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DESCARTES (RENE) PETRARCH (FRANCISCO) Operum... tomus secundus [-tertius; quartus], vol. 2-4 only (of 4), Basel, Heinrich Petri, 1554 image 1
DESCARTES (RENE) PETRARCH (FRANCISCO) Operum... tomus secundus [-tertius; quartus], vol. 2-4 only (of 4), Basel, Heinrich Petri, 1554 image 2
GENERAL AND CONTINENTAL BOOKS, MANUSCRIPTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
Lot 88

DESCARTES (RENE) PETRARCH (FRANCISCO)
Operum... tomus secundus [-tertius; quartus], vol. 2-4 only (of 4), Basel, Heinrich Petri, 1554

19 August 2020, 13:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge

£40,000 - £60,000

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DESCARTES (RENE)

PETRARCH (FRANCISCO) Operum... tomus secundus [-tertius; quartus], vol. 2-4 only (of 4), woodcut initials, a few pages with light waterstain at lower fore-corner, contemporary calf, covers with central gilt oval motif, rebacked preserving much of original spine, solander box [Adams P776], folio (310 x 195mm.), Basel, Heinrich Petri, 1554

Footnotes

DESCARTES' COPY OF PETRARCH - THE ONLY SURVIVING VOLUME FROM THE PHILOSOPHER'S LIBRARY.

Descartes adored poetry, writing in his Discours de la méthode, "I'ay esté nourri aux lettres dès mon enfance.... Ie sçavois... Que la Pöesie a des delicatesses & des douceurs tres ravissantes.... I'estois amoureux de la Pöesie". Of Descartes' own poetry, a few fragments survive from his school days at La Flèche - verses that he preserved for the rest of his life, and which were listed among his papers after his death in Stockholm in 1650. His niece, Catherine, also became a poet.

The first volume of Heinrich Petri's edition contains only Petrarch's prose works; the present parts contain his celebrated sonnets in Italian, his Latin verse, and further Latin prose.

Provenance: René Descartes, ownership inscription on title; his nephew Joachim IV Descartes de Chavagnes (1635-1718), councillor in the parliament of Brittany in 1659, and son of Descartes' half-brother, ownership inscription on title; Lemoine de La Girauday, eighteenth century ownership inscription on title; in the library of the publishing house Hachette, late nineteenth century inkstamp on title "Bibliothèque Géographique Hachette & Cie." This library was founded around 1877 for the use of Hachette authors, but was dispersed by 1899.

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