Janus

159134 — Leiden Lugduni Batavorum Apud Franciscum Hegerum 1631. Colophon at the end: 'Impressa Lugduni Batavorum in nova officina typographica Wilhelmi Christiani 1631' 12mo. XXVIII384 recte 3821 colophon1 blank p. Vellum. 13.5 cm 'The kissing poet' Ref: STCN ppn 833698613; Brunet 5257; Willems 1669; Graesse 6339; Ebert 20786 Details: 5 thongs laced through the joints. Short title in ink on the back. Engraved title with the portrait of the first love of the neolatin poet Janus Secundus Julia locked within a kind of medallion and surrounded by 2 cornucopiae; the text reads: 'Vatis amatoris Iulia sculpta manu' i.e. 'a portrait sculped by the hand of the author'. On p. 10 verso an almost full-page engraved portrait of Janus Secundus himself holding in his hand the medal or medallion he made with the portrait of Julia; underneath the portrait a 4 line poem by his brother Hadrianus Marius Condition: Vellum age-tanned. Front pastedown detached. Some irregular pagination Note: The Dutch neolatin poet Janus Secundus Nicolai Hagiensis was born on the 15th of november 1511 the day of the martyr Secundus in The Hague. He died very young in 1536. In 1528 he moved to Mechelen where his father was appointed president of the 'High Council'. This town was the residence of the Austrian vicequeen Margaretha of Parma. The southern part of the Netherlands was in this time the center of a florishing urban civilization. In May 1530 Secundus met a young prostitute from Mechelen called Julia and fell in love with her. Julia became the subject of his first book of elegies his 'Julia Monobiblos' in which he tells how he won and lost his love. During his studies in Bourges under the famous jurist Alciati he wrote his first 'Basia'. Alciati introduced Secundus there also to the newest Italian poetry. A humanist poet often started his career with erotic poetry like Piccolomini and Beza. Secundus' 'kiss-poems' are a variation on two 'kiss-poems' of the Latin poet Catullus ca. 84-54 B.C who became during the Renaissance a model for love-poetry. Secundus wrote in his short live 6835 lines of poetry of which only 425 lines were printed during his lifetime. He wrote 'with equal fluency all kinds of lyrical heroic and elegiac verse. Down to the present day Secundus lives in literary history as the kissing poet' . 'Until far in the 18th century Secundus is mentioned as one of the classics of love poetry' IJsewijn Companion to Neo-Latin studies I Leuven 1990 p. 152 The first edition of his collected works was posthumously published in 1541 in Utrecht and was edited by Secundus brother Marius. All later editions are based on this edition. The manuscript with the collected works used for this edition came later in the possession of the Dutch classicist Petrus Scriverius 1576-1660. He produced a new edition in 1612 in which he also incorporated poems of Secundus which had been omitted in the 1541 edition because they were thought to be disagreeable to the French and English king. In this second edition of 1631 Scriverius incorporated more material from other sources and manuscripts. Best source for Secundus is J.P. Guépin 'De kunst van Janus Secundus' Amst. 1991. It opens with 18 page with 'testimoni'a and 'iudicia' on Secundus. After the poems of Secundus Scriverius added some poems of his brother Marius: 'Cymba amoris et alia poemata'. p. 249/266 This is followed by Secundus' prose letters though with some poetry that he wrote during his 3 voyages through France and his trip to Spain. p. 269/345 At the end have been added some letters and a treatise on the family of Secundus 'De Nicolao Patre & gente Nicolaia' Collation: 8between leaf 4 and 5 have been inserted the leaves pi5 and pi6 4; A-Q12 Between the gatherings C and D the pagination of 72/79 is skipped.Leaf H11 p. 195/96 misnumbered 159/196 is a cancel. Leaves K11 & K12 have also irregular pagination the numbers of the pages 244/45 are doubly used. Leaf L8 is a blank leaf. Leaf Q12 verso blank Photographs on request hardcover