POSTEL, Guillaume (1510-1581)

Quatuor librorum de orbis terrae concordia primus ... Excudebat ipsi authori Petrus Gromorsus sub Phoenicis signo, iuxta scholas Remenses. Non sine privilegio. [No date]

Paris: Pierre Gromors, [1543?].
4to: a--t8, 152 leaves, ff. [8] 143 [1]. Italic letter with Roman headings, words quoted in Hebrew. Title within a woodcut border made up of 3 blocks, woodcut initials. Leaf size and condition: 175 x 105mm. Title dustsoiled and some light soiling in the text; waterstains extending into the text to half way through the book and in the margins thereafter. Still a fairly fresh copy, and with good margins. Binding: Nineteenth-century quarter morocco. Rubbed. Provenance and annotation: Walter Pagel (1896--1983); B. E. J. Pagel (1930--2007). References: Adams P2031; Bouwsma 6; Quaritch 7.
First edition.
§ This is the privately printed first part of what Postel himself considered to be his most important work, De orbis terrae Concordia. 'His general purpose [in De orbis terrae Concordia] was to provide a rational justification of Christian doctrine, to refute the teachings of Islam, Judaism, and paganism, and to suggest certain methods of conversion. The whole was intended as a basic manual for missionaries. In the development of Postel's thought the work is above all important as marking the emergence in his mind of the view that the fundamental method for the communication of religious truth must be rational demonstration.' It was 'the literary instrument for the conversion of the world to the Catholic faith.' (Bouwsma pp. 9, 10). De orbis terrae Concordia was written shortly after Postel's dismissal as professor of Arabic at Paris in 1542. He submitted the work to the Sorbonne for approval and while waiting for an answer he had the first book privately printed for his friends. But his manuscript was returned by the Sorbonne marked 'ad facultatem non pertinens', and Postel sent it to Oporinus in Basle who published the complete work in 1544. Postel was born in Barenton in Normandy and educated at the Collège de Sainte-Barbe in Paris. He learned many languages and gained a reputation as a mathematician and a philosopher. He accompanied Jean de la Forest as official interpreter on his embassy to Istambul and there learned Arabic from Turkish Christians. He also collected Eastern manuscripts for the French Royal Library. After his return to France, Postel was made a professor at the new Collège Royal and inaugurated Arabic studies in Europe. He was in Rome in 1544 and was briefly a member of the Society of Jesus but was expelled for maintaining that the French King should nominate a French Pope. From Rome Postel moved to Venice to continue his research on the Cabbala. After further travels he returned to France but was back in Italy in 1555 to defend his works which had been put on the Venetian Index by the Inquisition. He was arrested, escaped and returned to France via Basel. Besides promoting the study of Arabic scientific texts, Postel was one of the scholars behind the great Antwerp polyglot bible (1569 and 1572). Literature: Detlev Auvermann, with an introduction by Alastair Hamilton, Guillaume Postel (1510--1581). Bernard Quaritch Catalogue 1343 (2006); William J. Bouwsma, Concordia mundi: the career and thought of Guillaume Postel (1510--1581) (Cambridge, MA, 1957); Claude Postel, Les écrits de Guillaume Postel publiés en France, et leurs éditeurs, 1538--1579 (Geneva, 1992).

• GBP 1,500.00 > otras divisas
• nº de pedido: 19747

• librero: Roger Gaskell (GREAT BRITAIN)