Oratio M. Antonii Bonciarii. Perusiae in Seminario habita XV. Kal. Quint. M.D.LXXXVII. Cum ibi Humaniores litteras profiteri inciperet

4to (205x155 mm). [14] leaves. Collation: A-B4 C6. On the title page woodcut coat of arms of the dedicatee, Cardinal Antonio Maria Gallo. Woodcut historiated initials. Modern cardboards. Some marginal staining and soiling.
First edition of this academic oration held at the Perugia seminary in 1587 on the occasion of the renewal of the chair of humanities first awarded to Bonciari in 1576.
Marco Antonio Bonciari was born in the castle of Antria, near Perugia, in 1555. In 1567 Cardinal Fulvio della Cornia welcomed him to the newly established seminary in Perugia. After completing his studies in literature and philosophy, at the age of nineteen the cardinal sent him to Rome for two years to perfect his Latin under Muretus, before entrusting him with teaching at the same seminary: a position later confirmed by Cardinal Antonio Maria Gallo in 1587, after a five-year suspension following the death of Della Cornia. Having become completely blind, in 1592 the bishop of Perugia, Napoleone Comitoli, called him to the international college of St. Bernard (now the Benedictine monastery of St. Catherine) which he had founded, and Bonciari held a chair there until his death in Perugia in 1616. A staunch follower of Cicero, he maintained a dense network of correspondence with numerous leading figures of the time, including Cardinals Baronio, Bellarmino, and Federico Borromeo, as well as Bernardino Baldi, Giusto Lipsio, Aldo Manuzio il Giovane, Fulvio Orsini, Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, Luigi Alamanni, Belisario Bulgarini, Giambattista Marino, and others. He was a member of the Accademia degli Insensati in Perugia and the Accademia degli Umoristi in Rome (cf. R. Negri, Bonciari, Marco Antonio, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 11, Rome, 1969, s.v.).
Edit 16, CNCE6940; USTC, 816161.