Aurelii Prudentii Clementis V.C. Opera. Ex postrema doct. virorum recensione.

12mo. 261,(1 blank) p. Vellum. 11.1 cm Horatius Christianus (Details: 5 thongs laced through the joints. Engraved title, it depicts a huge Christian warrior who makes mincemeat of heathens and heretics. There in no introduction, only the text) (Condition: Some small spots on the boards. The edges of the front flyleaf are thumbed and show 2 tears. Upper edge of first leaves slightly thumbed. Very tiny hole in inner margin of the title) (Note: The Roman poet Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, born 348/49, died after 405 A.D., of Spanish origin, was besides a man of letters also an industrious public servant. He was a fervent Christian, who had not cut himself off from the culture of the ancient world. ‘He regarded the pagan literature and art not as things to be rejected but as part of the inheritance into which Christian Rome enters’. (‘Prudentius’, ed. H.J. Thomson, Cambr. Mass., 2000, vol. 1 p. IX, (Loeb Classical Library)) ‘It is as a poet in whom is embodied a reconciliation between the new faith and the old culture, and in whom Christian thought claims rank in the world of letters, that Prudentius is historically important’. (Op. cit. p. X) He ‘was a pioneer in the creation of a Christian literature, and has the credit of originating new types of Christian poetry, the literary hymn, the moral allegory, and what has been called the Christian ballad’. (Op. cit. XII) His hymns are odes in which pagan mythology is replaced by stories from the Bible. By the great English scholar Richard Bentley he was described as ‘Christianorum Maro et Flaccus’. ‘Prudentius was much read in the Middle Ages. His influence is also visible in medieval art. More than 300 manuscripts survive. § Allthough this edition of 1625 is not very rare, it is not to be found in the usual reference works, Schweiger, Dibdin, Moss, Graesse, Ebert, or Brunet) (Provenance: On the front flyleaf in old ink: ‘A.E. Ihre’) (Collation: A-Q8, R4 (minus leaf R4, R3 verso blank) (Photographs on request)