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Etymologiae

Lot 31
28.01.2025 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
ID 1360747
Lot 31 | Etymologiae
Estimate value
$ 50 000 – 70 000
ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS (c.560–636). Etymologiae. [Strasbourg: Johann Mentelin, c.1473].

Second edition of Isidore of Seville’s epoch-defining encyclopaedia, with the second map ever printed. The first printed map is a T-O world map that appeared in Zainer’s first edition of the Etymologiae published one year prior to the present edition by Mentelin. The present edition features a more detailed mappa mundi, constituting the second time that a map appeared in a printed book. T-O maps were an innovation of Isidore of Seville’s and appear in many manuscript copies of his magnum opus and were subsequently rendered as woodcuts for the first printed copies. The unsigned Zainer map depicts the three continents divided by a T-shaped Mediterranean Sea, but Mentelin’s map further divides Zainer’s single Mare magnum (‘Great Sea’) into more detailed continental boundaries: the Nile (‘Nilus fluvius’) between Asia and Africa, the Don (‘Tanai fluvius’) between Asia and Europe and the Sea of Azov (‘Meotices palus’) that it flows into – thus giving a more detailed image.

Based principally on late Latin compendia, the Etymologiae provided an invaluable single source of late Classical scientific knowledge and lexicography. ‘An encyclopedic dictionary is too disconnected to present a scientific world view; but Isidore carefully and quite accurately preserved much of the scientific lore current late in the Roman period, when original work had long since ceased and facility in Greek had perished’ (DSB). ‘An industrious and uncritical compiler, he supplied factual as well as fantastic information culled from all the ancient authors available to him (and incidentally preserved much material that has since been lost). Isidore thus became the chief authority of the Middle Ages and the presence of his book in every monastic, cathedral, and college library was a main factor in perpetuating the state of knowledge and the modes of thought of the late-Roman world’ (PMM). Treated are medicine, mathematics, astronomy, geography, meteorology, geology, botany, agriculture, human anatomy, shipbuilding, architecture and other scientific subjects.

Johann Mentelin was the first printer in Strasbourg, where in 1466 he created the first printed Bible in a vernacular language. The present copy was owned by an early Strasbourg physician ‘Richardo Divo Physico Argentinen[se]’, who likely Latinized his name from Göttlich (‘godly’) to Divus. A faint inscription on the fore-edge is a sign of horizontal book storage as common in medieval and early modern libraries.

BMC dates Mentelin’s edition around 1473, but Klebs estimates 1472, potentially giving priority to Mentelin’s map over Zainer’s (printed at the end of 1472 on 19 November) as the first printed map.

Rare, with only seven recorded auction sales in the past century (RBH) and fourteen copies in US institutions (ISTC). T. Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472–1500 (British Library, 1987). HC *9270; BMC I 57; BSB-Ink I-628; Bod-inc I-036; CIBN I-68; GW M15263; Goff I-182; Schramm XIX p. 13; Klebs 536.1; ISTC ii00182000.

Royal folio (403 × 267mm). 141 leaves (of 142, without the first blank). Rubricated, running heads and paraphs (first and last leaves reinforced at gutter, intermittent dampstaining heavy in some spots, handful of marginal repairs, a little worming in a few quires). Contemporary German blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, title written along fore-edge (?restored, later pastedowns without endleaves, leather cracked at edges, darkened, lightly wormed, evidence of bosses and clasps). Provenance: Richardus Divus, physician of Strasbourg, likely a Latinization of Richard Göttlich (‘Richardo Divo Phisico Argentinen[se]’, early inscription on colophon with the motto ‘Viva chi vince’) – Ampleforth Abbey, North Yorkshire (blindstamp; sale Sotheby's, 1 December 2010, lot 130).
Place of origin:Germany
Auction house category:Antiquarian books, Medicine & science, Printed books
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