Trium disertissimorum virorum praefationes ac Epistolæ familiares aliquot: Mureti, Lambini & Regij. Quibus, propter argumenti similitudinem, doctissimi viri Pauli Manutij praefationes adiunximus, cum indice copiosissimo

Small 8vo. (26), 3-549, (1), (2 blank) pp. †8, A-Z8, AaMm8 (Mm8 is a blank). With the printer's device on the title-page. Contemporary overlapping vellum, with the bookplate of the Orléans Seminary, gift of D. de Fourcroy, Decanus Aureliensis.
E. Boeuf, La bibliothèque parisienne de Gabriel Naudé en 1630: les lectures d'un libertin érudit, (Genève, 2007), p. 123, no. 225; H. Busson, Le rationalisme dans la litérature française de la Renaissance, 1533-1601, (Paris, 1971), p. 622; W.L. Gundersheimer, The life and works of Louis Le Roy, (Genève, 1966), p. 147, no. XI; E. Pastorello, L'epistolario Manuziano. Inventario cronologico-analitico, 1483-1597, (Firenze, 1957), p. 15, no. 274 (1578 ed.).
 
SECOND EDITION. The first edition, shared between the printers Gilles Maugier and Jean de Heuqueville, was issued in 1578 in two different formats: in octavo with a separate pagination for Manuzio's Praefationes and in small octavo with the same collation as the present edition, of which are also extant copies with Heuqueville's address.
This collection assembles numerous prefatory and ‘familiar' letters of three great French scholars: Marc-Antoine Muret (1526-1575), Denis Lambin (ca. 1520-1572), and Louis Le Roy (ca. 1510-1577). Some of the Muret-Lambin correspondence had already been published in the letter collection edited by Giovanni Michele Bruto at Lyon in 1561. The letters by Le Roy were first printed at Paris in 1559.
Added are the prefatory letters by Paolo Manuzio (1512-1574), which had already been printed in Venice in 1558
 
MURET:
SECOND EDITION. In this anthology is printed for the first time a choice of 22 letters (some prefatory) by Muret, which were not included in the volume issued a year later by Muret himself at Paris.
The volume opens with a series of letters that Muret wrote to Denis Lambin in 1558/9. “Cette année là, il [Muret] publie son Horace, ne s'en prenant directement à Muret à aucun moment dans son texte, comme si de rien n'était. Mais en parallèle, il transmet à Giovanni Michele Bruto (1515-1594) onze lettres peu glorieuses que le Limousin lui avait envoyeées à la fin des années 1550. Elles seront publiées en 1561 dans un recueil de correspondances édité par Sébastien Gryphe, a Lyon: Epistolae clarorum virorum, quibus veterum autorum loci complures explicantur, tribus libris a Joanne Michaele Bruto comprehensae: atque nunc primum in lucem editae. Ces documents évoquent les évènements fâcheux qui ont poussé Muret à fuir la France, puis les mauvaises rumeurs qui ont mis à mal ses tractations auprès du cardinal d'Este. Le Limousin était loin de souhaiter leur publication. Voir ses petits ennuis exposés aux yeux de toute la communauté lettrée de l'époque le met dès lors en rage. Lambin s'est bien vengé, deux ans après avoir été lui-même lésé. Et cette fois-ci, il prend a parti toute la Republique des lettres” (M. Roux, Les ‘Variae lectiones' de Marc-Antoine Muret: l'esprit d'un homme, l'esprit d'un siècle, Thesis, Lyon, 2011, p. 216).
 
from Manuzio, Paolo. [end of 1559] (leaf Aiiiv)
id. [Venezia, August 25?, 1558] (leaf Avr).
Lambin, Denis. Padova, February 4, 1558 (p. 3)
id. Padova, February 4, 1558 (p. 5)
from id. Corneliano, February 20, [1558] (p. 6)
id. Padova, February 23, [1558] (p.11)
id. Padova, February 25, [1558] (p. 13)
id. Padova, February 29, [1558] (p. 15)
id. Padova, March 15, [1558] (p. 17)
id. Padova, April 13, [1558] (p. 18)
id. Padova, July, [1558] (p. 19)
id. Treviso, November 28, [1558] (p. 20)
from id. Corneliano, August 12, 1558 (p. 22)
id. Padova, August 27, [1558] (p. 26)
from id. August 18, [1558] (p. 27)
id. Ferrara, July 17, 1559 (p. 31)
from id. Lucca, August 1, 1559 (p. 34)
Brinon, Jean de. Paris, November 24, 1552 (p. 48)
Gonzaga, Scipione. Rome, May 1, 1571 (p. 54)
Este, Ippolito d'. [1559] (p. 58)
Suriano, Jacopo. [1555] (p. 65)
Avanson, Jean de. Venezia, October 1, 1555 (p. 71)
Studiosis. [1554] (p. 76)
Loredan, Bernardino. Venezia, October 15, 1554 (p. 77)
Bembo, Torquato.