16 pp. With an ornamental woodcut initial on the title page. Papered spine. Second edition of Sibutus's first published work, previously printed by Quentel in March 1505: a treatise on the art of memory. The humanist Sibutus (c. 1480-1528), probably from Tannroda in Thuringia, was a student of Conrad Celtis. Crowned poet laureate by Emperor Maximilian, he practised as a physician and taught rhetorics in Wittenberg, Rostock, Cologne, and Vienna. "This frequently cited and rarely discussed instruction by Sibutus contains within the space of 7½ pages so many obscure precepts, counter-productively mingled with verses by Virgil, Ovid, and others, that it must be quite incomprehensible to anyone unaccustomed with mnemonics. It is apparent that Sibutus employed a very difficult and roundabout method. So as to have no more than 36 mnemonic devices, he used the verse 'arma virumque cano' etc.; for each letter he would imagine a person whose name began with that letter etc. He does not explain how to avoid confusing these persons in case a particular letter occurs more than once" (cf. Aretin, Systematische Anleitung zur Theorie und Praxis der Mnemonik, Sulzbach 1810, p. 194ff.). More of a practitioner than a theorist, Sibutus was proficient in mnemotechnics himself: for Frederick, Elector of Saxony, he recited from memory 600 verses of his "Silvula in Albiorim", a poem praise of Wittenberg. The present volume includes two introductory poems by Johannes Murmellius and Johannes Cesarius, a dedicatory poem to the Lübeck jurist Heinrich Bucholt, as well as Sibutus's own "Carmen in vitam S. Annae". - Slight brownstaining throughout; insignificant waterstain to upper gutter. A single copy in the U.S. according to OCLC (Harvard Med. School). VD 16, S 6262. BM-STC German 812. Panzer VI, p. 358, no. 104. Verfasserlex. II.3, col. 892. OCLC 230985978. Not in Adams.
