1585 Selva do Varia Lettione Pero Mexia ANTIQUE Science history people & animals

Selva do Varia Lettione di Petro Messia, divisia in cinque parti

nella quali sono utili cose, dotti ammaestramenti, & varij discorsi appartenenti cosi alle scientie, come alle Historie de gli huomini & de gli animali.

(Science and history of people and animals)



Venice, 1585


Size 4 by 6"   

444 leaves (888 pages)


Later binding

Very good condition


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Pedro Mejía (old Spanish spelling: Pero Mexía) ( 1497 – 1551) was a Spanish Renaissance writer, humanist and historian.

He was born and died in Seville, where he lived for the majority of his life and for which there is always a special affection in his writings.

He studied humanities and law at Seville and Salamanca universities. He maintained correspondence with Erasmus of Rotterdam, Luis Vives and Juan Gines de Sepulveda. In 1548, he was appointed official chronicler of the court of Emperor Charles V.

His major work is Silva de varia lección (A Miscellany of Several Lessons) , which became an early best seller across Europe. 
It is an encyclopedic miscellany or mixture of subjects of interest across the diverse repertoire of humanistic knowledge of the time.
The work takes material from the Attic Nights by Aulus Gellius, the Banquet of the Sophists by Athenaeus, the Saturnalia of Macrobius, the Memorable deeds and sayings of Valerius Maximus, the Inventor of all things by Polidoro Virgilio, the Moralia and Parallel Lives of Plutarch and, above all, the Natural History of Pliny the Elder.
It also contains work by Erasmus of Rotterdam.
Traces of this miscellany can be found in works by Mateo Alemán, Miguel de Cervantes, Shakespeare and Montaigne, to mention only a few of the authors he influenced.

Pedro Mexia was among the first scientific Renaissance scholars to write for a popular audience; in this work covering various subjects relating to astronomy, gastronomy, and medicine. He also describes Magellan's first circumnavigation of the earth; Mexia himself witnessed Magellan's fleet leaving Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1519 and returning in 1522.

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