Ceporinus (Zurich, 1560)

Author of this page: Elena Lu, Harvard (2024)

Gessner praises the virtues of Hieronymus Manuel the son and Hieronymus Manuel the father, likening the former to the latter in name and in character.

[I’ll skim the dedication to Hieronymus Manuel that follows this poem and use that for context.]

This poem appears on the verso of the title page, and followed only by a dedication to Hieronymus Manuel of Beaune (Bernensis) before the start of the main text.

Translation:

Conrad Gessner for Hieronymus Manuel the son, likening him to his father.

Hieronymus the son, may you take on a sacred first-name[1] to repay your father, excellent as he is in managing his life: if indeed you should copy him in manners and in virtue, thus would the same first-name and luck befit you. May the highest grace of God be present and make happen that you indeed have the last-name Manuel as well.

Notes:

[1] The name of the poem’s dedicatee and of his father, “Hieronymus,” derives from Greek (ἱερὸν ὄνομα) to mean “sacred name.” Unlike Greek (whose speakers had only ὄνοματα), Latin distinguishes between the praenomen, the nomen, and the cognomen.

Transcription:

Conradus Gesnerus Hieronymo Manuel F. πατρίζειν.

Nomine cum sacro referas Hieronyme fili

Praeclarum vitae dexteritate patrem :

Moribus et virtute etiam si expresseris ipsum,

Sic tibi conveniet nomen et omen idem.

Sic quoque cognomen Manuel tibi verius esse,

Efficiet praesens gratia summa Dei.

Citation:

Conrad Gessner, Poem, in Jacobus Ceporinus, Compendium Grammaticae Graecae, ex postrema authoris editione, nunc primum opera Iohannis Frisij Tigurini castigatum et auctum. Zurich: Froschauer, 1560, p. 4. Zentralbibliothek Zürich, shelf mark 5.351. Link: https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-4905