JESUIT SERMON, READ TO THE POPE

Guiniggi, Vincenzo, S.J.: Oratio in Parasceve habita a Vincentio Guinisio Societatis Iesu coram S.D.N. Urbano VIII Pont. Max. in Sacello Vaticano. Romae, typis Alexandri Zanetti 1624.

An excellent copy of the rare first edition of this sermon, it was read before Pope Urban VIII in the Sistine Chapel on Good Friday (5 April) 1624. It was subsequently reprinted in two different collections, one of this author’s writings (1636), and one a general collection of Jesuit sermons (1641, 1724). Vincenzo Guiniggi (1588-1653) was a professor of rhetoric at the Jesuit college in Rome. He was for twelve years personal secretary to Muzio Vitelleschi, the superior general of the Jesuit order, and is recognised as an accomplished neo-Latin poet. The pamphlet has a dedicatory epistle, to Cardinal Alessandro Orsini from the author’s nephew, Lelio Guiniggi. In this letter, the nephew regrets that the cardinal was not attending the sermon.

Details

4to., pp. 12. Typographical decoration to title-page, woodcut initials, head- and tail-piece. Light age-yellowing, a very faint stain at pp. 7-8, a very nice, fresh copy in recent orange wrappers, bookplate of Giannalisa Feltrinelli.

Backer-Sommervogel III 1941-2 #5. OCLC (05/17) shows copies in Bibliothèque Nationale and St. Michael’s College Toronto; not in the SBN catalogue.