Petri Ferndinandi in doctrinarum scientiarum que omniu[m] co[m]mendatione oratio apud universam Conimbrica[m] Academiam habita Calen. Octobr. M.D.L. Ad invictissimum Ioannem tertium Portugalliæ Regem.

Coimbra, Excudebant Ioannes Barrerius, & Ioannes Aluarus [i.e., João de Barreira and João Álvares], 1550.. FIRST and ONLY EDITION. 4°, late nineteenth-century or early twentieth-century half vellum over marbled boards (some soiling to vellum). Three small typographical vignettes on title page. Woodcut initial. Dedication in italic type. Occasional lines of text in Greek. Clean and crisp (but very light toning), with ample margins. In fine condition. Printed ticket of the Antiquarian bookseller José Rodrigues Pires, R. 4 de Infantaria, 34-1º Dto., Lisboa, with the manuscript price of sixty thousand Portuguese Escudos, on front pastedown endleaf. Penciled note on front pastedown endleaf: "Este exemplar perteneceu a // Guilherme J.C. Henriques // (Da Carnata) [illegible signature]." [20 ll.], signed A-B8, C4. *** FIRST and ONLY[?] EDITION of this early example of a humanistic oration in Latin recited at Coimbra University as a command performance before D. João III of Portugal. It is sprinkled with quotes from the classics, both in Latin and Greek. A neo-Latin poem appears on the verso of the title page. Fernandes, a skilled orator, goes through the subjects of the curriculum with a humanist’s emphasis on their interrelationships: astrology, music, arithmetic, geometry, grammar, poetry, history, dialectics, medicine, jurisprudence, and theology. He exhorts the students at the University of Coimbra to focus on their studies in the coming year.Pedro Fernandes was a native of Lisbon and page at the court of D. João III, where his father served the king's sister, the Infanta D. Maria. He was sent to study in Paris, where he received a Master of Arts degree in canon law. After six years he was summoned back to Portugal by the king, to join the faculty of Coimbra University.Provenance: Guilherme João Carlos Henriques (London, 1846-Alenquer, 1924), author and archeologist. He arrived in Portugal in 1860, fixing his residence at the Quinta da Carnota in the Concelho de Alenquer, which he later inherited upon the death of the Conde de Carnota. Dedicating himself to the study of the region in which he lived, he published in 1873 the results of his studies, Alenquer e seu concelho. A second, revised edition appeared in 1902. More closely related to the present volume, he published in 1896, in two parts, Estudos Goesianos, and George Buchanan in the Lisbon Inquisition, 1906. Henriques was also responsible for publishing a part of the Correspondência do Duque de Saldanha. José Rodrigues Pires, Lisbon antiquarian bookseller and runner, was the brother of João Rodrigues Pires. João established Mundo do Livro in Lisbon shortly after the Second World War. During the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s Mundo do Livro was one of the most important antiquarian bookshops in Portugal.*** Anselmo 275 (citing two copies only, at the Biblioteca Municipal do Porto and the Biblioteca Municipal de Évora). Barbosa Machado III, 576. Nicolau Antonio Nova, II, 152. Biblioteca Pública e Arquivo Distrital de Évora, Livros impressos no século XVI: I Tipografia portuguesa 389. Not in Adams. Not in King Manuel. Not in Thomas, Pre-1601 Portuguese STC. Not in Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, Catálogo dos impressos de tipografia portuguesa do século XVI. Not in Coimbra, Catálogo de reservados or supplements. Not in Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Livros quinhentisas portugueses. Not located in Porbase. Not located in CCPBE. Not located in Rebiun. Not located in Jisc. Not located in KVK worldwide (51 databases searched). Not located in Hollis or Orbis. Not located in Melvyl.