Lot 219: BEROALDUS, Philippus (Filippo Beroaldo, 1453-1505). Declamatio philosophi,...

BEROALDUS, Philippus (Filippo Beroaldo, 1453-1505). Declamatio philosophi, medici, oratoris. – De optimo statu et principe. Bologna: Benedictus Hectoris, 13 December 1497.

A rare incunable on the fallacies of traditional sciences, particularly physics and medicine: the first edition of these two essays by the preeminent scholar from Bologna. The first essay is a dispute between three brothers – a philosopher, a physician and an orator – about the worth of their respective professions. The orator wins the contest: what he does is less useful than his brothers’ occupations, but he is more able to defend his own position, exposing the philosopher's and the physician's fallacies by citing Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Hippocrates, Galenus, Avicenna, etc. The second work addresses statecraft as the optimal form of government; having reviewed the ‘government of the many’, ‘of the few’ and ‘of a single person’, Beroaldus gives his preference to the latter, provided the ruler is bound by loyalty to public good as opposed to private gain. HC 2963*; GW 4126; Klebs 182.1; BMC VI 844; BSB-Ink. B-371; Wellcome 810; ISTC ib00473000; Goff B-473.

Chancery quarto (195 x 140mm). 38 leaves, printed guides for initial, printed shoulder notes (one or two spots). Early 20th-century green morocco, paneled spine lettered in gilt, marbled end-papers, edges gilt (some rubbing to extremities). Provenance: contemporary scattered annotations and pointers.