Small Folio. Latin text with some Greek, 31 pp., [5], 536 pp., [26 index], [1], printer’s device, illustrated initials, 1 woodcut illustration, contemporary quarter calf, rubbed at spine and round corners, gilt title on raised spine, speckled outer edges, damp staining to margins, heavier on first few leaves, otherwise a good copy, per Ioannem Oporinum, Basileae, Ex officina Iacobi Parci, Sumptibus Ioannis Oporini, Mense Augusto, 1560.

Synopsis

A beautiful edition of this treatise on mythology, where the author analyzes the etymology of gods and heroes. The author has made a great synthesis of myths from the Hebrew scriptures, Egyptian hieroglyphics to myths and legends from Syria, Caldaiche and Persiane, using Isidore sources from Seville, Lattanzio, Cappella and other classical authors. The work is offered with a valid export license.
Giglio Gregorio Giraldi (Lilius Gregorius Gyraldus or Giraldus) (1479–1552) was an Italian scholar and poet. He was born in Ferrara, where he distinguished himself early on by his talents and acquirements. On the completion of his literary course, he moved first to Naples, where he lived on familiar terms with Jovianus Pontanus and Sannazaro; and subsequently to Lombardy, where he enjoyed the favour of the Mirandola family. In Milan in 1507 he studied Greek under Chalcondylas; and shortly afterwards, in Modena, he became tutor to Ercole (afterwards Cardinal) Rangone.
Circa 1514 he moved to Rome, where, under Clement VII, he held the office of apostolic prothonotary; but in the sack of that city (1527), which almost coincided with the death of his patron Cardinal Rangone, he lost all his property and returned in poverty once more to Mirandola, whence again he was driven out by the troubles consequent to the assassination of the reigning prince in 1533. The rest of his life was one long struggle with ill-health, poverty and neglect; and he is alluded to with sorrowful regret by Montaigne in one of his Essais (i.35), as having, like Sebastian Castalio, ended his days in utter destitution. He died in Ferrara in February 1552; and his epitaph makes touching and graceful allusion to the sadness of his end.
Giraldi was a man of very extensive erudition; and numerous testimonies to his profundity and accuracy have been given both by contemporary and by later scholars. His Historia de deis gentium (1548) marked a distinctly forward step in the systematic study of classical mythology; and by his treatises De annis et mensibus, and on the Calendarium Romanum et Graecum, he contributed to bring about the reform of the calendar, which was ultimately effected by the Pope Gregory XIII.
According to the Biographie Universelle, “Giraldi is the first who has treated properly the subject of Classical Mythology, so difficult on account of its extent and complexity. He made use not only of all Greek and Latin authors, but of ancient inscriptions, which he has explained with much sagacity. Sometimes the multiplicity of his quotations renders him obscure, but the ‘Historia de Diis Gentium’ is still consulted”.