Poëmata [...] V. CL. et numero librorum, et aliis additis aucta, et emendatius denuò edita [including Epistolarum liber]

8vo. (24), 527 pp. A-Z⁸, a-l⁸, m⁴. With the printer's device on the title-page. Contemporary blind-stamped pigskin over boards, on the panels tool with the arms of Augustus I, Elector of Saxony.

VD 16, S-118 and S-139; M. Heyne, Das dichterische Schrifttum der Mark Brandenburg. Eine Bücherkunde, (Potsdam & Berlin, 1939), p. 26, no. 180.

REPRINT OF THE 1563 EDITION. The letters written by Pietro Bembo and Battista Egnazio to Sabinus were already printed in the first edition of the Poemata of 1538. The Epistolarum liber first appeared in 1544 in the augmented edition of the Poemata and was reprinted in 1558. The most complete edition of Sabinus' collected works, published posthumously by his son-in-law Eusebius Menius, was issued by Vögelin at Leipzig in 1563, and all subsequent editions (1568, 1578, 1581, 1589, and 1597) are based on it.

The volume opens with a dedicatory letter by Menius to Sigismund of Brandenburg, archbishop of Magdeburg, dated from Wittenberg, April 29, 1563, and is followed by a letter by Joachim Camerarius to Menius, dated from Lipsia, May 15, 1563. Also reprinted is Sabinus dedicatory epistle to the archbishop of Madgeburg, dated from Frankfurt/Oder, November 13, 1558 (cf. G. Ellinger, Geschichte der neulateinischen Literatur Deutschlands im 16. Jahrhundert, Berlin & Leipzig, 1929-1933, II, pp. 65-75; see also J. Voight, Mitteilungen aus der Korrespondenz des Herzogs Albrecht von Preussen mit Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon und Georg Sabinus, Königsberg, 1841, pp. 56-77).

“Ebenso glänzte er [Sabinus] im Lateinisch-Schreiben. Seine Briefe, seine Abhandlungen, so viele wir noch haben, tragen alle das Gepräge der klassischen Form. Er brauchte sich nicht zu scheuen und zu schämen, mit den grössten Latinisten seiner Zeit, mit einem Pietro Bembo, Caspar Contareni, Baptista Egnatio, Christoph Türk, Joachim Camerarius, u. A. zu correspondieren, und Alle an welche er schrieb, mit welchen er in brieflichen Verkehr stand, lobten und bewunderten die Nettigkeit, die Glätte, die Leichtigkeit der Sprache” (M.W. Heffter, Erinnerungen an Georg Sabinus, den trefflichen Dichter, akademischen Lehrer und Diplomaten, den Mitstifter der Universität zu Königsberg in Preussen, Leipzig, 1844, p. 78).

The volume furthermore contains: Elegiarum libri VI; Caesares Germanici; De nuptiis Regis Poloniae carmen Heroicum; Ecloga de Gallo ad Ticinum capto; Ecloga de nuptiis Illustrissimi Principis Alberti Marchionis Brandeburgensis; Epigrammatum & Hendecasyllaborum libri II; Liber Carminum Adoptivus; and De carminibus ad veterum imitationem artificiose componendis.

Burenius, Arnoldus. 1530 (p. 412)

Joachim II of Brandenburg. 1532 (p. 413)

id. November, 1532 (p. 415)

Türk, Christoph (p. 418)

Albert of Brandenburg, Archbisop of Mainz. 1532 (p. 420)

Türk, Christoph. 1533 (p. 423)

Eobanus Hessus, Helius to Jonas, Justus. Nürnberg, 1533 (p. 425)

Joachim I of Brandenburg. July 1, 1533(p. 426)

Türk, Christoph. March, 1535 (p. 431)

Bembo, Pietro to Albert of Brandenburg. Padova, February 25, 1533 (p. 434)

id. to Joachim I of Brandenburg. Padova, March 1, 1534 (p. 436)

Egnazio, [Giovanni] Battista to Erasmus, Desiderius. Venezia, August 30, 1534 (p. 437)

Erasmus, Desiderius to Melanchthon, Philipp. Freiburg/Br., October 6, 1534 (p. 439)

from Zuichemus, Vigilis [Ayta, Wigle van]. Speier, September 17, 1536 (p. 440)

from Bembo, Pietro. Padova, June 27, 1535 (p. 445)

Bembo, Pietro. Leipzig, January 1, 1538 (p. 446)

id. Regensburg, May 15, 1541 (p. 449)

from Bembo, Pietro. Roma, May 27, 1541 (p. 450)

Contarini, Gasparo. Frankfurt/O., March 25, 1542 (p. 452)

from Emperor Charles V. Regensburg, July 14, 1541 (p. 454)

Diadusius [Dziaduski], Stanislaus. Frankfurt/O. April, 1543 (p. 457)

from Bembo, Pietro. Roma, April 26, 1543 (p. 463)

Bembo, Pietro. Königsberg, 1545 (p. 464)

from Bembo, Pietro. Roma, July 8, 1545 (p. 466)

from Beccadelli, Ludovico. Roma, November 22, 1545 (p. 469)

from Melanchthon, Philipp. April 6, 1547 (p. 471)

id. Wittenberg, October 15, 1551 (p. 471)

id. Leipzig, January 7, 1551 (p. 473)

Sleidan, Johannes. Frankfurt/O., September 1, 1556 (p. 474)

Georgius Sabinus (Schuler) was educated at Wittenberg under Melanchthon. In 1530 he accompanied the latter to the diet of Augsburg and published a volume of poetry, Elegiae, which immediately attracted the attention of the literary world. In 1533 he left for Italy, where Pietro Bembo came to take interest in him and his work. In August 1534, as he was preparing to return to Germany from Venice, he persuaded Giambattista Egnazio to give him a letter of introduction to Erasmus. By October he was in Freiburg and obtained from Erasmus some flattering letters to take back to Melanchthon.

In 1536 he married Melanchthton's daughter Anna and in 1538 he was appointed to the chair of rhetoric at the University of Frankfurt an der Oder. In 1544 Albert, duke of Prussia, invited him to Königsberg, were he became the rector of the ducal college, which was quickly promoted to the status of a university (cf. L. Mundt, Die Lehrtätigkeit des Georg Sabinus an der Universität Königsberg, in: “Die Universität Königsberg in der Frühen Neuzeit”, H. Marti & M. Komorosowski, eds., Köln, 2008, pp. 77-115).

In 1553 Sabinus was crowned with laurels and dubbed a knight by none other than the papal ‘count palatine' Girolamo Aleandro, Luther's antagonist at the diet of Worms. In 1555 he returned to Frankfurt and was again appointed professor and councillor to Elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, for whom he undertook several diplomatic missions in Italy and Poland.

Sabinus was a fried of Joachim Camerarius and of his fellow poets Eobanus Hessus and Johannes Dantiscus. He corresponded occasionally with Bembo, in whose entourage at Padua he also met Damião de Gois. Apart his poetry he also contributed to classical and historical scholarship, such as a commentary on Ovid and a work on emperor Maximilian (cf. I. Irmscher, Georgius Sabinus, Schüler und Schwiegersohn Melanchthons, in: “Sileno. Rivista di studi classici e cristiana”, XVII, 1991, pp. 299-306; and H. Scheible, Georg Sabinus, 1508-1560: ein Poet als Gründungsrektor, in: “Die Albertus-Universität zu Königsberg und ihre Professoren”, Berlin, 1995, pp. 17-31).

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