Untitled - Monoskop

RANGE OF INTERESTS: ANALYSIS BY SUBJECT
improved translation into Latin of a Greek text was also a possible candidate
for a privilege. Thus an edition in Latin of the second-century historian
Appian was published by Jean Petit in 1521 'cum priuilegio' (CP 1521, 2). At
first sight there seems little justification for the grant of a privilege here. The
Latin translation is that of Petrus Candidus, the Italian humanist, which had
been printed many times, though admittedly it might have proved hard to
obtain a copy of it in Paris in 1521. The dedication of Jean Petit's edition
throws some light on the reasons for the privilege. It is by Nicolas Berault
(Beraldus), who claims in it that he had revised the translation. Berault was a
well-known teacher of Greek, a friend of Erasmus and of Bude, a protege of
Etienne Poncher, archbishop of Sens, and of Frangois Poncher, bishop of
Paris, to whom the edition of Appian is dedicated; he was also an advocate
and eventually a conseiller in the Parlement of Paris. If his revision of the
standard translation constituted a somewhat flimsy argument for seeking a
privilege, he was well placed to plead his cause. Thirty years later, the Greek
text itself of Appian was published by Charles Estienne, completing the work
begun by his older brother Robert, under the privilege of the King's Printer in
Greek. But in 1521 it would have been difficult to believe that a day would
come when first editions of ancient Greek historians would be published in
Paris.
Educational books, even taken in the widest sense, to include grammars
and dictionaries, works on rhetoric, treatises on educational theory and
repertories of classical myths and anecdotes, did not obtain privileges very
frequently. They account for twenty-eight items, a little over 6 per cent of
the total. Castellesi, De sermone Latino (CP 1517, 4), Despauterius, De figuris
edited by Badius (CP 1519,. 2), Augerius, Grammaticalium institutionum Liber
(CP 1522, 2), were among the offerings to the study of Latin. Gaza, Grammatici
institutiones libri IV, with a Latin translation by Vatel (PA 1521, 5), Gulielmus
Mainus and J. Cheradame, Lexicon Graecum (PR 1523, 3), and Chalcocondy-
las, Grammaticae institutiones graecae, edited by Melchior Wolmar (CP 1526, i)
reflect the growing interest in Greek. French had its exponents in the Art de
rhetorique of Pierre Le Fevre or Fabri (CH 1520, 6) and in the Champ fleury of
Geofroy Tory (CH 1526, 2). Aids to the use of classical myth and story by
poets and orators appear in forms ranging from the Elucidarius carminum
of Ravisius Textor
poetarum ofConrad de Mure (PA 1514, i (2)) to the Offaina
(CH 1519, 6 (3)). Jean Lode of Nantes, 'licencie en loix et tenant tutelle en
1'universite d'Orleans' as his privilege called him, translated into French the
De educatione liberorum of Francesco Filelfo under the title Le guidon des parents en
I'instruction et direction de leurs enfans (CH 1513, 2 (2)). Guillaume Houvetus of
Chartres, teaching at the College de Narbonne in Paris, published 'cum
priuilegio' a small collection of model letters, bilingual French and Latin,
which he had dictated to his students, to enable them to write simple letters in
correct Latin to their families and friends about their doings and their needs,
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