Seneca the Younger is well known to history both as tutor to the Emperor Nero and as a writer of prose and poetry. This edition brings together many of his philosophical works with his famous 124 ‘moral letters to Lucilius’, a procurator of Sicily otherwise unknown. It also includes the letters that Seneca was thought to have written to Saint Paul, which are now known to be spurious.

The letters usually begin with an observation on daily life which then paves the way to Seneca’s philosophical considerations for the benefit of Lucilius’ moral development. It is unclear if Seneca corresponded with Lucilius or if he made use of this medium as a literary genre to convey his ideas, but it is plausible that the two did exchange letters.

The philosophical texts include: De remediis fortuitorum, De clementia, De beneficiis, De ira, De mundi gubernatione, De beata vita, De consolatione, De tranquillitate vitae, Quomodo in sapientem non cadit iniuria, De brevitate vitae, and De moribus. This edition also includes Pseudo-Seneca [Martin of Braga]’s De quattuor virtutibus cardinalibus, and Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder’s Declamationes, Suasoriae, and Controversiae.

As Seneca’s views often aligned with Christian beliefs, his works continued to be popular into the Renaissance. This is a copy of the second edition of his philosophical works, printed in Treviso (near Venice) by Bernardus de Colonia.

Binding description
Near-contemporary half-bound alum tawed pigskin over wooden (oak) boards. Leather decorated with blind-stamped floral tools and fillets; blind-stamped fillet on long edge of wooden boards; missing clasps; paper label with illegible ms. inscription on upper board. Spine with seven double raised bands (two of them false), decorated with blind fillets. Pastedowns of plain paper; includes ms. waste visible on inner front board, likely dating from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century.