Hilarius Cantiuncula and his book of poems

摘要

THE present brief investigation arose out of the discovery of an unfortunate error in theBritish Museum's Short-title Catalogue of Italian Books 1463-1600 (1958), where onpage 327 we read the following entry:'Hilarius, a writer of Latin verse in Germany. Cantiunculae hendecasyllaborum liber. ApudP. Petramsanctam: [Gualtiero Scotto:] Venetijs, 1555. 8°. (11409.aa.43(1)).'It was not reahzed at the time that in fact Cantiuncula is the author's surname, not partof the title of the book. He was Hilarius Cantiuncula, in the vernacular Hilaire Chansonnette,whom nowadays we should look upon rather as a Frenchman than a German.