Not an uncultured question, and an answer lies four paragraphs into the book description, so I don't blame you for not digging that far. Patrick Olson describes it thus: "Ars minor was arguably the West’s most popular and influential Latin grammar, a schoolbook that was standard fare for centuries and remained in print well into the early modern period. It was also among the handful of small works produced by the first European presses—work since eclipsed by the magisterial splendor of Bibles and Psalters, but today much rarer witnesses to the more popular, workaday products of Europe’s first printers." In layman's terms, Ars minor was an early schoolbook, the text of which was a common print job for the early printers but loses glamour compared to the more popular and enduring print jobs of bibles (as religious works were the most popular, most sought after, most circulated works).
What IS the significance of the Ars Minor? (at the risk of sounding uncultured)
Not an uncultured question, and an answer lies four paragraphs into the book description, so I don't blame you for not digging that far. Patrick Olson describes it thus: "Ars minor was arguably the West’s most popular and influential Latin grammar, a schoolbook that was standard fare for centuries and remained in print well into the early modern period. It was also among the handful of small works produced by the first European presses—work since eclipsed by the magisterial splendor of Bibles and Psalters, but today much rarer witnesses to the more popular, workaday products of Europe’s first printers." In layman's terms, Ars minor was an early schoolbook, the text of which was a common print job for the early printers but loses glamour compared to the more popular and enduring print jobs of bibles (as religious works were the most popular, most sought after, most circulated works).