VALCKENAER,L.C. Ludovici Caspari Valckenaer, Oratio de sacra Novi Foederis critice a literatoribus, quos vocant, non exercenda. Habita Kalendis Iuniis 1745 quum abiret Magistratu Academico. Franeker (Franequerae), Excudit Gulielmus Coulon, Illust. Frisiae Ordd. atque Eorumd. Academ. Typogr. Ord., 1745. 4to. (II),60,(X) p. Plain modern cloth 26 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 151528659; Gerretzen p. 208/09) (Details: Woodcut of the coat of arms of the province Frisia (Friesland) on the title. At the end a long laudatory poem of Johannes Daniel van Lennep, a student of Valckenaer, in Greek, and by Ernst Willem Higt, who studied theology in Franeker, in Dutch) (Condition: The lower margin of last pages slightly stained. Lower margin of last leaf frayed. Last leaf soiled) (Note: The Frisian scholar Lodewijk Caspar Valckenaer, 1715-1785, was a pupil of his fellow Frisian Tiberius Hemsterhuis, and after him the greatest Dutch classical scholar of the 18th century. Hemsterhuis, 1685-1766, advised his students in Franeker and later in Leiden, to use especially the lexica of the ancient lexicographers. These works could be of great use for the understanding of textual problems and for the amending of texts of classical authors, and they were of great help to gain a profound knowledge of the Greek language and its vocabulary. For his first fruits Valckenaer chose an unpublished work of the Greek grammarian Ammonius, who lived probably in the first or second century A.D. This edition, the 'editio princeps' of 'De adfinium vocabulorum differentia' made his name. It resulted in his appointment as professor of Greek at the University of Franeker in 1741, succeeding his teacher Tiberius Hemsterhuis, who made a career move to the university of Leiden. (Gerretzen, Schola Hemsterhusiana, 1940, p. 205/6) § Hemsterhuis was professor of Greek at the University of Franeker from 1717 till 1740, and from 1740 till 1765 at the University of Leiden. He was the founder of a Dutch school of criticism, the so-called 'Schola Hemsterhusiana', which had in Valckenaer its best known disciple. In 1765 Valckenaer left for Leiden, once again as successor of his beloved teacher Hemsterhuis. Both created a golden age of Greek studies in the Netherlands. In Franeker Valckenaer produced a revised and augmented edition of Fulvio Orsini's 'Virgilius illustratus', Leeuwarden 1747. This title is important for the history of scholarship for its inclusion of the text of the 22nd book of the Iliad of Homer, accompanied by an introduction, 'variae lectiones' and the 'editio princeps' of scholia of Porphyrius and other hellenistic and byzantine scholars. In 1755 Valckenaer published his edition of Euripides' play 'Phoenissae', with his rich commentary. Among his best works are two other Euripides editions, 'Diatribe in Euripidis perditorum dramatum reliquias', Leiden 1767, and 'Euripidis tragoedia Hippolytus', Leiden 1768. Valckenaer also produced editions of the Idylls of Theocritus, Leiden 1773, and an edition with the complete works of the bucolic poets Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, Leiden & Kampen 1779. His Callimachus was published posthumously by J. Luzac, 'Callimachi elegiarum fragmenta', Leiden 1799. § In his first speech as Rector of the University, a masterpiece of ironic rhetoric, Valckenaer made a stand against the literalists in the ongoing theological conflict between the orthodox and liberal ministers of the protestant church in the Netherlands. He will speak about the things a critic or a man of letters should avoid, in order to live peacefully, i.e. 'corrigere Novum Testamentum'. Critics and freethinkers will have to wait for better times, he concludes, when textual criticism and theology may combine forces solving biblical text problems in a fearless study of the New Testament. Valckenaer knew what he was talking about. From 1625 to 1815 it was one of the tasks of a professor Greek 'to teach New Testament Greek for undergraduates of the Faculty of Divinity.' (H.J. de Jonge, 'Jeremias Hoelzlin: editor of the 'Textus Receptus' printed by the Elzeviers Leiden 1633', in 'Miscellanea Neotestamentica', Volume I, Leiden 1978, p. 112)) (Collation: pi1; A-H4; I4 (minus blank leaf I4) (Photographs on request)
Book number: 140053 Euro 140.00

Keywords: (Oude Druk), (Rare Books), Dutch imprints, Geschichte der klassischen Philologie, Neues Testemant, New Testament, Novum Testamentum, Textkritik, Theologie, Valckenaer, antike altertum antiquity, catbiografie, history of classical scholarship, textual criticism, theology