Lot 3193: LAZIUS, WOLFGANG (1514-1565).

COMMEN: RERUM GRAECARUM LIBRI II. IN QUIBUS TAM HELLADIS QUAM PELOPONNESI, QUAE IN LUCEM ANTEA NON VENERUNT, EXPLICANTUR, [ETC.]. [VIENNA: R. HOFHALTER], 1558

LAZIUS, WOLFGANG (1514-1565).

folio (360 x 240mm.), ff. [90], signed [A] B-L⁴, chi², M-Y⁴, title and dedication tablet to Ferdinand printed in red, illustration: title printed within an elaborate woodcut border, with engraved portrait of Lazius by Lautensack on verso ([A]1), engraved quasi-armorial frame enclosing printed dedication (in red) to Ferdinand ([A]2recto), engraved frame of the Twelve Labours of Hercules with inscriptions enclosing "Ad lectorem" ([A]4recto), 2 additional leaves with woodcuts of coins (both with black versos), one bound after [A]5 and the other after chi2, 2 folding engraved maps, one in each part, the first "Chorographia Helladis" and the second "Peloponnesus peninsula" (see further below), binding: early seventeenth-century French mottled calf, gilt arms of Pétau on covers [Olivier 2290 fer 1; see note below], with monogram in six spine compartments, slightly rubbed

PROVENANCE

Paul Pétau (1568-1614), French littérateur and antiquarian, born in Orléans, or his son Paul-Alexandre Pétau, who in 1628 succeeded him as conseiller at the Parlement de Paris. The son also inherited the father's books and manuscripts. At his death the manuscripts were acquired by Queen Christina and left to the Vatican, the printed books being sold in 1722 at The Hague together with those of F. Mansard; Nicolas-Joseph Foucault with his large engraved bookplate

LITERATURE

VD16 L846; Karrow 49; see M. Mayr, Wolfgang Lazius als Geschichtschreiber Österreichs: Ein Beitrag zur Historiographie des 16. Jahrhunderts. Mit Nachträgen zur Biographie (Innsbruck, 1894) and the article by E. Trenkler in Biblos (Vienna) 27 (1978), "Wolfgang Lazius, Humanist und Büchersammler".

NOTE

first edition and a fine copy. The second edition (see lot 3194) has no maps or illustrations.

Lazius is one of the great names in the history of humanism in Austria and the German-speaking lands, and an important figure in the history of cartography. His father was the dean of the medical faculty at Vienna University, where Wolfgang Lazius himself took his master's degree, before eventually taking his doctorate at Ingolstadt 1538. This "foreign" doctorate initially militated against his medical career, but he quickly overcame this and became a highly successful medical figure in both the academic and practical spheres.

It is however as a historian that he is today remembered, and in particular for his De gentium migrationibus published in Basel by Oporinus (John Dee's annotated copy is in the Macclesfield Library), but he wrote widely, and devoted much attention to Austrian history, publishing a celebrated atlas of Austria in 1561. He also produced a map of Hungary. The two maps of Greece in this work are "purely historical, and all geographical designations have been taken from old authors. The first in based on Ptolemy, the second on Italian models" (Karrow p.340). He had in fact had to make these maps in a hurry, and therefore later decided to revise them, but no copy of the map of northern Greece has come down to us except for a fragment with his bookplate which is in Munich. The revised map of the Peloponnese has survived and is very different from that in this volume.

In his dedication to the emperor Ferdinand, Lazius tells us that the maps were made by his own hand and are illustrated with all the geographical features of Greece ("minimis oppidis, castris, nemoribus, montibus... vallibus, fluviis... templis ac portubus adeo notatis, quoad eius fieri potuit quam brevissime in angustis his tabellis..."). He explains how he has drawn on the ancient historians and also on physical survivals (coins etc.), as well as more modern works (he mentions Gerbelius, and his medical friend Jacobus Milich) which, he hopes, will be explained to some extent by his book. He also mentions the Sophianos map, which, he says, is "nimis generalis, et unde tot dubia autorum ac praecipue poetarum lector non intelliget". He also sings the praises of the Oporinus press and its staff, and asks the emperor to excuse his own nervous attempts ("mea ars, quam in sculpendo aere titubantibus meis manibus...") at cartography, and he also acknowledges the criticism which might be levelled by the censorious ("nasuti homines", literally "large-nosed men") that he has never set foot in Greece, but replies that Strabo and Pausanias, and others, have done it for him.

The Hungarian humanist Sambucus, in his Veterum aliquot ac recentium Medicorum Philosophorumque Icones of 1574, wrote of him: "Haud Italo, aut Gallis, postponam Lazia scripta / Gnaviter ihtrou vela secutus erat / Colligit Austriacam subolem, Romanaque castra / Ut migrent gentes. Plura daturus obit."

This is, by any reckoning, an extremely rare book, of which only a handful of copies are recorded. There is no copy in the British Isles, Karrow lists copies at the BNF Paris, SB Munich (=VD copy), and Harvard (Houghton Library, bound with Nicetas Acominatus, LXXXVI annorum historia, 1557) plus a copy at San Diego in California, and an imperfect copy at Hawaii (lacking the maps). To these should be added the copies in Vienna, Berlin, Tübingen, Augsburg, and a second copy in Munich.