DUAE CYPRIANI SOAREZ PRAEFATIONES AD OPUS DE ARTE RHETORICA LIBRI TRES COMMENTARIIS RHETORICIS INSTRUCTAE

De Arte Rhetorica Libri Tres (1562) written by Cyprian Soarez (1524-1593), priest and teacher of the Society of Jesus, was the standard rhetorical manual in the Ratio Studiorum and thus was used for over two centuries in Jesuit colleges throughout the world. Concerned that young students of Latin were not yet ready for the major rhetorical texts of antiquity, such as Cicero’s and Quintilian’s, Soarez wrote this manual as a digest of ancient rhetoric to the beginner. This thesis uses the rhetorical precepts found in Cyprian’s work to analyze the work’s own two prefaces. Thus, it aims at providing today’s Latin learner with a gateway into the mastery of Latin eloquence and the Neo-Latin scholar with the rare opportunity of investigating an author’s rhetorical output according to the author’s own teachings on the art of rhetoric.