SEPULVEDA, Juan Ginés de.

Opera, cum edita, tum inedita, accurante Regia Historiae Academia.

Madrid, Imprenta Real de la Gaceta, 1780. 4 vols, 4to (255 x 195 mm), pp. [xvi], cxliii, [i], 24, [8], xlvi, 468; [vi], lxvi, 544, [150]; [vi], xxviii, 244, [34], 134, [16], 399, [11]; [vi], 591, [21], with a portrait (Charles V) and a plate (Sepúlveda’s epitaph) in vol. I; all four half-titles present; contemporary tree calf; joints of vol. II repaired, the others cracked but sound. First publication of this fine edition, still frequently cited, of Sepúlveda’s collected works. Edited by Francisco Cerdá y Rico, it prints for the first time De rebus gestis Caroli V, De rebus gestis Philippi II and De orbe novo, an account of the Spanish conquest of Mexico (see Bell, Sepúlveda pp. 99–100). It also includes his letters and biographical material.A formidable scholar and accomplished humanist, Sepúlveda was official translator of Aristotle for the papacy until 1536, when he returned to Spain as court historian to Charles V. He is best known for his justification of the Spanish conquest of America and subjugation of the Indians (invoking Aristotle’s concept of natural slavery) which he debated with Bartolomé de las Casas at Valladolid in 1550–51. His stance on the American conquests did not, however, emerge in isolation, but stemmed from his deep immersion in Italian humanist culture and admiration of ancient Rome and its military grandeur. He clashed with Erasmus and Vives over their anti-Roman and pacifistic views, arguing that provided the cause was just, the profession of arms and the pursuit of martial glory were both honourable and Christian. Much of his writing addresses such themes – for example, an oration urging the emperor to wage war against the Turks and so win the greatest empire known to history, the dialogue Gonsalus in which three Spanish warrior nobles draw parallels between recent Spanish achievements and incidents in Roman antiquity, and Democrates primus in which an old soldier debates with a student whether it is possible to be both a soldier and a good Christian (all found in vol. IV of the Opera).‘Neither Christian humanist in the Erasmian or Vivian tradition nor fully of the Neoscholastic persuasion, Sepúlveda shares in the age’s conviction that war and political authority go hand in hand. He will thus find in the principles of just war that cement capable of keeping two antithetical elements together: a universal society whose formulation had been made mandatory in the eyes of Spanish intellectuals by the discovery of the New World; and a concept of the state based both upon dynastic and territorial principles, as demanded by Europe’s political fragmentation – the twin characteristics, incidentally, of the growing Spanish empire . . . . Educated in Italy, Sepúlveda was heir to the veneration in which classical learning was held in humanist circles. On the other hand, he was far from scornful of Scholastic learning. Faithful to Aristotle, he remained a devout Christian . . . . The hybrid flavor of his thinking explains the hostility of some theologians who saw him as an unrestrained worshipper of antiquity, or the animosity shown by some humanists . . . who viewed him as a theologian defender of the despised Scholastic traditionalism’ (Fernández-Santamaria, The state, war and peace: Spanish political thought in the Renaissance pp. 159–60). See also Lupher, Romans in a new world: classical models in sixteenth-century Spanish America pp. 103–11.From the library of Edward Gibbon, with his book-label in vol. I. It is recorded by Keynes, Gibbon’s library p. 131, and Sotheby’s Catalogue of the library of Edward Gibbon . . . left by him at Lausanne, 20 December 1934, lot 225. Sepúlveda’s life of Cardinal Albornoz (d. 1367), printed in the fourth volume of the Opera, is cited by Gibbon in the Decline and fall of the Roman empire, ch. LXX n.53.Medina, BHA 4971; Palau 309312; Sabin 79180; Streit I 1050; Whitehead G82 (varying in their collations). An additional leaf ‘Monitum ad lectorem’ is sometimes found in vol. I, but not here (nor, for example, in the London Library and one of the two British Library copies).

• GBP 4,750.00 > 其他币种价格
• 订书号：: T2128

• 书商: Bernard Quaritch Ltd. (GREAT BRITAIN)