“The study of printed books cannot be limited to their printed contents.” — Anthony Grafton.

The engagement early modern readers had/have with their texts is no more clearly depicted than by the notes they have left in their books. After reading Carlo Ginzburg’s The Cheese and the Worms (1976), I began writing in “my” books leaving traces for not only myself but those who would get the books next. I have always been drawn to books with little bread crumbs in  them and even a tiny mark in a book, a booksellers code, a shelf mark even a fingerprint of a printer intrigues me, thus over the years I have sold many so marked books. Today I am going to post images and descriptions of three such books..

I hope you can find more than I can from these images! 

558G   Bartholini (the elder), Caspar.        1583-1629

Johannes Magirus (c. 1560 – 1596)

Ioannis Magiri physiologiae peripateticæ libri sex cum commentariis, in quibus præcepta illius perspicue, eruditeque explicantur, & ex optimis quibusuis peripateticæ philosophiæ interpretibus, Platone, Aristotele, Zabarella, Archangelo Mercenario, Thoma Erasto … : accessit Caspari Bartholoini malmogij Dani Enchiridion metaphysicum, ex philosophorum coryphæi Aristotelis, optimorumque eius interpretum monumentis adornatum.
   [bound with]
Enchiridion metaphysicum ex philosophorum coryphaei, Aristotelis, optimorumque eius interpretum monumentis adornatum opera      

Francofurti : impensis Petri Musculi : excudebat Ioannes Bringerus, 1616   $2800

Octavo, 6 ½ X 4 inches. Editio octaua Wittenbergensi melior & notis auctior. A-2X8 2Y3 This copy is bound in full contemporary vellum dated on the front board 1617 with the initials M.C.L. further there are two minute ownership signatures dated 1617 (see image). The Enchiridion is heavily annotated in a microscopic had which is very very neat (see images)
The annotations continue throughout the whole text of this section.             Johannes Magirus (c. 1560 – 1596) was a German physician and natural philosopher. He was born at Fritzlar about 1560; his background was Lutheran.[1] He studied at the University of Padua, and took a medical degree at the University of Marburg in 1585
see:Lorraine Daston, Michael Stolleis, Natural Law and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Europe: jurisprudence, theology, moral and natural philosophy (2008), p. 117; Physiologiae Peripateticae libri sex (1597). This was a textbook treatment of Aristotelian philosophy, and was still in use 50 years later. It was employed to teach physics in the early years of Harvard College. by Cotton Mather . Isaac Newton was introduced to natural philosophy by this work of Magirus see The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton: The optical lectures, 1670-1672, Volume 1 further Daniele Cozzoli suggests that Mersenne’s Optics are greatly influnced by his reading/learning from this book. “Indeed, Mersenne first explained Descartes’ law of refraction by means of Hobbes physics. However, Mersenne always wanted to remain faithful to Aristotle.” Cozzoli.
Caspar Bartholin the Elder was born at Malmø, Denmark (modern Sweden) and was a polymath, finally accepting a professorship in medicine at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1613. He later taught theology at the same university.

His precocity was extraordinary; at three years of age he was able to read, and in his thirteenth year he composed Greek and Latin orations and delivered them in public. When he was about eighteen he went to the University of Copenhagen and afterwards studied at Rostock and Wittenberg.

He then travelled through Germany, the Netherlands, England, France and Italy, and was received with marked respect at the different universities he visited. In 1613 he was chosen professor of medicine in the University of Copenhagen, and filled that office for eleven years, when, falling into a dangerous illness, he made a vow that if he should recover he would apply himself solely to the study of divinity. He fulfilled his vow by becoming professor of divinity at Copenhagen and canon of Roskilde.

Poggend. II, 12; wellcome I, 3955; vgl. Hirsch/Hüb. IV, 30.

The Next book, 

681G     Cock, Charles George.(Sometimes attributed to Thomas Paget.)

English-law: or, A summary survey of the houshold of God on earth; and that both before and under the law; and that both of Moses and the Lord Jesus. Historically opening the purity and apostacy of believers in the successions of ages, to this present. Together with an essay of Christian government under the regiment of our Lord and King, the one immortal, invisible, infinite, eternal, universal prince, the Prince of Peace, Emmanuel

London: printed by Robert White for T.G. and Francis Tyton, and are to be sold at the Three Daggers neer the Inner-Temple-Gate 1651                                                                           $2,300

Folio, 11 1/4 X 7 inches. First and only edition A4, (a)6, B-N4, O4, (o)4, P (mis signed O)Q-Z4, Aa-Cc4 This copy has been sympathetically rebound in full calf.

Cock was a Member of Parliment for Yarmouth in 1658, he was also author of Englands Complete law-judge, and lawyer 165/6. An early owner of this book has inserted quotes from Livi and Plato in Latin concerning tyrants on the title page, which has an engraved vignette of the Ship of state cut lose from the royal anchor and with a motto “ Only by Faith” ! On the final leaf is a note stating “Correction with out instruction is Tyrannie” and more quotes in latin by Plato and Livi! . It is obvious from the start that the beheading of Charles I has left the English nation in a state set adrift in rough waters, with in a few years this book and Hobbs Levithan attempted to set the state on a smoother course, While Hobbs had a profound effect, the present book seems to had a more subtle effect .

Wing C478  

This Next book is not annotated rather it is a manuscript section

637G Beza, Theodore . 1519-1605

Iesu Christi, D.N. Nouu testamentu, gr. & lat. Theodoro Beza interprete. Addite sunt ab eode summae breues doctrine … Huic autem tertiae editioni, praeter quorundam locorum recognitionem, accesserunt breues difficiliorum phrase w n expositiones, & aliae quaedam annotatiunculae, cum ex maioribus ipsius Bezae annotationibus, tum aliunde excerptae: opera eorum qui in typographi epistola nominantur.

[Geneva] : [H. Stephanus],1580                     $4,000

Octavo, 7 1/4 X 4 1/2 inches. Third edition *8 **8, a-z8 A-Q8 R4, AA-ZZ8 AA8 BB8 CC8′, AAaa-EEee8

nb; quire ‘R4’is near imperceptible pen facsimile( see image) what is especially is in the printed form there is a typo on page 215 [sic] which should be numbered 315 in our manuscript copy this error is repeated!

This copy is bound in full alum tawed pigskin over pates boards, stamped with blind rolls and the Initals S*B*O on the front board. This th the third minor edition(8vo ) of Beza’s text, with his Latin translation and the Vulgate. The Greek text generally follows that of Beza’s first edition of the 1565 , with a few alterations. Some of the annotations are collected from the commentary of L’Oyselevr, Seigneur de Villers, by Jean Xherpont, at the request of H. Stephanus. In 1565 he issued an edition of the Greek New Testament, accompanied in parallel columns by the text of the Vulgate and a translation of his own (already published as early as 1556). Annotations were added, also previously published, but now he greatly enriched and enlarged them. In the preparation of this edition of the Greek text, but much more in the preparation of the second edition which he brought out in 1582, Beza may have availed himself of the help of two very valuable manuscripts. One is known as the Codex Bezae or Cantabrigensis, and was later presented by Beza to the University of Cambridge; the second is the Codex Claromontanus, which Beza had found in Clermont (now in the National Library at Paris). It was not, however, to these sources that Beza was chiefly indebted, but rather to the previous edition of the eminent Robert Estienne (1550), itself based in great measure upon one of the later editions of Erasmus. Beza’s labors in this direction were exceedingly helpful to those who came after. The same thing may be asserted with equal truth of his Latin version and of the copious notes with which it was accompanied. Although some contend that Beza’s view of the doctrine of predestination exercised an overly dominant influence upon his interpretation of the Scriptures, there is no question that he added much to a clear understanding of the New Testament. Darlow & Moule 4641; Adams B1706 (variant = B1707)

With any Luck tomorrow I will post three more books with notes,annotations, marks et c.

James