Descrizione

DEDICATION COPY
4to (190x133 mm). x, cvi, [2] leaves. Collation: A-T6 V4. Title page printed in red and black. Colophon and errata on l. V4r. Late 19th-century German marbled cardboards, lettering piece on spine, red edges (somewhat worn and rubbed). Pale browning, upper margin cut short, overall a good copy.
Provenance. On the front flyleaves late 19th-century manuscript notes, bookplate of Georgius Klosz, M.D. Francofurti ad Moenum, bookplate and stamp of the Stinnecke Maryland Episcopal Library (the stamp, dated 1879, is repeated on the title page). The Stinnecke Maryland Episcopal Library was a significant collection of liturgical works, hymnals, and books of private devotion donated to the Diocese of Maryland in 1879 by Bishop William Whittingham (1805-1879) (cf. A Catalogue of the liturgies, liturgical works, books of private devotion, hymnals and collections of hymns, in the Stinnecke Maryland Episcopal Library the legacy of the Rt. Rev. W.R. Whittingham, D.D., L.L.D. Bishop of Maryland, to his diocese, 1879, privately printed in 1881). As of 2011, a remnant of this library is in the collection of the General Theological Seminary (NY).
On the title page autograph dedication by the author to Heinrich Kobolt from Ulm (1490-1521): “Erudito Henrico Cobaltino Ulmeñ Arbori suo sublissimo Eobanus Hessus cum Amore dd. 1521”. Above is a later ownership entry “Collegii Beybergj”.
First edition, dedicated to Job von Dobeneck (ca. 1450-1521), bishop of Pomesania, of Eobanus Hessus' best work of poetry, a most original volume with the title Heroides Christianae in imitation of Ovid, consisting of fictitious letters from holy women, from the Virgin Mary down to Kunigunde, wife of the Emperor Henry II. By replacing mythological characters with Christian saints and holy women and by focusing on themes of virginity and faith, it was a key work in the Renaissance “Christianization” of this classical genre. The work, which was reprinted in 1532 and 1546, brought Hessus general recognition as Germany's leading Latin poet. In 1518, when Eobanus, who revered Erasmus, made the journey from Erfurt to Louvain to see him in person, Erasmus complimented him as an ‘Ovidius Christianus' (H. Vredeveld, Traces of Erasmus' poetry in the work of Helius Eobanus Hessus, in: “Humanistica Lovaniensia”, vol. 35, 1986, p. 48).
“Eobanus' Heroidum Christianarum Epistolae, published in 1514 and reedited in 1535, is a collection of elegiac letters ostensibly written by twenty-two female figures drawn from the New Testament and other Christian documents. Each character is given the opportunity not only to express her own emotional responses to her circumstances but also to demonstrate the significance of her story within the Christian tradition itself. By dramatizing doctrine, Eobanus maximizes the effectiveness of his heroines' stories. By developing the historical and traditional background circumstances related to each of his heroines, Eobanus provides a very moving means to educate readers in background data to each narrative. The poet undertakes a codification of Christian lore, collecting and poeticizing it into a canonic Christian paideia. Eobanus' goal of canonizing Christian doctrine through the use of classical poetic genres is not original with him, for other humanist poets used the classics – particularly Ovid – for similar purposes. However, that Eobanus is intent upon developing the pedagogical potential of the Heroides in a particularly Lutheran direction becomes apparent in his restructuring of the work for the second edition of 1535. Lutheran educators, intent upon harnessing the pedagogical potential of the classical authors, develop characteristic means of institutionalizing them; Eobanuss second edition of the Heroides is consonant with these trends” (D.L. Johnson, The Heroides of Eobanus Hessus (1488-1540): Toward an Evangelical Paideia, online).
The work comprises a total of 24 letters, including the initial letter from Jesus to Mary and the