines. Colophon and printer’s device on leaf b8r, 16th century limp vellum. A very fine copy. Exceptionally rare "editio princeps" (apparently no copies on the market in the last 30 years !) of the preliminary oration delivered by Poliziano to open the course on Aristotle’s Prior Analytics at the Studio Fiorentino for the academic year 1492/3. This brief but dense work is famous mostly for the reasons that brought Poliziano, probably the most philologically oriented humanist of his generation, to its composition, that is to say the critics moved to him by the members of the academy about his supposed inability to teach philosophy due to lack of the adequate education and the necessary knowledge. Actually Poliziano had in his youth excellent teachers of Aristotelianism, such as Andronikos Kallistos (c. 1400 - b. 1487) and Johannes Argyropoulos (c. 1416 - 1487), rememberd by the author in his Miscellanea as by far the most distiguished Peripatetic of his days (Argyropylo Byzantio Peripateticorum sui temporis longe clarissimo). Poliziano began his teachings on Aristotle during the academic year 1490/1, treating the Ethics and leaving behind one of his most successful composition, the preliminary oration Panepistemon (or. ed. Firenze, Antonio Miscomini, 20.II.1491), constituting a schematic representation of the human wisdom and knowledge of the world, through the definition of the concept of “teaching” and the manifold scope of philosophy. Lamia consequently represents the perfect completion of Panepistemon, being a narrative application of the former work’s schematization. As often happened in humanist philosophical literature, the spur for the work was a polemic. In this oration Poliziano strikes back publicly against his detractors, as early as with its title. Lamia, a kind of sorceress who sucks the blood of children (taken from Latin poetic tradition), indicates purveyors of a kind of vampiric, backstabbing, reputation-mongering rapacity, namely certain members of the Florentine academic milieu. The true cleverness of this composition lies in the fact that the entire praelectio, after an introduction about the role of the fabula in philosophical teaching, wisely interweaves the polemic of which Poliziano had become victim, with the teaching of the Aristotelian dialectic. Thus we observe a long section of the work where the nature of the concept of philosopher is analysed (punctuated by an intelligent and almost satirical characterization of the human and intellectual figure of the detractors of Poliziano), followed by the discussion concerning the true purposes of philosophy and its teachers. The Lamia shows Poliziano demonstrating that alternate ways of doing philosophy (or pursuing wisdom) were possible. It is a culmination and recapitulation of the work done within an identifiable stream of the humanist tradition that stretches from Petrarch through Lorenzo Valla and beyond.  CHRISTOPHER CELENZA Poliziano’s “Lamia” in Context, In: Angelo Poliziano’s “Lamia”, p. 18; BSB-INK P 661; GW M34766; IGI 7958; ISTC ip00893000.