Benedicti Averanii Florentini in Pisano Lyceo Litterarum Humaniorum Professoris Opera Latina Regiae Celsitudini Cosmi III. Magni Etruriae Ducis dicata. [3 volumes].

Florence:: Typis Regiae Celsitudinis, Sumptibus Cajetani Tartinii & Sanctis Franchii, 1717., 1717. 3 volumes. Tall 4to. [xxviii], 68, 476; [iv], 405, [3], 263, [1]; [ii], 265-310, 494 pp. Index, Vol. I engraved frontispiece by Cosmo Mogalli, after a printing by the Florentine artist Pietro Dandini (1646-1712), title-page vignette (signed Av.w.], Vols. II & III engraved title-page portrait medallion; prominent marginal water-stain especially to lower corners all vols., not affecting legibility. Original full calf, gilt-stamped spines and cover edges, (truncated) 6 raised bands; worn, hinges cracked with leather chipped, spine heads missing pieces, Vol. I free front end-paper loose, small half-title tear. Theological Institute of Connecticut blind-stamps to first and last few pages. Very good (noting water-stains). RARE. FIRST EDITION of Benedetto's exceedingly scarce Opera Latina, "a posthumous collection of his Latin works, edited by his brothers" (SDUK, Vol. 4, p. 286). The work contains poetry, lectures, and dissertations on epistemology, philosophy, and theology, as well as discussions of Greek and Roman scholars including Livy, Virgil, Cicero, Thucydides, and Euripides. "Averani's printed Lectures, occupying the first and second volumes of his collected Latin works, possess indeed no inconsiderable merit, and may still be perused with advantage; but they show him to have been better fitted for familiarizing the minds of youth with facts and principles developed by others, than for extending the sphere of knowledge by original researches. . . .The best parts of the lectures are desultory discussions on ancient customs or points of history. . . .His two volumes contain eighty-six lectures on the Greek Anthology, fifty-eight on Thucydides, and twenty-six on Euripides; after which come thirty-one lectures on Livy, forty-five on Virgil, and ninety-eight on Cicero, which are perhaps the most valuable of the series" (SDUK, Vol. 4, p. 286). REFERENCES: Bryan, Michael, Dictionary of Painters and Engravers: Biographical and Critical, vol. 2, London: George Bell and Sons, 1889; Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, vol. 4, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1844; Yriarte, Charles, Florence, vol. I, New York: Merrill and Baker, 1897. Locations: Copac / WorldCat: University of Cambridge; Bibliotheque Universitaire – ICES (lacks v. I); Werner Oechslin Library Foundation, Switzerland; University of Basel; Biblioteca Comunale di Trento, Rome; Stanford University Libraries; University of Chicago Library; Western Michigan University; Bibliotheque Nationale de France; BM Lyon. (Inventory #: LV1863)