"A DEFINING TEXT FOR RENAISSANCE HUMANISM, INFLUENCING BOTTICELLI, DA VINCI, GALILEO, MACHIAVELLI, MONTAIGNE AND SHAKESPEARE"
(CREECH, Thomas) LUCRETIUS. Titus Lucretius Carus. Oxford, 1683.
Exceedingly rare second edition in English, first "corrected and enlarged" edition of the previous year's elusive first edition, of Roman poet Lucretius' On the Nature of Things, a seminal work in Western history offering "key principles of a modern understanding of the world," as well as a "crucial guide" to Thomas Jefferson, who proclaimed himself "an Epicurean" like Lucretius, owned an edition of Creech's translation, and gave the Declaration of Independence "a distinctly Lucretian turn" by naming "the pursuit of happiness" to be a pivotal American right, with copper-engraved frontispiece, handsomely bound. $7500.
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