Author: NICOLAIUS (Joanes Secunds):
Title: Kisses; A Poetical Translation of the Basia of Joannes Secundus Nicolaius. With the Original Latin, and An Essay on his Life and Writings. The Third Edition, with Additions. and the Epithalamium translated.
Description: London, Printed by D. Bond...for J. Bew..., 1778. Large 8vo, 232 x 141 mms.,pp. x, [11] - 238 [239 adverts, 240 blank] including half-title printed in red, title-page in red and black, engraved frontispiece by Bartolozzi after Mortimer, with an additional engraved title-page and half-title, portrait of Secundus from a painting by Scorellius, after page 47, with the word "kisses" often printed in red, bound in contemporary dark straight-grain red morocco, gilt spine, all edges gilt, with the inscription`"Hery. Poole/ " on the verso of the front free end-paper. A very good copy. The translation is by John Nott. Johannes Secundus (also Janus Secundus, (1511 – 1536) was a Neo-Latin poet of Dutch nationality. "His most famous work, though, was the Liber Basiorum (Book of Kisses, first complete edition 1541), a short collection consisting of nineteen poems in various metres, in which the poet explores the theme of the kiss in relation to his Spanish lover, Neaera. The 'Basia' are really extended imitations of Catullus (in particular poems 5 and 7) and some poems from the Anthologia Graeca; Secundus situates his poetry, stylistically as well as thematically, firmly with the Neo-Catullan tradition. Variations on the central theme include: imagery of natural fertility; the 'arithmetic' of kissing; kisses as nourishment or cure; kisses that wound or bring death; and the exchange of souls through kissing. Secundus also introduces elements of Neo-Platonism and Petrarchism into his poems" (Wikipedia), ESTC T101632.

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