Epistolarum [...] Farrago, in Partes tres distributa: Quarum Prima, varias materias Theologicas continet. Secunda, familiares Epistolas habet, quib. plures cùm domesticae, tum publicae res exponuntur. Tertia, ex diversis doctorum ac praestantium viroum Epistolis constat, quib. non solum privata, sed etiam Ecclesiastica & Politica negotia tractatur: A Ioanne Manlio passim collecta, & in co(m)unem studiosorum atq(ue) piorum usum nunc primum publicata

8vo. (16), 550 (i.e. 590, with errors in the pagination), (2) pp. α8, a-z, A-O8. With the printer's device on the title-page. Contemporary blind-stamped pigskin. With the autograph entry of ownership of Johannes Sagittarius (Schütz), Protestant theologian (1531-1584), and the engraved book plate of the jurist Christian Carl Ludwig von Savigny (1684-1740).
VD 16, M-3220; H.E. Bindseil, Bibliotheca Melanthoniana, (Halle, 1868), p. 27, no. 511; H. Scheible, ed., Melanchthons Briefwechsel, Regesten (1514-1560), (Stuttgart, 1977), I, p. 17.
 
FIRST EDITION of Melanchthon's first published letter collection. His correspondence, larger than that of Luther and Erasmus combined (nearly ten thousand letters), spanned the European continent. He had contacts in every major court and university in Europe (cf. C. Mundhenk, Melanchthons Briefwechsel, in: “Die Forschungsvorhaben der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften 1909-2009”, V. Sellin, E. Wolgast & S. Zwies, eds., Heidelberg, 2009, pp. 156-157).
Published five years after Melanchthon's death, this collection was compiled by Johannes Manlius (d. after 1571). A native of Ansbach, he came as a young student to Wittenberg in 1548, obtained a master degree in 1558 and started to teach in the philosophical faculty in 1559. Later he was active as a pastor in various small German towns. In 1562 he publish in Basel his Locorum communium collectanea, a collection of sayings and anecdotes, which Melanchthon had used in his lectures. The work was a great success, in fact until 1600 appeared 14 editions and 2 German translations. Manlius had access to many of Melanchthon's letters mainly during his position as the latter's secretary (probably from 1556 to 1557) (cf. M. Simon, Johann Manlius, der erste Herausgeber von Melanchthonbriefen, in: “Zeitschrift für bayerische Kirchengeschichte”, 24, 1955, pp. 141-149).
Manlius' edition was sharply criticized by Melanchthon's son-in-law and editor of his Opera Omnia, Caspar Peucer, who quickly countered with his own letter collection (Epistolae selectiores, Wittenberg, 1565, see item no. XXX). Soon thereafter in 1569 Joachim Camerarius provided a rich resource with a volume of some six hundred letters, which he had personally received from Melanchthon himself. In 1570 Peucer published a second collection of Melanchthon's letters, a libellus tertius was issued by Christoph Pezel in 1590 and a liber quartus was edited by Johannes Saubert in 1640, followed by the liber quintus et ultimus in 1646 and by a sixth book edited by Ludwig Camerarius (Leiden, 1647).
The volume contains 422 pieces (70 of which are not by Melanchthon) and opens with a prefatory letter by Manlius to Christoph Jonas, Thomas Matthias, and Christoph Meienburger, all councilors to George Frederick of Brandenburg-Ansbach, to which follows a letter from Heinrich Claviger to Manlius dated [August 2], 1564.
“Melanchthon hatte ein ganz anderes Verhältnis zu seiner Korrespondenz als die Mehrzahl der Humanisten. Seine Privatbriefe sind echte Augenblickserzeugnisse. Formale oder inhaltliche Rücksichten auf eine Veröffentlichung kennt er nicht. Er schreibt ohne Umschweife, was er zu sagen hat. Und er hat immer etwas Wichtiges zu sagen. Blumige Redewendungen einzuflechten, die Briefe ‘unter die Feile zu nehmen', verbot ihm der Drang der Geschäfte. Er merkte selbst, dass er sich von der ‘eleganten' Schreibweise der Humanisten, derer auch in seiner Jugend gezollt hatte, immer weiter entfernte. ‘Trocken' nennt er seinen Stil. Uns heutzutage spricht diese Sachlichkeit mehr an als die allzuoft nichtssagende Verschraubtheit mancher Humanisten, und auch Zeitgenossen stellten den Inhalt über die Form und rühmten die Klarheit der Sprache Melanchthons” (H. Scheible, Überlieferung und Editionen der Briefe Melanchthons, in: “Melanchthon und die Reformation”, G. May & R. Decot, eds., Mainz, 1996, p. 136).
 
(Pars prima:)
George [III] of Anhalt[-Dessau]. Regensburg, March 25, 1541 (p. 1)
Historia Convent