Beschreibung:

VADIANUS, Joachim (1484-1551). Epitome trium terrae partium, Asiae, Africae et Europae compendiariam locorum descriptionem continens . Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1534. First edition , of an influential description of the world, with references to the New World in the chapter 'insulae Oceani praecipuae,' beginning on page 263. With the rare world map , which Sabin says 'is lacking in most of the copies located.' It is one of the first maps to show the complete outline of the South American continent. The principal source for this map is the Waldseemüller map of 1507, which was adapted by Sebastian Münster in Grynaeus’ Novis orbis regionum (Basel 1532). The present map is a simplified and reduced size copy of Münster’s map, of which there were no later editions although a few copies of a second state are however known with the imprint Apud Io. Ludoicum & Guilelmum Richart 1542. Adams V-10; JCB I, p. 460; Sabin 98279 (erroneously dated 1533); Shirley 70; USTC 653060; VD16 V-20. Woodcut printer’s device on title, double-page woodcut map, decorative woodcut initials (outer left and right margins of map trimmed with loss of c. 1cm). [ Bound third after :] BUCHHOLZER, Abraham (1529-1584). Chronologia, hoc est: Annorum supputatio . Görlitz: Ambrosius Fritsch, 1584. Woodcut printer’s device on title and at the end, woodcut coat-of-arms of Buchholzer on title verso, another at the end, xylographic head- and tail-pieces and initials (48 blank leaves replace pp.434-445 and the 30 leaves of index which are not bound in but housed, untrimmed, in a custom folder, occasional light toning and staining). Rare first edition : no auction records (ABPC/RBH) and only 8 copies held in institutions (USTC). U STC 622548; VD16 B-9029. [ And: ] GIRALDI, Giglio Gregorio (1479-1552). De deis gentium . Basel: Jakob Kündig, Johann Oporinus, 1560. Woodcut printer’s device on title, a few historiated woodcut initials (lacks 4 leaves in quire b (pp.13-16 and 21-24) replaced with blank leaves, light staining to final few leaves). Second enlarged edition of this mythological handbook, unrecorded at auction (ABPC/RBH). USTC records 20 copies in institution holdings. USTC 629426; VD16 G-2104. [ And: ] RHENANUS, Beatus (1485-1547). Rerum Germanicarum libri tres. Basel: Hieronymus Froben & Nikolaus Episcopius, 1551. Woodcut printer’s device on title and last leaf, woodcut initials (light soiling on leaf q1r). Second edition of Beatus Rhenanus’ most important work , which later became one of the main sources of studies on early German history. Only 4 auction records between 1947 and 2002 where it often appears bound with other works (ABPC/RBH). USTC 615366; VD16 R-2065. 4 works bound in one volume, folio (300 x 193mm). Contemporary German blindstamped pigskin over pasteboards, blindstamped portrait of Christoph of Württemberg on upper cover, coat-of-arms of his duchy on lower cover, manuscript titles on spine (lightly soiled and rubbed). Provenance : Germany, Ludwig, Duke of Württemberg (binding) – Schweinfurt, Otto Schäfer collection (OS 1248; acquired in 1982 from H.P. Kraus, New York). A remarkable sammelband containing 4 works of the European geographical knowledge of the time and with the rare map by Vadianus . The binding portrays Christoph of Württemberg (1515-1568) surrounded by the text ‘VON GOTTES GNADEN CHRISTOFF HERTZOG ZU WIRTENBERG SEIN A[LTER] LIII’ therefore indicating that the portrait shows him in his last year, at 54 – and sixteen years before the last printing of this codex. Haebler saw several books decorated with similar plates, most of which were printed after the Duke’s death; he thus assumed that the Duke’s son and successor Ludwig (1554-1593), a bibliophile, commissioned those bindings with the portrait of his father, perhaps as a reverence. Haebler II p.90, no. III and IV.