L. Annaei Senecae philosophi et M. Annaei Senecae rhetoris quae extant opera

Description

Second edition of a monumental miscellany (printed by Adrien Périer), collecting the works of the famous philosopher Lucius Anneus Seneca (4 BC - AD 65) and his father Marcus Anneus Seneca “the Elder” (54 BC - AD 39), rhetorician and historian. The volume includes philological contributions by several European humanists (French, German, Flemish, Spanish), such as Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), Marc-Antoine Muret (1526-1585), Denis Godefroy (1549-1622), Justus Lipsius (1547-1606), Jan Gruter (1560-1627), André Schott (1552-1629), Hernán Núñez (1475-1553), Beatus Rhenanus (1485-1547). The frontispiece features a fine effigy of Seneca by Léonard Gaultier (1561-1635), one of the most illustrious engravers of his time. As Tacitus recounts in the “Annales”, the great Cordovan philosopher, accused by Nero of taking part in the Pisoni conspiracy (65 A.D.), in line with the marble principles of Stoic ethics, gave himself death by slitting his veins. Gaultier portrays him as an emaciated ascetic, caught in the act of exhaling the spirit. An epigraph crowns the engraving: “L. Annaei Senecae philosophi effigies, in balneis, ut videtur, animam exhalat”. Only 3 copies are present in Italian libraries.