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Liber de potestate et sapientia. Translated by Marsilius Ficinus (1433-1499). Venice: Lucas Dominici F., Venetus, 15 May 1481.
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HERMES TRISMEGISTUS
Liber de potestate et sapientia. Translated by Marsilius Ficinus (1433-1499). Venice: Lucas Dominici F., Venetus, 15 May 1481.
Third edition of a work highly influential on Renaissance humanism and considered to be of such antiquity that Cosimo de’ Medici accorded it priority over Plato. It is now known to be the work of various authors writing in Egypt in the 2nd-3rd centuries A.D., but up until the 17th century its author was believed to Hermes Trismegistus, an ancient philosopher-priest. His supposed genealogy, which is set forth here in Ficino's preface, placed Hermes before even Moses, and thus gave these Hermetic texts an authority on which was based the Christian humanism of Renaissance philosophy. The third edition derives from the first (1471) with no apparent influence from the second, printed in at Ferrara in 1472. A fresh copy of an elegant edition, with bearer type impression of folio a2 on blank a1 and some deckle edges. Not in the Bavarian State Library or elsewhere in Germany. HCR 8458; Klebs 510.3; CIBN H-47; BMC V, 280; GW 12312; Ford, BPH 114; Goff H-79;; ISTC ih00079000.
Chancery quarto (207 x 142mm). 43 leaves (of 44, without final blank). Printed guide-letters, initials and paragraph marks in red, quire guards (occasional faint spotting). Modern marbled paper flexible boards; folding cloth box.
Liber de potestate et sapientia. Translated by Marsilius Ficinus (1433-1499). Venice: Lucas Dominici F., Venetus, 15 May 1481.
Third edition of a work highly influential on Renaissance humanism and considered to be of such antiquity that Cosimo de’ Medici accorded it priority over Plato. It is now known to be the work of various authors writing in Egypt in the 2nd-3rd centuries A.D., but up until the 17th century its author was believed to Hermes Trismegistus, an ancient philosopher-priest. His supposed genealogy, which is set forth here in Ficino's preface, placed Hermes before even Moses, and thus gave these Hermetic texts an authority on which was based the Christian humanism of Renaissance philosophy. The third edition derives from the first (1471) with no apparent influence from the second, printed in at Ferrara in 1472. A fresh copy of an elegant edition, with bearer type impression of folio a2 on blank a1 and some deckle edges. Not in the Bavarian State Library or elsewhere in Germany. HCR 8458; Klebs 510.3; CIBN H-47; BMC V, 280; GW 12312; Ford, BPH 114; Goff H-79;; ISTC ih00079000.
Chancery quarto (207 x 142mm). 43 leaves (of 44, without final blank). Printed guide-letters, initials and paragraph marks in red, quire guards (occasional faint spotting). Modern marbled paper flexible boards; folding cloth box.
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