Item #102 Practica Artis Amandi, et Declamationes. Philippus Beroaldus, contributions of, authors, ed. Philippe Béroalde.
Practica Artis Amandi, et Declamationes
Practica Artis Amandi, et Declamationes
Practica Artis Amandi, et Declamationes
Practica Artis Amandi, et Declamationes

Practica Artis Amandi, et Declamationes

Publisher: Lugduni Batavorum (Leiden): Ex Typographia Rediviva, 1648.

Edition: Early collected edition

Binding: Contemporary full limp vellum, yapp edges, faint contemporary ink titling to spine and cover, early hand-lettered spine title visible beneath vellum aging.

Description: Charming and scarce mid-17th-century compendium of erotic and rhetorical writings, including Philippus Beroaldus’s Practica Artis Amandi (The Practice of the Art of Love) together with declamations, amorous letters (Litterae Eroticae seu Amatoriae), and the satirical verse of Antonius Arena (Ad suos Compagnones studiantes), a biting parody of courtship and student life originally composed in macaronic Latin. Printed in Leiden by the Typographia Rediviva in 1648, this pocket-sized vellum volume captures the interplay between humanist scholarship, rhetorical training, and the freer erotic imagination of the late Renaissance.

The text brings together serious exercises in declamation alongside playful amorous letters, offering a window into both academic training and the more licentious side of early modern literature. Such books circulated widely among university students, providing both models of rhetorical elegance and comic or risqué entertainment. Arena’s text, especially, was famous for mocking the affectations of students and lovers alike, and was occasionally suppressed for its bawdy tone.

Bound in its original limp vellum with yapp edges, this copy retains a wonderfully honest and unrestored character: vellum lightly toned with age, manuscript spine title faded but legible, textblock edges uniformly browned, interior crisp and clean with only mild foxing. A very good survival of a lively text seldom offered in the trade.

Condition: Very Good. Original vellum slightly soiled and bowed, minor wear to extremities. Interior fresh, margins ample, printing sharp.

Item #102

Price: $650.00

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