De figuris Veneris. Manual of classical erotology.
The Beautiful Letters| N° d'inventaire | 31504 |
| Format | 12.5 x 19.2 |
| Détails | 448 p., paperback |
| Publication | Paris, 2025 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782251456799 |
The edition of the Hermaphroditus (1824) by Antonio Beccadelli (1394-1471) by Friedrich Karl Forberg (1770-1848) presents itself as a feast. The "first course" offers the reader a collection of 81 erotic epigrams, a learned pastiche of the crudest pages of Latin literature. The "second course" offers an exposition stuffed with erudition: it is the De figuris Veneris , a reasoned treatise on amorous postures, of which one will find here the first critical edition, accompanied by the translation by Alcide Bonneau, published under the famous title of Manuel d'érotologie classique (1882). We have added the "third course" concocted by Forberg, a series of plates intended to satisfy the reader's appetite.
The translator mischievously underlines the contrast between the facetious subjects submitted for examination and the rigor of the scientific apparatus mobilized. At the time when a science of antiquity (Altertumswissenschaft) was being established, "only a serious scholar from across the Rhine was perhaps capable of studying all the known kinds of natural and extranatural pleasures," as a luminous exegete of Greek and Latin testimonies considered obscure since the time of the humanists. In a superb lesson in the text, Forberg demonstrates that the most austere classical philology can sometimes exude an aphrodisiac perfume.
The edition of the Hermaphroditus (1824) by Antonio Beccadelli (1394-1471) by Friedrich Karl Forberg (1770-1848) presents itself as a feast. The "first course" offers the reader a collection of 81 erotic epigrams, a learned pastiche of the crudest pages of Latin literature. The "second course" offers an exposition stuffed with erudition: it is the De figuris Veneris , a reasoned treatise on amorous postures, of which one will find here the first critical edition, accompanied by the translation by Alcide Bonneau, published under the famous title of Manuel d'érotologie classique (1882). We have added the "third course" concocted by Forberg, a series of plates intended to satisfy the reader's appetite.
The translator mischievously underlines the contrast between the facetious subjects submitted for examination and the rigor of the scientific apparatus mobilized. At the time when a science of antiquity (Altertumswissenschaft) was being established, "only a serious scholar from across the Rhine was perhaps capable of studying all the known kinds of natural and extranatural pleasures," as a luminous exegete of Greek and Latin testimonies considered obscure since the time of the humanists. In a superb lesson in the text, Forberg demonstrates that the most austere classical philology can sometimes exude an aphrodisiac perfume.