Author: [BAIF (Lazarus) and ESTIENNE (Charles):
Title: De re vestiaria libellus, ex Bayfio excerptus; addita vulgaris linguæ interpretatione, in adolescentulorum gratiam atque utilitatem. Secunda edito.
Description: Paris Ex Officina Roberto Stephani..., 1541. Small 8vo, 162 x 101 mms., pp. 68 [69 - 78 index], contemporary stressed vellum. A very good copy. This work by the Jean-Antoine de Baif (1532 - 1589)was first published in 1535, followed by a reprint in 1536, and this second edition in 1541. It is an abridged version made by Charles Estienne and was one of the earliest works produced specifically for a juvenile audience. Baif was the natural son of the early modern scholar Lazare de Baïf (1496–1547), a French diplomat and humanist, who ensured that his son received a very good education. Charles Estienne was his Latin tutor, while Jean Daurat Ronsard taught him later. "Ancient clothing became widely known in Renaissance erudite studies only in 1526 when Lazare de Baïf, a French antiquarian and ambassador to Venice and Germany, published his De re vestiaria. This work (Baïf 1526), which represents the first monographic treatise on the matter, met with immediate favour and was quickly reprinted by the most prestigious editors in Europe (the first complete with images was issued by Froben in Basel in 1537).... The success of this work can also be measured by the revisions and additions made by other authors in new editions of the work, especially the one compiled by the French antiquarian, botanist and physician, Charles Estienne (Estienne 1535a; Armstrong 1954), a member of the family of printers and a pupil of Baïf himself, who published his De re vestiaria libellus, ex Bayfio excerptus in 1535. Estienne produced an original and particularly interesting version of Baïf's work by taking the original and restructuring it so as to make it easier to read: he reordered the text into ten different interpretative categories based on parts of the human body, something that until then had never been done for this subject. He structured his treatise to run from the top of the body to the bottom, i.e. from hats and headdresses to shoes and footwear, and provided the French equivalent for all the Latin and Greek terms for fabrics and clothing, again in order to make it easier to read especially for young students (in adulescentorum gratiam atque utilitatem). Moreover, he enriched the treatise by adding, in square brackets, details omitted by Baïf, thereby broadening its interpretative perspectives" (Damiano Acciarino: Renaissance Discovery of Ancient Clothing [online, 2018]). Adams B-45. USTC 88432.

Keywords: juvenile clothing prose


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