[Greek/Latin Classics] Cicero's Topica, with commentary. In which are shown examples of all the passages taken from Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio... Gabriel Giolito de' Ferrari, Venice 1556

Format in-8°, mm. 150x105, pp. (30), 245, (3). Missing the *3 leaf (the first of the index). Contemporary binding in full parchment with handwritten titles on the spine (faded). Halo sign taking part of the text. Rare underlining in ancient ink.

Cinquecentina printed in Venice in 1556 by Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, with an Italian translation by Simone Della Barba (16th century). Rhetorical work by Cicero composed in July 44 BC addressed to his friend the jurist Gaius Trebatius Testa, who had asked Cicero to state and simplify the content of Aristotle's Topica, and deals with topiké, or the art of finding arguments during the inventio phase. The "places" (topoi or loci communes) to which the term topica refers are, according to Aristotle, the places from which arguments are drawn, that is, the commonplaces that can be used in the preparation of a speech, but also in the drafting of a philosophical or poetic work.