Select images, bibliographical information, and descriptions of new rare book acquisitions by CRRS over the second half of 2020 — including three new Erasmus volumes.
THESAURUS AMICORUM.
Variis iconibus usque perelegantibus illustratus.
Lyon: Jean de Tournes, 1559[?].
View record.
The Thesaurus Amicorum was a quasi-emblem book, a tome of illustrations of great thinkers, mostly drawn from Greek and Roman society—though Erasmus is also shown. The portraits were depicted in roundels imitating ancient coins. Plenty of space was left for inscriptions by the owner and by friends; indeed, a number of pages are blank to receive such annotations. The margins are decorated with a variety of designs from grotesques and arabesques to adaptations of fantastical figures by Pieter Bruegel.
CATS, Jacob. Houwelyck Dat is De gantsche ghelegentheyt des Echten staets. Middelburg: Jan Pietersz van de Venne, 1625. View record. Houwelyck is more than a guide to marriage as its title declares. It was a guide to womanhood, dividing a woman’s life into six distinct states, to which a specific code of behavior belonged. The author, the Calvinst preacher Jacob Cats, was one of the most popular writers of the Dutch Republic. Known as Father Cats, his books were continuously reprinted. Houwelyck, like several of Cats’s publications, was accompanied by remarkable engravings designed by Adriaen van de Venne, the most important Dutch illustrator of the first half of the seventeenth century.
SCHOPPER, Hartmann. AMMAN, Jost ill. De Omnibus Illiberalibus sive Mechanicis Artibus. Franckfurt a.M.: Georg Rab for Sigmund Feyerabend, 1574. View record. The De Omnibus Illiberalibus sive Mecanicis Artibus was one of the first published books on trades, which are briefly described and illustrated with woodcuts by the important Swiss illustrator Jost Amman. The professions are organized by craft rather than guild, an indication of their new status. The book was issued both in Latin and German editions.
GIOVIO, Paolo. Le iscrittioni poste sotto le vere imagini degli huomini famosi in lettere tradotte di latino in volgare. Venetia: Giovanni de’ Rossi, 1558.
Gift of Prof. Olga Pugliese.
ERASMUS, Desiderius. Institutio principis christiani. 4°. Basel: Johann Froben, July 1518. Erasmus’s Education of a Christian Prince (Institutio principis christiani) was an educational manual for young rulers. The author dedicated the book to the Archduke Charles at his majority in 1516, a few years before he became the Emperor Charles V. The CRRS already owns the first edition of 1516. The 1518 edition contains further additions and corrections by Erasmus and served as the authoritative version for later printings.
ERASMUS, Desiderius (ed.); IRENAEUS, bishop of Lyon (c. 130-c.202). Opus eruditissimum Divi Irenaei i Episcopi Lugdunensis in quinque libros digestum. Basel: Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1548.
[bound with]
ERASMUS, Desiderius (ed.); HILARIUS, bishop of Poitiers (c. 310-c. 367). Lucubrationes quotquot extant, olim per Des. Erasmum Roterod. Basel: Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Episcopius, March 1550. View record.
Erasmus’s edited edition of the writings of the 2nd-century theologian Irenaeus was particularly important since his treatise, Against Heresies (Adversus Haereses) was invoked in the sixteenth century against Protestant sects.
ERASMUS, Desiderius; Ulrich Varnbüler (trans.).Dulce Bellum Inexperto. Eyn gemeyn sprüch-wort, Der krieg ist lustig dem vnerfarnen. Basel: Andream Cartandrum, 6 Nov. 1519.
[bound with]
WALTHER, Georg; LUTHER, Martin. Vom ampt der weltlichen Oberkeit. Jena: Donat Richtzenhayn, 1559. View record.
Erasmus’s Der krieg ist lustig dem unerfarnen is an important German translation of one of his most famous Adages: Dulce Bellum Inexperto—or, ‘War is sweetest to those who haven’t tried it’. His lengthy explication of the adage turned into a highly popular and pithy denunciation of warfare. This was a topic of wide appeal that justified its publication alone and its translation that made it accessible to a broader public.
Luther’s Vom ampt der weltlichen Oberkeit was an important text by this key Reformer. It is first a consideration of the Ten Commandments and proper forms of behaviour. But Luther had also been troubled by mystical and highly personal interpretations of scripture, which he termed ‘enthusiasms’ (Schwärmerei). He wondered how to analyze and contain them. Luther turned to secular authority for a rigorous logic by which to evaluate such spiritual readings.
