Author: BOETHIUS.
Title: Boezio Severino Della Consolazione della Filosofia Tradotto dalla Lingua Latina in Volgar Fiorentino da Benedetto Varchi. Con Annotazioni in margine, Argomenti de' Libri, e Tavola delle cose più segnalate. Si aggiunge la Vita dell' Autore scritta latinamente da Giulio Marziano Rota, ed ora esattamente volgarizzata.
Description: In Venezia, Appresso Giambattista Novelli, Con Licenza de' Superiori, 1757. 8vo, 170 x 110 mms., pp. xxii [xxiii - xxiv contents and license], 184, fine engraved portrait of Boethius as frontispiece, contemporary vellum, gilt spine; boards slightly sprung so a near-fine copy, beautifully printed. The Italian author and editor Benedetto Varchi (1503 - 1565 ) was an exceptional translator and editor of Latin texts; the earliest printing of this translation that I have found occurred in 1562. WorldCat notes that "Boethius was an eminent public figure under the Gothic emperor Theodoric, and an exceptional Greek scholar. When he became involved in a conspiracy and was imprisoned in Pavia, it was to the Greek philosophers that he turned. The Consolation was written in the period leading up to his brutal execution. It is a dialogue of alternating prose and verse between the ailing prisoner and his 'nurse' Philosophy. Her instruction on the nature of fortune and happiness, good and evil, fate and free will, restore his health and bring him to enlightenment. The Consolation was extremely popular throughout medieval Europe and his ideas were influential on the thought of Chaucer and Dante." The work alternates between verse and prose, with Boethius speaking his own person in prose, and philosophy answering in verse. In his History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell writes of Boethius: "During the two centuries before his time and the ten centuries after it, I cannot think of any European man of learning so free from superstition and fanaticism. Nor are his merits merely negative; his survey is lofty, distinterested, and sublime. He would have been remarkable in any age; in the age in which he lived, he is utterly amazing."

Keywords: Philosophy translation literature


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