Geremia de Montagnone - Epytoma Sapientiae - [Rare Postincunable, First Edition] - 1505

(THEOLOGY:PHILOSOPHY;FIRST EDITIONS).HYEREMIAS DE MONTAGNONE Epytoma Sapientiae (colophon: Impressum Venetijs: Impensa Petri Liechtenstein Coloniensis: Anno natalis domini 1505 Tertio Cal. Maias).
§ 4to (210x150); [12], 146 [i.e. 152] leaves, gothic types , text on two columns, woodcut initials, gorgeous full-page printer’s device, printed in red and black, on last page verso, fascinating limp vellum binding from a 15th century manuscript, a very fine copy on crisp paper, complete under all respects.
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of the most famous work by the judge and author Geremia da Montagnone. Written between 1295 and 1300 as Compendium moralium notabilium, it is a vast collection of quotations taken from biblical, classical, patristic and medieval texts and largely circulated as manuscript before been printed two centuries later. Divided into five parts (De religione, De iustitia, De prudentia, De temperantia et voluptatibus, De solitudine), each one including several books, the work also contains quotations in chronological order. Interesting the distinction made by the author between the writers of the classical age, which he calls “poets” and the writers of the medieval age, to whom he applies the appellation “versilogus” (“versifier”). The real novelty offered the Compendium, however, are the seven quotations from works by Gaius Valerius Catullus, an author which, despite his preminent role in the landscape of classic latin poetry,was, nevertheless, until the publication of the Epytoma Sapientiae, completely unknown during the Middle Ages. (Milan).
Ref : MILAN, G. Geremia da Montagnone In Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
Essling, III, 110 and 181 (printer’s device); G. Vedova, Biografie degli scrittori padovani I, Padova 1832, pp. 615 s.; G. Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, Milano 1834, II, p. 120; B.L. Ullman, Hieremias de Montagnone and his citations from Catullus, in Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Rome 1973, pp. 79-112.