Fernandes, Pedro | A rare example of Latin oration recited before royalty

Fernandes, Pedro

Petri Ferdinandi in doctrinarum Scientiarum que omniu comendatione oratio a apud universam Conimbrica Academiam habita Calen. Coimbra: Joannes Barrieus & Ionnes Aluarus, 1550

4to (220 x 150 mm). Dedication leaf in italic type, typographical vignettes, woodcut initial; front endpaper with minor tear at margins and lightly soiled, toned and lightly foxed throughout. Late nineteenth-century or early twentieth-century half vellum over marbled boards; binding soiled and lightly foxed.

First and rare edition of this early example of Latin oration recited at Coimbra University before Dom João III of Portugal.

After a six-year study in Paris and a degree in foreign law, King D. João III summoned Pedro Fernandes back to Portugal to join the faculty at Coimbra University, where he delivered this oration. Urging his audience of students to focus on their studies, Fernandes's oration featured classical quotations in Greek and Latin and traversed through numerous subjects such as poetry, history, arithmetic, medicine, and theology.

REFERENCES

Anselmo 275 (citing two copies only, at the Biblioteca Municipal do Porto and the Biblioteca Municipal de Évora); Barbosa Machado III, 576; Nicolau Antonio Nova, II, 152; Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Distrital de Évora, Livros impressos no século XVI: I Tipografia portuguesa, 389

PROVENANCE

Guilherme J.C. Henriques (pencil notations to front pastedown, "este exemplar perteneceu a / Guilherme J.C. Henriques) — José Rodrigues Pires (bookseller's ticket to front pastedown)