Oratio de bello adversus Turcam suscipiendo, ad Ferdinandum Ungariae boemiaequ regem & principes Germaniae

Basel, Froben, 1538.4to. Modern boards. With 2 woodcut printer’s devices. 18 lvs. First Latin translation of Oration, Anred und Vermanung Herrn Ferdinandum zu Ungern, Nuremberg, Peypus,1531, a pamphlet on the Turkish wars in Hungary which began with the siege of Vienna in 1529. 'Agricola gives a long-winded account of the Turks' cruelties and warns that Germany is now threatened by the Turkish forces. Hungary must be given every assistance. No writer has so praised the superiority of the Imperial armaments over the apparently weak Turkish weaponry. He stressed the superior arms of the German mercenaries, while the Turks had but flimsy pikes. Victory over a so poorly equipped enemy is nothing less than certain. His oration was written a few months after the siege of Vienna, which may explain his excessive optimism' (Kertbeny, p. 89 etc.). With preface by Georg Fabricius dedicated to Chemnitz and at the end a letter of Laurentius Bermannus to king Ferdinand, ex valle Joachimi April, 1530. A catholic with a broad humanistic education, George Agricola spent most of his life in Saxony as an educator, physician, scientist, and expert on mining and metallurgy. His outlook was more secular than that of the other pamphleteers. He viewed the Turkish question primarily as a militair and economic problem rather than as a divine visitation. In one respect his views resembled those of the other Catholic writers: he envisaged the eventual extirpation of the Islamic religion at the point of the sword. (Bohnstedt p.14). - (3 blank corners restored).Göllner 617; Apponyi I, 268; Sturminger 234;Jöcher 63; Hubay 165.