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Vocabularius

Lot 62
28.01.2025 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1360778
Lot 62 | Vocabularius
Estimate value
$ 15 000 – 20 000
Vocabularius, in Latin and German. [Augsburg: Günther Zainer, not after 1474].

First edition of a landmark Latin-German dictionary. As only the second printed dictionary to use two languages, Zainer’s Vocabularius is a feat of lexicological prowess, providing technical vocabulary for a wide range of topics: scribes and book production, gastronomy, mineraology, zoology, navigation, carpentry, gambling and more. Four sections are devoted to medicine, comprising: the names of body parts; terms related to bathing, bleeding and cupping; terms related to physicians and medical practices; and the definitions of diseases. These sections are particularly important for recording contemporary medical practices, and feature an extensive entry on apolexia. The Vocabularius also preserves many rare scribal terms that detail the practicalities of contemporary book production, such as 'antipira (the scribe’s eye-shade, for protection against the fire or candle-light), corrosorium (the mill or grinder to reduce chalk to a powder for the preparation of vellum) and epicausterium (the table-cloth on which the parchment is laid for ease of writing)' (Norman). Rare at auction. BMC II, 321; Goff V-322; Klebs (Add) 1044.01; ISTC iv00322000.

Chancery folio (290 × 206mm). 138 leaves. Woodcut Maiblumen initial colored in red at beginning of text. Rubricated, manuscript page numbers and occasional titles (some pale stains, minute worming in lower gutter). Half calf over wooden boards (restored, lacking flyleaves); modern box. Provenance: marginalia in a few hands – Austrian export stamp ‘Bundesdenkmalamt’ – André Simon (bookplate, but not in his Bibliotheca Bacchica nor the 1981 sale catalogue of his gastronomy collection).
Place of origin:Germany
Auction house category:Antiquarian books, Medicine & science, Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
14.01.2025 – 28.01.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
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