Full title: [Collection of humanistic texts and editions of the classics, with manuscript notes taken by Gerardus de Mayres from lectures by Claude Mignault.]
Author(s): Claude Mignault
Location:
Princeton University; Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Shelf mark:
Rare Books: PA260 .xC6 1550
Publication information:
Paris, n.v., 1550-1572
Notes:
“A collection of 23 Latin, Greek, and humanist texts, all heavily annotated, the annotations in ink almost obscure the printed text. The author of these notes was the great scholar Claude Mignault who in the fifteenseventies taught classical languages at the College de Reims of the University of Paris. Mignault had made a name for himself by composing the classical commentary to Alciati’s Book of Emblems, a popular work that was often reprinted. But the works in this volume are all concerned with classical scholarship. Most of them are Latin: the rhetorical and philosophical works of Cicero, Pliny, Horace, Justinus, Ausonius. Of Greek works, some smaller ones, by Lucian, Plutarch, Demosthenes, and Isocrates are included. Mignault’s special subjects were Rhetoric and the Belles-Lettres. His notes are mainly exegetical, he emphasizes the principal rules of rhetoric, and he analyzes the works according to argumentum, to the different genres of orations, to the disposition of the contents, and to the laws that Aristotle and Cicero applied to rhetorical works. His approach is not philological, he seems to be mainly interested in the philosophical aspects in his literary appreciation. There can be no doubt that this was the essence of his lectures. Some of the investigations recorded in these manuscripts led to further studies and to books on the subjects of Cicero’s oratory, the Epistles of Horace, and Ausonitis. An edition of Horace’s Epistles, with the commentary of Mignault, was published in Paris in 1575 (Schweiger II, 426). The interpretations are added in the margins, on occasional blank leaves, and between the lines of the printed books. Some complete texts are included, very often only a few pages served the author’s purpose. Most of these printed texts have an unusual feature in common, the editions are unknown to the bibliographers. The editions come from the presses of Denys du Pre, Gabriel Buon, Andre Wechel, Maurice de la Porte, Thomas Brumen, and Jean Morel. All these books were printed in the years from 1550 to 1572. The reason that none of them have survived and are practically unknown today is probably the fact that they were intended for academic lectures or for the use of schools, and were read to pieces. There is, however, one exception: Pomponius Laetus’ De Romanis Magistratibus, Paris, Mathieu David for Jean de Roigny, 1552 (Adams P 1841). Of this, other copies are extant. The twenty-second piece, also unrecorded, a ’Compendium in Universam Dialecticam, ex Rivio aliisque recentioribus collectum’, is inscribed: “Explicatum fuit a doctissimo viro Cla. Minoe . . . vixisti in po. rhemensium 1572”. The same page has the signature Claudius Minais, and underneath the signature G Mayres, supposedly one of his pupils. The writing throughout the whole work is uniform, and very probably that of Mignault himself, but it is also possible that it is written by his pupil Mayres, after his dictation. The volume is an important document, demonstrating the way the humanities were taught in the 16th century, and very few documents of this kind exist. — Mignault, in his later years, became a jurist, was appointed ’Avocat du Roy au Baillage d’Estampes’, and was entrusted with the reform of the study of law at the University of Paris.” – William Salloch.
Digital copy:
None available
Bibliography: