Cunaeus, Petrus (1586-1638). — Orationes Varii Argumenti. Accedit Praeter alias ejusdem Dissertationes Consilium in causa Postliminii.

Leyden, Isaac Commelin, 1640, 1st ed., (24),307 pag., woodcut printer's mark, vignettes and initials, contemporary vellum with title in ink on spine, duodecimo. = Rare first edition. Petrus Cunaeus was the pen name of the Dutch Christian scholar Peter van der Kun. His book The Hebrew Republic is considered "the most powerful statement of republican theory in the early years of the Dutch Republic. Cunaeus enrolled at the University of Leyden at the age of fourteen, where he studied Greek and Hebrew. Following a trip to England in 1603, he returned to Leyden to study theology and jurisprudence. He was introduced to rabbinic studies and Aramaic by Johannes Drusius. In 1612, Cunaeus became a professor of Latin, in 1613 of politics, and in 1615 of jurisprudence, a position he held until his death. An important idea of Cunaeus was, that manufacturing and commerce led to moral corruption of all kinds, the collapse of virtuous republican government among them. Virtue was equated with material simplicity, small-hold farmers, and an egalitarian distribution of wealth.