Pyrrhoniarum hypotypωseωn libri III … — Geneva 1562

Pyrrhoniarum hypotypωseωn libri III […] Graece nunquam, Latine nunc primum editi, interprete Henrico Stephano. — Anno M. D. LXII Excudebat idem Henricus Stephanus, illustris viri Huldrigi Fuggeri typographus. (Geneva, Henricus Stephanus, 1562).

First edition

8vo (173 x 110 mm). A-S⁸: 288 pp. Traces of humidity in the upper outer corner. Later notes on title. Contemporary vellum.

¶ „First edition of Henri Estienne’s Latin translation, which is also the first appearance in print of this influential work by Sextus Empiricus, Greek physician and Sceptic philosopher; the original Greek was not printed until 1621.

The book is among Henri Estienne’s rarest; this rarity is undoubtedly due to the book’s great popularity: it is the book which introduced Scepticism into French thought – it was from Sextus, and in fact, from Henri Estienne’s Latin translation, that Montaigne derived the Sceptic formulas with which he adorned the joints and rafters of his library; it was also from Sextus that he borrowed freely in the famous essay, the Apologie de Raymond de Sebonde, in which his sceptical views are stated with the greatest completeness.

The volume opens with an important autobiographical preface by Estienne, addressed to the magistrate and diplomatist Henri de Mesmes( 1532-1596), in which he speaks of his fits of depression.“ (Schreiber 149)

„The importance of this translation can hardly be overestimated.“ (L. Floridi, Sextus E. The transmission and recovery of Pyrrhonism. Oxford 2002, p. 73)

Renouard 120, no. 5; Hoffmann III 394; ustc 450508 Adams S-1027.