LAMPRIDIO (Benedetto) - Benedicti Lampridii Necnonio Bap. Almathei Carmina. Vivo Morte, Refectava Mea. Non sine Priuilegio.

Venetiis Apud Gabrielem Iolitum de Ferrariis, MDL. 1550. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, 161 x 95 mms., 84 leaves, with detailed woodcut initials at the beginning of each poem and errata on verso of last leaf, later quarter calf, marbled boards (rubbed), remnants of label on spine; top of spine chipped, front hinge cracked, but a good copy, with a Milan bookseller's ticket on the front paste-down end-paper as well as the Ex Libris of C. Lacy Hulbert-Powell. Born in Cremona, the Italian poet Benedetto Lamprido (1478 - 1539) moved to Rome towards the end of the 15th century and through the offices of the scholar Janus Lascaris (1445 - 1535) was appointed to a professorship of Greek at the College of the Greeks, newly founded by Pope Leo X. He never competed for a university post. Wikiepedia reports that "Aonio Paleario , having heard him explain to his pupils a harangue of Demosthenes, wrote to Bembo: 'He had the voice and the gesture of that prince of orators; he seemed full of his spirit.'"