[by Bracciolini, Poggio (1380-1459).]
Poggii Florentini Facetiarum libellus unicus, Notulis imitatores indicantibus & nonnullis sive latinis, sive gallicis imitationibus illustratus, simul ad fidem optimarum editionum emendatus, Tomus Posterior, Mileti, Londini 1798, 300 pp. Text in Latin and French.
Parchment binding with damages, 12 x 7 cm. Interior good.
The facetiae of the well-known humanis Poggio Bracciolini was first published in 1470. It is the most famous jokebook of the Renaissance and the only one internationally known and read today. Poggio compiled it while he was a Papal secretary working in the Curia, and intended it both as relaxation for hard-working interllectuals, and as proof that trivial stories could be written in good Latin. The collection is a mixture of fully developed comic anecdotes like number 9 and short witty repartees like numbers 5, 8 and 10. It also includes a few accounts of monsters and portents, not at all comic, which nevertheless can be called facetiae (humoristische lectuur/humoristic literature).
Unlike most other joke collectors, Poggio tells no classical anecdotes, and most of his satire is directed against the three tradidional butts of medieval exemplum: The corruption of churchmen, the stupidity of peasants, and the sexual insatability (unsatisfiedness) of women. See Bowen, One Hundred Renaissance Jokes: an Anthology, p. 5 e.v.. This Volume I (of two Volumes) is a reissue of the Utrecht edition of 1797.
SKU: 66776
€ 119,90 (€ 110,00 ex. btw)