GARLANDIA, Johannes de.

Elegant production by de Worde of the thirteenth-century medieval grammarian Johannes de Garlandia’s book of words with multiple meanings, first published in 1493 in the Low Countries and by de Worde in 1499. The book functions as a Latin dictionary, words appearing in alphabetical order. De Garlandia gives the several different meanings of each word, including sometimes their uses in longer phrases and changes to the meaning that occur when in the genitive, etc. An explanation is then provided for each, giving their etymology or derivation, declination, etc. English translations are occasionally given, so that the verb torquere is defined as to torture, to ‘wrethe or to wynde a corde or a withe’ or to ‘cast a darte’). The book was intended as an amusing and easily useable guide to students of Latin, to increase their vocabulary while also providing points of grammar; Plomer called it ‘a schoolbook in great demand’ (p. 32). Some of the equivocacies are more abstract or philosophical, such as ‘puer’ or ‘boy’ referring to the age, state or condition of boyhood, to being pure or innocent, and to the fact that boys do not have beards. The book ends with a Latin hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary.

Pre-Elizabethan English imprints, of all sorts, are now commercially rare. This ed. is extremely rare, OCLC and ESTC noting only two copies, at the BL and Dulwich College, and a single privately owned copy in North America.