Beschreibung
THE FAIRFAX COPY OF THE RARE 1559 EDITION. Basel: Heinrich Petri, March 1559 (Colophon: "BASILIAE APVD HENRICHVM ÎΠΤRÎ / MENSE MARTIO, ANNO SA-/LVTIS M. D. LIX."). Folio in 8s (11 15/16" x 7 7/8", 305mm x 200mm). [Full collation available.] With 52 woodcut maps and views integral to the text, of which 50 are double-page and 2 are folding. Bound in contemporary panelled calf over wooden boards (re-backed). In the outer scrollwork border, the initials GC in a tabula ansata repeated (5 times to the front, 6 to the back). On the spine, six raised bands. Title gilt to the second panel. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Re-backed, with an earlier (not, perhaps, the original) back-strip laid down. Wear and rubbing to the extremities. Lacking quire H (map of Bern), and quires T and V swapped. Some shaving to the peripheries of the woodcuts, although generally good margins. Some patches of edge-wear, especially along the folding plates. Spot-offsetting to QQ-RR and a closed tear to Hhh8. Some early marginalia, e.g., a manicule to p. 105, notes to pp. 298-299 and 304. Booksellers' notes and auction records written and tipped in to the recto of the first free end-paper. Ownership signature of "Carolus Fairfax" to the title-page along with another notation (shelving? price?) in a similar ink. Manuscript poem to 31r (the verso of the double-page map of Europe) headed with "Script ex Munst TF/ de Denton militis./" and signed "Qd. Ryther"; see below. Sebastian Münster (1488-1552) was a cartographer and Hebraist -- though in fact he was a true polymath and humanist. He published on language and mathematics, astronomy and cartography, and was one of the great biblical exegetes. Indeed, such is his intellectual legacy that his was the face on the 100 Deutsche Mark note used in West Germany 1962-1991. Münster's legacy is due most of all to his Cosmographia -- of which this is a rare Latin edition -- which is in some senses an atlas, but more truly an encyclopedia. Its ambit is the world, its span all of human history. To descriptions of various nations or regions Münster adds sections on the tools of navigation and surveying, the histories of empires and even religious heterodoxy: the "Prester John letter" in both Latin and Hebrew, describing the mythical Christian realm in the East. This edition contains an especially full account of the Americas, exceeding the German editions published in 1553 and 1564, including the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci and Ferdinand Magellan. The maps and woodcuts (some by Hans Holbein the Younger) are among the most important of the XVIc, including the earliest depiction of the Americas as discrete continents. The provenance of the volume begins mysteriously: who is the GC whose initials fill tabulae ansatae (panels with triangular handles at the sides)? The binding is German in style, and the tabula ansata is a decidedly humanist motif; perhaps the owner was in Münster's circle? Next we turn to the Latin poem written on the back of the map of Europe. [Full transcription and translation available.] The poem itself is six elegiac couplets -- in the mode of Catullus or Tibullus or Propertius -- fittingly for the subject: the rape of Europa. It is a sort of prayer for Europe, addressed in part to Europa (whom Juno transformed into a cow in a vain attempt to prevent Jupiter from taking him as her mistress; the Bosphorus (Greek for "cow-bearing") is the water she crossed to escape her torment by a gadfly) and in part to Jupiter, king of the gods. The ownership signature of "Carolus Fairfax" on the title-page is probably that of the antiquary and genealogist Charles Fairfax (1597-1673). Charles was the third surviving son of Thomas Fairfax (1560-1640; created first Lord Fairfax of Cameron in the peerage of Scotland in 1627), who fought under Sir Francis Vere in the Low Countries during the Anglo-Spanish War. Adams M 1911; Burden 12 (the map of America: state 10); Sabin 51382; Shirley 77 (world map); VD16 M 6718. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers JLR0439
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