A rare humanist edition of the moral and philosophical verses attributed to Pythagoras and Phocylides, edited and provided with a duplici interpretatione (double commentary) by the Swiss scholar Vitus Amerbachius (Veit Amerbach, 1503–1557). This Strasbourg printing gathers two of the most important poetic survivals of Greek sapiential tradition, texts long revered for their concise ethical maxims and mystical reflections on number, harmony, and the soul.
Though presented as classical moral instruction, these poems were understood by Renaissance readers as part of the prisca theologia, the ancient theology through which divine wisdom had been intimated to humankind before revelation. The Pythagorean verses, with their doctrine of cosmic order and the kinship of all living things, were taken as veiled expressions of Hermetic and Orphic truths: the unity of the cosmos, the transmigration of souls, and the correspondence between musical proportion and divine creation. In this light, Amerbach’s humanist translation and commentary represent not only philological scholarship but also a crucial act of preservation; carrying forward one of antiquity’s deepest esoteric lineages into the learned culture of the Reformation era.
Printed in Strasbourg, a center of early humanist and theological inquiry, this 1552 edition embodies the Renaissance ideal of harmonizing Greek wisdom with Christian philosophy. A beautifully compact artifact of the sixteenth century’s rediscovery of Hermetic and Pythagorean thought. Rare.
Pythagorae et Phocylidis Poemata: cum duplici interpretatione Viti Amerbachii Argentorati (Strasbourg): [Crato Mylius]. Small octavo (approx. 13 × 9 cm). [2] 184. Symbola [2] [4]/ Title page with printer’s device of a lion holding a trumpet. 20th century calf binding over boards with manuscript spine title. Some light soiling and age toning. Trimmed aggressively. Contemporary marginalia. A well-preserved and appealing sixteenth-century copy. Text in Greek and Latin.
A rare humanist edition of the moral and philosophical verses attributed to Pythagoras and Phocylides, edited and provided with a duplici interpretatione (double commentary) by the Swiss scholar Vitus Amerbachius (Veit Amerbach, 1503–1557). This Strasbourg printing gathers two of the most important poetic survivals of Greek sapiential tradition, texts long revered for their concise ethical maxims and mystical reflections on number, harmony, and the soul.
Though presented as classical moral instruction, these poems were understood by Renaissance readers as part of the prisca theologia, the ancient theology through which divine wisdom had been intimated to humankind before revelation. The Pythagorean verses, with their doctrine of cosmic order and the kinship of all living things, were taken as veiled expressions of Hermetic and Orphic truths: the unity of the cosmos, the transmigration of souls, and the correspondence between musical proportion and divine creation. In this light, Amerbach’s humanist translation and commentary represent not only philological scholarship but also a crucial act of preservation; carrying forward one of antiquity’s deepest esoteric lineages into the learned culture of the Reformation era.
Printed in Strasbourg, a center of early humanist and theological inquiry, this 1552 edition embodies the Renaissance ideal of harmonizing Greek wisdom with Christian philosophy. A beautifully compact artifact of the sixteenth century’s rediscovery of Hermetic and Pythagorean thought. Rare.
Pythagorae et Phocylidis Poemata: cum duplici interpretatione Viti Amerbachii Argentorati (Strasbourg): [Crato Mylius]. Small octavo (approx. 13 × 9 cm). [2] 184. Symbola [2] [4]/ Title page with printer’s device of a lion holding a trumpet. 20th century calf binding over boards with manuscript spine title. Some light soiling and age toning. Trimmed aggressively. Contemporary marginalia. A well-preserved and appealing sixteenth-century copy. Text in Greek and Latin.
