CLÉNARD (Nicolas). - Lot 29

CLÉNARD (Nicolas). Epistolarum libri duo. Anvers, Christophe Plantin, 1566. 2 parts in one volume in-8, blond calf, double fillet, ornate spine (18th century binding). Fine Plantinian edition of letters written by the author during a journey to Granada and Morocco to study Islamic society and research Koranic manuscripts. The author's grand design was the Christianization of Muslim peoples by peaceful means based on knowledge of their language and culture. The first text is addressed to Charles V, the second to the Christian community. Nicolas Clénard (1495-1542), a Flemish humanist and pedagogue, taught himself Arabic from texts by Avicenna, translations of Galen and Hippocrates, but above all from reading the Psalterium Nebiense by Bishop Agostino Giustiniani. In search of teachers and texts, he travelled to the Iberian Peninsula in the company of Fernand Columbus, the son of the famous discoverer. He taught Greek in Salamanca, became tutor to Cardinal Infante D. Henrique of Portugal, then spent a long time in Morocco before dying in Granada, the last bastion of Arab culture in the West. Spine redone.