Lot 3

Mnemonics.- Petrus Ravennas. Phoenix seu De artificiosa memoria, [Venice], [Bernardinus de Choris, de Cremona], 1491.

 

Estimate: £10,000 - 15,000

Description

Mnemonics.- Petrus Ravennas. Phoenix seu De artificiosa memoria, with additional verses by Verses by Antoninus Aegidius Canisius, Johannes Antonius Plebanus, Marcus Picardus, Hieronyums Butigella and C. Lycinius, collation: a-d4, 16 ff., 28 lines, Roman type, author's other alias (Pietro Tomai or Tomasi, here 'Thomasii) added in ink to title later ink marginalia and underlining, including a small male figure with extremities labelled with letters to inner margin of c2, upper fore-edge gnawed, some light staining or spotting, later limp carta rustica, gnawed at upper outer edge, small 4to (201 x 143mm.), [Venice], [Bernardinus de Choris, de Cremona], [10 January 1491 / 92].

⁂ A short treatise on the art of memory by the Italian jurist Peter of Ravenna. The text is rather self-promotional in tone. He claims to have memorised the whole of the civil law code by the age of 10 and to have 'one hundred thousand memorised places', including 200 speeches or sayings of Cicero, 300 sayings of philosophers, and 20,000 legal points. The work is rare in commerce.

Literature: BMC V, 466; Goff P531; HC 13697*; GW M32703; BSB-Ink T-379.

Description

Mnemonics.- Petrus Ravennas. Phoenix seu De artificiosa memoria, with additional verses by Verses by Antoninus Aegidius Canisius, Johannes Antonius Plebanus, Marcus Picardus, Hieronyums Butigella and C. Lycinius, collation: a-d4, 16 ff., 28 lines, Roman type, author's other alias (Pietro Tomai or Tomasi, here 'Thomasii) added in ink to title later ink marginalia and underlining, including a small male figure with extremities labelled with letters to inner margin of c2, upper fore-edge gnawed, some light staining or spotting, later limp carta rustica, gnawed at upper outer edge, small 4to (201 x 143mm.), [Venice], [Bernardinus de Choris, de Cremona], [10 January 1491 / 92].

⁂ A short treatise on the art of memory by the Italian jurist Peter of Ravenna. The text is rather self-promotional in tone. He claims to have memorised the whole of the civil law code by the age of 10 and to have 'one hundred thousand memorised places', including 200 speeches or sayings of Cicero, 300 sayings of philosophers, and 20,000 legal points. The work is rare in commerce.

Literature: BMC V, 466; Goff P531; HC 13697*; GW M32703; BSB-Ink T-379.

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