Epitome epithetorum Joannis Ravisii Textoris; accesserunt de carminibus ad veterum imitationem artificiosè componendis praecepta bona & utilia, collecta à Georgio Sabino

by Jean Tixier de Ravisi | with a contribution by Georg Sabinus

Lyon: Louis Cloquemin, 1581

423, [1] p. | 16mo | A-2C^8 2D^4 | 119 x 79 mm

A later edition of the Parisian scholar’s popular poetic thesaurus, first published in 1518, frequently reprinted, and drawn from for similar works even into the 18th century. It was “one of the most influential collections” among its genre (Rhetoric). This edition includes at end Georg Sabinus’s essay on writing verse in imitation of the classics, which itself became something of a mainstay within the genre. Cloquemin worked in Geneva, too, and sometimes used false imprints, though our title page does bear his Lyon device as reproduced in Baudrier.  ¶ This pocket-sized book provides epithets for hundreds of words, drawn from the best classical sources to help you write the best imitative verse. Some of the entries are astounding in scope. Amor, for example, fills an entire page with dozens of poetic substitutes. “The whole constituted a vast rag-bag for the use of intending versifiers; and there seems little reason to doubt that the poets of the day actually used it” (Bolgar). ¶ We locate no other copies, only an old digitized catalog card from the University of Birmingham.

PROVENANCE: With early manuscript on three blank pages at front and more than three at rear. The handwriting at back is heavily struck through and resembles discrete lines rather a single continuous passage. The penultimate page speaks of a snake (serpens), and Sisyphus and a stone (Sisyphus vovit[?]…lapidem). One of the final handwritten words at rear is Baccho (the printed text’s entry for Bacchus coincidentally garners a lone marginal epithet). The first two pages of ms at front have their own share of words and phrases struck through, a few others underlined, all of this suggesting experimentation and revision. The third page at front presents the most uninterrupted composition, and speaks at least in part of a dragon: …debebat Draconem continuo vigilantem qui vellus[?] aureum servas[?]…et cum Draconem inter fecisset dentes Draconis… Was our early annotator spinning a story on the Colchian Dragon and its Golden Fleece? Whatever the case, we can’t find these passages in the digitized corpus. They certainly weren’t transcribed from the lists of epithets in the printed text, nor do they resemble the devotional jottings of a pious Christian. All to say, these passages appear not to represent the kind of commonplacing or devotional exercises we more often find on early fly-leaves. They rather appear to be evidence of original, creative composition. In a book specifically intended to facilitate such work, perhaps this should come as no surprise. ¶ In addition, two more pages at front bear a variety of early ownership inscriptions, in each case the owner’s name overwritten by one Anthonius Coignet (Goignet?). In most (all?) cases, the name underneath appears to belong to one Franciscus, though we’re unable to make out the surname. There’s Soc. Iesu Montibus Anno Dni 1612, which, combined with in collegio Soc. Iesu 1612 on the title, may place this book in the Jesuit college library of Mons, Belgium. Early ownership inscription on title of the Bridgettine Monastery of St. Sixtus, likely referring to the small group of Bridgettine monks in Westvleteren, Belgium, who occupied the original site of St. Sixtus’s Abbey from 1610-1784.

CONDITION: Contemporary parchment, with just remnants of the original ties. ¶ Small hole in H3, about a square cm, affecting text; some scattered ink stains; occasional moderate dampstaining, which must have occurred prior to binding (leaves T1, V2, X1, T2, Z1, 2A2, 2B1, 2C2, etc.). Binding heavily worn and soiled; all laces have pulled out at the rear joint (your professional conservator may be able to pull them back through, but for now it affords a great view of the structure); parchment split up the lower half of the rear joint.

REFERENCES: Baudrier, Bibliographie lyonnaise (1899), v. 4, p. 43 (printer’s device reproduced); Walter J. Ong, Rhetoric, Romance, and Technology (Cornell Univ, 1971), p. 43; R.R. Bolgar, “Introduction,” Classical Influences on European Culture A.D. 1500-1700 (Cambridge Univ, 1976), p. 9 (also citing evidence of its use); Walter J. Ong, Interfaces of the Word (Cornell Univ, 1977), p. 158 (“It is a collection of standard qualifiers and substitutes for nouns which a writer of Latin poetry imitating the classics might use—and of course which writers of French and Italian and English and German and other poetry also might use and did use, following the Latin”); Denis Pallier, "'A Paris. Au compas d'or, rue Sainct Jacques' la succursale parisienne de Plantin," Christophe Plantin 1520-2020 (Golden Compasses, 2020), p. 62 (this book "interested every beginner in neo-Latin poetry")

Item #560