1540 PLATINA THE FIRST BIOGRAPHY OF ALL CATHOLIC POPES

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the first ancient biography and history of all Roman catholic popes from Saint Peter to Sistus IV made by Platina the famous prefect of Vatican Library containing the legend of the excommunication of Halley’s comet by Pope Callixtus III profusely annotated by a contemporary hand Sacchi, Bartolomeo, called Platina . De vitis ac gestis summorum Pontificum, ad sua usq [ue] tempora, Liber Unus. Huic additae sunt Vitae ac res gestae eorum qui interim fuere pontificum, a Paulo videlicet II. ad Paulum huius nominis III. De falso & vero bono Dialogi tres. Contra amores .I. De vera nobilitate .I. De optimo cive II. Panegyricus in Bessarionem doctiss. Patriarcham Constantinopolitanum. Oratio ad Paulum II. Pont. maximum, de bello Turcis inferendo […]. Eucharius Cervicornus Agrippinas excudebad, Impensis M. Gotfridi Hittorpij, 1540 [Köln: Cervicornus, 1540]. Folio, later colored paperboards, spine with five raised bands with gilt-lettered title at second compartment, pp. (12), 314, (2, Series & Nomina Pontificum ), 92, (10), (2, bianche). Dozens of fine xylographic headlettes. Excellent German edition of Platina’s De vitis ac gestis summorum pontificum («About Life and Deeds of Supreme Pontiffs»), the first biography and history of Roman Popes , covering a period of almost one thousand and five hundred years, from Saint Peter to Sistus IV, profusely annotated by a contemporary hand. This edition also contains the brief moral work Contra amores («Against love affairs»), another moral treatise De falso & vero bono («About false and true Good»), two civil treatises De vera nobilitate («About true nobility») and De optimo cive («The perfect citizen»), the Panegyricus in Bessarionem, a praise of cardinal Bessarion and a speech devoted to Paulus II, who was beginning the crusade against Turks. Bartolomeo Sacchi called Platina (1421–1481) was an Italian Renaissance writer, born at Piadena ( Platina in Latin), a small village near Cremona. He first enlisted as a soldier, and was then appointed tutor to the sons of the Marquis Ludovico II Gonzaga. In 1457, he went to study in Florence. In 1462 he proceeded to Rome where was elected a member of the College of Abbreviators by Pius II. Probably in the summer of 1465 Platina composed De honesta voluptate et valetudine («On honourable pleasure and health»), the first printed cookbook, a monument of medieval cuisine in Renaissance intellectual trappings , that left the press in 1474 and ran into dozens of editions, disseminating Roman ideas about fine dining throughout Western Europe. In a high moralizing display of humanist learning Platina embedded recipes cribbed from a professional chef , Maestro Martino de’ Rossi of Como, whom he had encountered in the summer of 1463 at Albano, where Platina was the guest of Martino’s employer, a cardinal. When Paul II abolished the ordinances of Pius, Platina was deprived of his office. Angered by this, he wrote a pamphlet insolently demanding from the pope the recall of his restrictions. When called upon to justify himself he answered with insolence and was imprisoned in the Castle of Sant’Angelo, being released after four months on condition that he remain at Rome. In February 1468, with about twenty other humanists, he was again imprisoned on suspicion of heresy and of conspiring against the life of the pope . The latter charge was dropped for lack of evidence, while they were acquitted on the former. But not even Platina denies that the members of the Roman Academy, imbued with half-pagan and materialistic doctrines, were found guilty of immorality. The story about his constancy under trial and torture is unfounded. After his release on July 7, 1469, he expected to be again in the employ of Paul II, who, however, declined his services. Platina threatened vengeance and executed his threat, when at the suggestion of Sixtus IV he wrote his Vitæ Pontificum Platinæ historici ... read more

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