Vives, Joannes Ludovicus [sold]
Opuscula varia. — Leuven 1519
Opuscula varia. — Louvanii in Aedibus Theodorici Martini Alustensis [Leuven, Thierry Martens, 1519].
First edition
4to (190 x 140 mm). [a] b-z A-N4: (144) leaves. 17th or 18th half-vellum, rubbed, corners bumped. Provenance: A few contemporary marginal annotations.
Not in Estelrich; Adam & Vanautgaerden, Thierry Martens, no. 198; Nijhoff-Kronenberg 2172; González, Vives Edicions princeps. Valencia 1992, no. 7 (Madrid copy). USTC and WorldCat list 14 copies.
¶ The Opuscula are theological, literary, and philosophical works written in 1518 and 1519 and published here for the first time – except two of the theological works first published in Paris 1514, though printed here in modified versions.
About In Pseudodialecticos, one of the works published in the Opuscula, Thomas More wrote to Erasmus: „Although I enjoyed all of his [Vives‘] writing, nevertheless his treatise In Pseudodialecticos gives me an especial pleasure. Not only because of Vives‘ skill in making a mockerey of such absurd fallacies and in confuting the sophists with devastating reasoning, but particularly because he deals with those questions in exactly the same fashion I had in mind to do myself long before I ever read the book of Vives …“ (from Noreña, Vives, 1978, p. 78)
De initiis, sectis & laudibus philosophiae is one of the first modern sketches of a critical history of philosophy. The Fabula de Homine is inspired by Pico’s De hominis dignitate; Anima Senis is an introduction to Cicero’s De senectute.
census: Opuscula 1519* : 14 copies
Antwerpen City L.
Antwerpen Erfgoedbibl.
Augsburg UL
Beaune Bibl. municipale
Bruxelles KB
Cambrige UL
Dublin Marsh’s L.
Edinburgh UL
London BL
Madrid BN
Mannheim
Munich BSB
NY Publ. Libr.
Oxford Bodleian
*WorldCat lists a Cologne 1511 and a Strasbourg 1521 edition. Both editions were published around 1530 or later.