Syntagma de Musis

Syntagma de Musis Rare editio princeps illustrated with a large title vignette (86 x 95 mm) featuring the Muses playing their instruments under the water of a fountain overlooking the Hippocrene spring surmounted by a verse from Hesiod's Theogony: “Ennea thugateres megalou Dios / £ Nine daughters engendered by the almighty Zeus.” This was the very first collective representation of the Muses bathing in the fountain of youth.
Nine magnificent in-text woodcuts (63 x 50 mm) also showing these same Muses elegantly dressed and holding their distinctive symbols.
30 lines per page in rounded characters, a full-margined copy, not rubricated. The leaf a2 does not have a signature, c2 is incorrectly labelled b2.
First publication of the Strasbourg printer Matthias Schürer to contain Greek letters, as the latter points out in the colophon: “Finis libelli de Musis compositi a Lilio Graegorio Ziraldo Ferrariensi, quem Matthias Schurerius artium doctor summa cum diligentia impressit, non omissis accentibus in eisque Gareca sunt. Argentorat. Ann. salutis. M.D.XI. Idibus August.”
Modern binding (20th century) in brown morocco, Jansenist spine in five compartments, gilt date at the foot, gilt fillet in a silver frame, all gilt edges. Binding signed Honegger.
Ex-libris from the Guelfo Sitta and Gianni de Marco libraries glued to the inside of the first board, dry stamp of the latter at the right-hand bottom of the first white endpaper.
Several very discreet wormholes without loss of text on the last leaves. Verified complete by a bibliographer of the Bernard Quaritch Ltd bookshop on 8 May 1925 (cf. note on the verso of the last leaf).
Rare and important treatise – the very first on the topic – marking a significant advance in the humanist and philological knowledge of the ancient deities.
It is preceded by several lines addressed to the reader, as well as a inscription entitled “Andreae Reginio Romarici monti Sonrario” by Philesius Vogesigena (Matthias Ringmann), humanist and scientific publisher of the work. Then follows a dedicatory epistle to Luca Ripa, one of Giglio Gregorio Giraldi's old Ferrarese teachers, dated 1507 in Milan. The author claims to have composed his Syntagma de Musis when he was still only an adolescent. The dissertation closes with several verses by ancient or contemporary poets to Giraldi – Virgil, Pico della Mirandola, and Fausto Adrelini – who have before him praised the graces of the Muses.
This treatise, emblematic of Medici-neoplatonism, will have a significant influence on pictorial cycles and mythographers of the 16th century.
The superb wood engravings illustrating the work do not conform to the ancient or Italian tradition, but rather represent Germanic virgins. These woodcuts, close in style to those of Dürer, are very clearly inspired by the artist without being able to be formally attributed to him.
Very beautiful, full-margined copy of this rarity representing higher German education.