The Fourth Crusade: Invia virtuti nulla est via [Ovid] No way is impassable to virtue.

It is my experience that is is not often that the printer’s device matches the subject of the book, but in this case Opornius’ device is fitting and optimistic for a History of the Fourth Crusade from the Byzatine perspective.

199g Nicetas Choniates, or Niketas Choniates ca. 1155 to 1215 or 1216

Nicetae Acominati Choniatæ, magni logothetæ secretorum, inspectoris & iudicis veli, præfecti sacri cubiculi : LXXXVI annorum historia, uidelicet ab anno restitutæ salutis circiter MCXVII, in quo Zonaras desinit, usque ad annum MCCIII, libris XIX descripta, quorum hic ordo est I liber de rebus gestis Ioannis Comneni, Alexij filij, quem uulgò Caloioannem uocant. VII libri de rebus gestis Manuelis Comneni, filij Ioannis. I liber de Alexio Porphyrogenito, Manuelis Comneni filio. II libri de rebus gestis Andronici Comneni. III libri de imperio Isaacij Angeli Comneni. III libri de imperi Alexii Angeli Comneni, post fratrem isaacium c catum & eiectum. I liber de Isaacio, & filio eius Alexio,post recuperatum, Germanorum & Venetorum ope, imperium: in quo etiam de Alexio Duca cognomento Murzuflo, seu supercilioso, & confusione status publici, & constantinopolitano excidio agitur. I liber de initijs imperij Balduini & Herrici fratrum Flandriæ comium.

Basil : Apud Ioannem Oporinum,1557 $4,100 SALE PRICE $ 3,200

Folio, 14 ¾ X 9 ½ inches. å4, 4a-z6A-F6G8 This copy is bound in its original blind stamped pigskin binding.

Crusades — Fourth, 1202-1204.
Geographic: Latin Empire, 1204-1261 — History.
Byzantine Empire — History — Angeli, 1185-1204.
Byzantine Empire — History — Comneni dynasty, 1081-1185.

Nicetas , sometimes called Acominatos, was a Greek historian – like his brother Michael Acominatus, whom he accompanied from their birthplace Chonae to Constantinople. Nicetas wrote this history of the Eastern Roman Empire from 1118 to 1207. Nicetas Acominatos was born to wealthy parents around or after 1150 in Phrygia in the city of Chonae (near the modern Honaz in Turkey). Bishop Nicetas of Chonae baptized and named the infant; he was later called “Choniates” after his birthplace. When he was nine, his father dispatched him, with his brother Michael, to Constantinople to receive an education. Niketas’ older brother greatly influenced him during the early stages of his life. He initially took up politics as a career, and held important appointments under the Angelus emperors (amongst them that of Grand Logothete or Chancellor) and was governor of the theme of Philippopolis at a critical period. After the capture of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, he fled to Nicaea, where he settled at the court of the Nicaean emperor Theodore I Lascaris, and devoted himself to literature. He died c. 1215–16.

His chief work is This History, in twenty-one books, of the period from 1118 to 1207. In spite of its florid style, it is of value as a record (on the whole impartial) of events of which he was either an eyewitness or which he had heard of first hand (though he should be balanced with the other Greek historian for this time, John Kinnamos). Its most interesting portion is the description of the occupation of Constantinople in 1204, which should be read with Geoffroi de Villehardouin’s and Paolo Rannusio’s works on the same subject.

His little treatise On the Statues destroyed by the Latins (perhaps altered by a later writer) is of special interest to the archaeologist and art historian.

His theological work, (Thesaurus Orthodoxae Fidei), although extant in a complete form in manuscripts, has only been published in part. It is one of the chief authorities for the heresies and heretical writers of the 12th century.

Nicetas Choniates provides the sole major Byzantine account of the sack of Constantinople by western Christian armies during the Fourth Crusade. Other sources include the minor account of the Byzantine eyewitness Nicolas Mesarites, as well as the crusader sources of Geoffroy de Villehardouin, Robert of Clari, and Gunther von Pairis.

His work details both the Third and Fourth Crusades, but is especially valuable as an eyewitness account of the Fourth Crusade.

After the capture of Constantinople in 1204, Nicetas fled to Nicaea, the site of the Byzantine government in exile under the leadership of Emperor Theodoris Lascaris. There he completed his Byzantine account of the Fourth Crusade

His descriptions of the crusader’s sack of Constantinople are exceptionally vivid. He describes the looting of relics from the churches, as well as the desecration of the churches, particularly Hagia Sophia. Below is a translated selection from the work that best demonstrates the tone and spirit of the account:
Nay more, a certain harlot, a sharer in their [the crusaders] guilt, a minister of the furies, a servant of the demons, a worker of incantations and poisonings, insulting Christ, sat in the Patriarch’s seat, singing an obsene song and dancing frequently. Nor, indeed, were these crimes committed and others left undone, on the ground that these were of lesser guilt, the others of greater. But with one consent all the most heinous sins and crimes were committed by all with equal zeal. Could those, who showed so great madness against God Himself, have spared the honorable matrons and maidens or virgins consecrated to God?

Here is more than a little bit on the fourth crusade!

The Fourth Crusade

Introduction

The Fourth Crusade is one of the most important of all the major crusades. It is also one of the most complex and certainly one that is easily misunderstood, or at least is often understood in much too simplistic a manner.

The general outline is this: the Third Crusade having failed in its essential objective of recovering Jerusalem, the popes almost immediately began preaching a new crusade. This turned out to take longer than anyone wanted, for a variety of reasons. By the time a new crusade was really under way, soon after the turn of the century, events were afoot in Constantinople that would cause the Fourth Crusade to take a dramatic turn away from Palestine. The Fourth Crusade did not recover Jerusalem–in fact, it never even made it to Outremer; rather, the Crusaders ended by attacking Constantinople, driving out the Byzantine Emperor, and installing one of their own in the ancient capital of Constantine.

Conquering Constantinople was hardly on the agenda when the Fourth Crusade began. How could things have gone so wrong? Was it a case of severe muddle-headedness? Or was it cynical opportunism from start to finish? Or (hush) was it a conspiracy?

The options are many, the players in the drama myriad. There is really nothing for it except to dive into the politics of Byzantium in the 1190s, as well as looking at the pontificate of Innocent III, the mess the Holy Roman Empire was in after the death of Henry VI, and the role of Venice as the actor on the center stage. If you come out the other end shaking your head and still a bit befuddled, rest assured you won’t be the only one feeling that way!

A Conflict of Emperors

The Comnenus family was ruling Byzantium in 1095, when the First Crusade began, and they were still ruling ninety years later. The last of the Comneni was Andronicus Comnenus, a fellow with a most remarkable history behind him before he ever ascended the throne, in 1182. He ruled with a heavy hand, was widely hated, and when the provinces rebelled, the people of Constantinople rioted and killed Andronicus in 1185. He was succeeded by Isaac II Angelus.

Isaac had his hands full. Bulgaria rebelled successfully, as did Serbia. A few years later, Frederick Hohenstaufen marched through his lands with a huge army; Isaac was unable to prevent the Emperor from temporarily capturing both Adrianople and Philippopolis. In the end, Frederick continued on, but only after Isaac pretty much granted him everything he wanted. He managed to recover a bit of lost ground in the ensuing years, but at the same time he lost control within the palace itself. In April of 1195, his brother Alexius III usurped the throne and had Isaac blinded.

Alexius III Angelus was no more effective than his brother and was rather more corrupt. When Emperor Henry VI pressured him, he levied a special tax to buy him off. When the Bulgars rebelled again, Alexius was unable to control them. When Serbia threw its allegiance to Hungary, Alexius could do nothing. And all the while, he continued to drain the treasury. And when the Fourth Crusade drew near, he put up a token resistance, then grabbed all the money he could find and ran.

The Western Empire

Not long after Alexius made himself emperor, Philip of Swabia married Irene Angelus. Philip was the brother of Emperor Henry VI. Irene was the daughter of the deposed emperor Isaac II. Henry, as King of Sicily, was heir to all the old Norman claims to Greek territories they had once conquered. So now the Hohenstaufen had a direct interest through Irene in the claims of Isaac II over against his brother. Confused yet? Keep reading!

Henry VI was in fact on the verge of asking for a new crusade, to be directed against Constantinople, after which he would command the combined strengths of the empires against Jerusalem. This scheme never got off the ground because Henry died in 1197. But the idea of somehow taking over the Greek Empire and using its resources in support of the liberation of Jerusalem was an attractive one to Westerners. They would pick it up again.

In 1197, however, the Holy Roman Empire was in no position to do much of anything. Henry VI had been Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, King of Burgundy, King of the Romans, and King of Italy. His son, however, was only an infant and was in no position to rule. In Germany there promptly rose two rivals: Philip of Swabia and Otto of Brunswick. Both, of course, had been elected by a faction of German princes. Neither were able to make their presence felt even in Italy, much less in Sicily, and even less could either of them contemplate going on Crusade. They might lend support but not much more.

Pope Innocent III

Almost immediately upon being elected pope, Innocent III decided that the papacy itself should assume the leadership of the next Crusade. He issued his crusading letter in August of 1198, sending it to all the archbishops of the West. He directed the call to arms not to kings and emperors, but to counts and barons and even to cities. The archbishops and bishops of the Church were likewise to contribute soldiers, or an equivalent amount in money.

The tone of the encyclical makes it clear that Innocent believed the Church itself was the true leader of the Crusades. Even so, he wrote separately to the kings of France and England, ordering them to cease their war. Not, you will note, that they should go on crusade themselves, but only that their quarrel should not interfere with the raising of troops and money for the Crusade. He likewise sent a papal legate to try to persuade Genoa and Pisa to make a truce between them, for much the same reasons, except that he wanted the Pisans and Genoese to participate in the Crusade.

The original date set by Innocent for the departure of the Crusade was March 1199, but no one left. Richard and Philip declared a truce, but Richard died soon after, and the war between England and France was on again. Preachers preached, Innocent wrote more letters and tried to raise money, but still nothing much happened. Only in November 1199 did the first significant lords take the cross and formally commit enough men to the enterprise for it to be called an army.

Almost immediately, Innocent began to lose control of the Crusade. He had intended for the Crusaders from all over Europe to assemble at Venice, where that city would agree to provide the ships to transport the hosts to the Holy Land. This service would not be free, of course; but only Venice could even contemplate building enough ships to carry an entire Crusader army. Innocent had asked Venice to participate in the Crusade, but this matter of being the primary provider of transportation was something arranged between Venice and the lay lords. From that moment on, the course of events were affected far more by Venice than by the pope.

Venice

Venice in 1200 was the richest city in the West, and one that had a direct interest in developments in the eastern Mediterranean. The city was ruled by a tightly-knit upper class of merchants and property owners, who were represented by the Doge, an executive who was elected for life by a small ruling council. The city’s wealth came almost entirely from its role as an entrep�t, moving goods from the eastern Mediterranean to Lombardy and over the Alps to northern Europe. She ruled much of the Adriatic and had outposts on the Dalmatian coast and in Greece. She also had significant trading interests in Outremer. She even had a major colony of merchants in Alexandria, even though that was a Muslim city.

Relations with Constantinople were not good. Venice had long enjoyed special trading rights in the city, but lately she had seen her privileges erode. Emperor Manuel had ordered a mass arrest of Venetians throughout the Empire in 1171, and all Latins in Constantinople were massacred in a paroxysm of anti-Western sentiment in 1182. Isaac II had renewed their privileges, and so had Alexius III, but the latter did so only for form’s sake. In practice, he had been harassing the Venetians and favoring Genoa and Pisa.

This was the situation in 1201, when six representatives of French lords arrived in the city to negotiate a deal. They wanted Venice to contract with them to carry the Crusader army over the sea, and they named a price. The city council thought about it for a few days, then made an even more generous offer in return, offering to become an equal partner in the enterprise. The city agreed to provide ships for 4,500 knights and their horses, 9,000 squires, and 20,000 foot soldiers. There was a formula for calculating the price for each type of soldier, and the whole price came to 94,000 marks. This was to be paid in installments, and the fleet was to be at the service of the army for one year and was to be ready by June 29, 1202 (the following year). In addition, Venice would supply fifty warships, and would share equally in any conquests.

Clearly Venice wanted to do more than just provide transport, which was all the original offer contemplated. She saw an opportunity to win territory. Since the French and Venice agreed secretly that the object of the Crusade would be Egypt, the city was probably thinking of the great wealth of that country and what a prize it would be should Venice be able to win half of Alexandria or Damietta or even Cairo.

The Crusaders Assemble

The first Crusader army formed in a gallant, chivalric manner, as a by-product of a tournament help in Champagne in November 1199. The count of that land, Theobald, hosted a grand event that was attended by knights from all over northern France. As part of the festivities, Count Theobald and Count Louis of Blois took the cross. Champagne and Blois both had a long crusading tradition, and the preachers had been active in northern France, so they were likely inspired to exert their leadership. As word spread of their deed, other lords likewise too the cross: Count Baldwin of Flanders, Theobald’s brother-in-law; Count Hugh of St. Pol, Counts Geoffrey and Stephen of Perche, and many others besides. Theobald’s older brother, Henry, had participated in the Third Crusade and had become the King of Jerusalem, so Theobald had very close ties with the Holy Land.

Before the Crusade ever left, however, Count Theobald died (May 1201). The Crusaders then chose Boniface of Montferrat (a marquisate in northwestern Italy) as their leader. Boniface, too, had close ties wtih the Holy Land. He was descended from crusaders. His oldest brother (now dead) was the father of King Baldwin V of Jerusalem. Another brother was the same Conrad of Montferrat who had saved Tyre from Saladin and who had been assassinated in 1192. Boniface brought in yet another Byzantine tie, as well. Another of his brothers, Renier, had married a daughter of Manuel Comnenus. Although he was killed in 1183, Renier may have been given rulership over Thessalonica by Emperor Manuel, and Boniface may have from the beginning had his eye on recovering what he regarded as a family estate. One other connection was made with Boniface: he was a close friend to Philip of Swabia, who was married to Irene, the deposed Isaac Angelus’ sister. So, Boniface brought to the leadership of the Crusade an interest in championing the cause of Isaac against Alexius III.

The Crusaders assembled first at Soissons, then moved south to C�teaux in September, where they were joined by a large number of Burgundians. They then moved on to Italy, not in a single organized army, but in separate parties, trickling in to Venice over the course of that summer, thereby delaying the agreed departure date. Moreover, a number of leaders decided to set sail from Marseilles rather than from Venice. The number of soldiers who actually made it to Venice was far less than had been originally estimated.

The result was that by autumn of 1201, the Crusaders were late and were behind in their payments, for those who did show up could not possibly pay the fee that had been set for a much larger army. The original agreement had calculated 33,500 men, whereas perhaps only 11,000 or so actually showed up in Venice. The Crusaders had assembled, but Venice was not about to transport them until it had received the amount stipulated in the contract. Crusades were crusades, but business was business.

A New Deal

The Venetians were practical businessmen, and no one of them was more pragmatic than their doge, Enrico Dandolo. There the Crusaders sat, unable to pay for their passage, unwilling to go home, and in the meantime running up bills with all the locals and equally unable to pay those. He could not play it too tough, however, for Pope Innocent III was already angry with how matters were proceeding and would not hesitate to place the city under interdict.

So, the Venetians offered a new arrangement to replace the old one. Venice had for some time ruled much of the Dalmatian coast, mainly as a way to secure control of the Adriatic and its shipping lanes. Recently, however, the King of Hungary had been inciting rebellion in the Dalmatian towns, offering them his protection. One town that had defected was Zara, which for fifteen years Venice had been trying to recover.

The doge offered to delay the payment of the contract (cancelling it was out of the question). In return, the Crusaders would help Venice recover Zara. The Crusade leaders had little choice, since the alternative was to abandon the Crusade, violate their crusading vow, and return home broke and humiliated. Even so, many in the army objected vigorously, and some even refused to go. But the Doge himself took the cross, and many Venetians followed his example.

Some time around now, a fortuitous concidence happened. Isaac II Angelus was blind and in prison in Constantinople, but his son Alexius IV had managed recently to escape and flee to the West. Early in 1202, as the Crusaders were preparing at last to depart (to attack Zara), young Alexius was in Italy and appealed to the Crusaders to help him drive out the usurper Alexius III and to him (the prince) on the throne. If they should do so, the young prince promised an extravagant amount of help for the Crusade–men, money, weapons, ships.

This appeal fits so neatly with the agenda of the principal leaders of the Crusade that many historians have smelled a plot. We won’t enter here into that controversy. Whether through chance or through careful planning, it so happened that Bonficace of Montferrat would be glad to participate because he might recover Thessalonica; and Venice would be glad because the prince promised to restore all their old privileges and more besides; and the rest of the Crusaders could look forward to that great pooling of resources of East and West that had been repeatedly touted in crusading thought.

So the agenda was set before the fleet ever sailed on October 1, 1202. The Crusaders would capture Zara for Venice, then would capture Constantinople for the young prince Alexius, and then would proceed on to Outremer. By this time, it was not at all clear whether the ultimate objective was still Egypt, for most of the leaders were no longer thinking much past Constantinople.

Zara

So, off went the Crusaders, a huge fleet of over 200 ships. Zara was not a Muslim city, but was a Christian one. Pope Innocent thundered angrily in letters, specifically forbidding the Crusaders from attacking Zara. But the papal threats were ignored, and the Crusaders landed at Zara on 10 November.

Not all the Crusaders thought it was a great idea to be attacking Christians as part of a Crusade. As the siege of the city began, these people finally spoke up openly. Most were eventually persuaded at a general council that they had to do this in order to pay Venice, and they took comfort in shifting the blame to the Venetians. A few, however, flatly refused to participate in the siege. Nevertheless, the city surrendered after only two weeks.

The Crusade spent the winter at Zara. It was here that the army in general learned of Alexius’ offer. Again, many in the army objected and some among them refused to go any further. But most of the army stayed. By attacking Zara they had automatically been excommunicated according to Innocent’s threats, so going on to Constantinople could scarcely to any more damage. They sent emissaries to Innocent to try to be reconciled. There ensued an exchange of letters, but Innocent would bend only a little and he still forbade the Crusaders from attacking Constantinople.

To no avail. The army sailed in April 1203. After capturing the island of Corf� in May, and making a few other stops, it arrived at Constantinople June 24 1203. Emperor Alexius III demanded to know what the Crusaders intended, and they replied that they intended to drive him out as a traitor. The Crusaders then appealed directly to the people of Constantinople, but the Greeks would not accept anyone who was being supported by the hated Latins. If the Crusaders were going to put their young prince on the throne, they would have to do it by force.

The Battle for Constantinople

On July 5, 1203, the Venetians were able to break the great chain that blocked the harbor, enabling the Crusaders to attack the city from both land and sea. The Franks drew up near the Blachernae palace, which lies close to the Golden Horn, while the Venetians prepared to attack from the harbor side. They built platforms in the spars of ships and put catapults on the decks.

On July 17 the Crusaders attacked in force. Defending the land side was the Varangian Guard, the Imperial palace guard that was made up of English and Danish mercenaries, and they were able to repulse the Franks. But the Venetians, led by Enrico Dandolo himself (who was at least in his 80s) were able to land on the narrow beaches and reached the top with scaling ladders. They took possession of a number of towers, descended into the city and set fire to part of it.

Meantime, Alexius had a assembled a large army for a counter-attack against the Franks. For some reason, however, his nerve failed him and he never made the attack. The Venetians in the meantime withdrew from the section of wall they had held, for they could not keep it without a victory on the Frankish side as well. Despite the fact that the Crusader assault had only partially succeeded, that night Alexius grabbed what wealth he could and fled the city with his daughter.

Those who remained in the palace thought quickly, then brought Isaac II Angelus out from his prison cell. They then turned to the Latins and declared that since Isaac was the rightful ruler, there was no need for anyone to fight on behalf of the young prince. The Crusaders countered that they would accept Isaac if his son were named co-Emperor. It was agreed, and Alexius was crowned August 1, 1203.

Pretenders and Contenders

Alexius IV quickly found Constantinople an unpleasant place. By the time he had handed out gifts all around, he did not have enough money to pay the Venetians. The tax he levied to raise the money was bitterly resented by the citizens, who didn’t much like the Westerners who were infesting their streets anyway. The Franks were rude and violent, didn’t pay their bills, and sometimes pillaged the countryside. One group decided to burn down a mosque, but the flames got out of control and a whole section of the city burned. For their part, the Franks were angry that the great promises made by Alexius were not being fulfilled. They had turned aside from their true destination, risked excommunication, and for what? To be duped once again by the wily and treacherous Greek.

Isaac II was blind and old and took little part in government. As the months passed, Alexius IV likewise steadily withdrew from public life, spending more and more time in the palace. A foreign army stalked the city, the citizens were angry and restless, and no one was steering the ship. In this atmosphere, yet another Alexius stepped forward, this one known to the Crusaders as Alexius Murzuphlus.

This Alexius was a member of the Ducas family and was a descendant of Alexius Comnenus. More importantly, he positioned himself as the leader of the anti-Latin faction and so rode a popular tide. Late in January 1204, he seized power openly, murdered Alexius IV and put Isaac back in prison again, where the poor man soon died. As Alexius V, he reinforced the city’s defenses, most of the Latins having meantime withdrawn from the city to their camp across the Golden Horn. There was now open skirmishing between the Greeks and the Latins.

A Momentous Decision

Some time in February, the Crusader leaders decided they would again capture the city, but this time they would install a Latin as emperor. This would of course solve everything, as far as they were concerned. The long split in Christendom would be healed, the wealth of the eastern Empire would be put at the disposal of the effort to liberate Jerusalem, and no longer would Outremer be betrayed by the faithless Greeks.

They had it all planned. In March a committee drew up an agreement that laid out the details. Venice would get three quarters of the booty, up to the amount needed to pay off the Crusader debt, with the remainder being divided equally. Venice would recover all properties within the Empire that it had ever held. Twelve electors, six Venetians and six non-Venetians, would then elect a Latin emperor. The Emperor himself would get a quarter of the empire, and the rest would be divided evenly between Venice and the rest of the Crusaders. A Latin clergy would be set up, and the Greek Orthodox church would be plundered to provide land and income for them. A Latin patriarch would be elected for Constantinople. The Crusaders would remain for one year in the East to assist the new Emperor; any who remained thereafter would have to take an oath of fealty to him.

There were many other provisions, but this much is enough to show how influence Venice was in these events. The city essentially got first pick, with the remains being divided among everyone else. There is no word of Jerusalem in the agreement. The Emperor got a quarter of the Empire, but Venice got three-eighths. Moreover, the Emperor was utterly dependent on his vassals to defend the Empire, while Venice was essentially an independent power within it. Similarly, the Church was to have only enough property to sustain itself, with all surplus wealth being divided among the laity. It was without doubt Enrico Dandolo’s most brilliant diplomacy.

Capture of Constantinople

The Crusaders began their assault on April 9, 1204. The initial attack was driven back and the Crusaders took a couple of days to re-group. They returned to the assault on the 13th. After some sharp fighting, the Venetians were able to go over the walls, while almost at the same time, another group broke down one of the city gates along the sea wall. Murzuphlus abandoned the city almost immediately, taking with him some jewels plus the widow and daughter of Alexius IV.

The first time the Crusaders captured the city, it was done in the name of Alexius IV, ostensibly to drive out a usurper and to restore the rightful emperor. This time, however, the attack was purely one of conquest and the Latins put the city to the sack. It was the worst looting the city ever experienced.

Constantinople was the richest city in Christendom, for it had been accumulating its wealth for almost a thousand years. Over the next three days, the Latins managed to carry off a great deal of it. According to the terms of the agreement, after three days, the loot was collected in great piles and apportioned out: three-eighths of it to Venice, one quarter to the new emperor, and the rest divided among the remaining Crusaders. Literal shiploads of gold, silver, jewels, art work, and sacred relics left the city that year. Between the plunder and the fires that broke out during the two captures of the city, Constantinople was ravaged so badly that it simply never recovered. It would not return to anything like its former glory until the Ottomans had conquered it and turned it into a great Muslim city.

Results of the Fourth Crusade

The fall of Constantinople in April 1204 marks the end of the Fourth Crusade. The Crusaders did not immediately turn the wealth of the Empire to the conquest of Jerusalem, for they were fully pre-occupied with simply preserving what they had won. They captured Murzuphlus a year later and had him killed, but rival Greek claimants appeared immediately, the most important of which were the Empire of Nicaea and the Despotate of Epirus. In addition, Bulgaria also emerged as a deadly foe, with the result that although the Latin Empire of Constantinople lasted until 1261, its knights and rulers spent the entire time fighting for their own survival.

Some Crusaders stayed on, to be granted various fiefs. Most, however, returned home, brimming over with plunder. They were still technically excommunicants, but the great victory at Constantinople persuaded Innocent to remove the ban.

While there were those who were bitterly critical of the Crusaders for lining their own pockets under the protection of a Crusade, the acquisition of the Greek Empire was a very great prize, indeed. Great things were expected, and disappointed on that score set in only gradually as people began to realize that the Latin Empire was turning out to be just another state, rather than a bulwark of Crusading.

Rather than condemning the Fourth Crusade has a terrible travesty of a grand ideal, most people continued to support crusading and the idea of crusading. The next generation would produce more crusades than any other, for people continued to believe that all that was needed was one more large effort and the Holy Land would be returned to Christendom.

March 28, 2019 0

The Seven Wonders of the World!

Philo byzantius. De Septem orbis spectaculis, Leonis Allatii opera nunc primum graece et latine prodit, cum notis.

We are all familiar with the phrase “The Seven Wonders of the World” , it is even easy to bring up images of them in our minds,but can you name the seven popularly accepted ones, do they still exist,where are they?

In 1640,Leo Allatius(1586-1669), a Librarian at the Vatican Library published and translated a Manuscript of De Septem Orbis

Spectaculis.

At this time Allatius attributes the text to Philon of Bizantium. Philon of Byzantium (Φίλων ὁ Βυζάντιος) i known as “the Paradoxographer”{ not to be confused with Philo Mechanicus}, Our Phylon is now dated probably the 4th-5th century A.D, which thickens our stew, once the two Phylons were considered one and were dated at ca. 280 BC – ca. 220 BC. which is much more convenient, as I will explain.

After I bought this Wonderful book, I looked in my usual places for Biographies and assessments of the text, Sandys,EB,CE,OIE… the usual suspects, none of these were gratifying, So I searched on Amazon and found Michael Ashley’s book. In his book on the subject, there are some really good insights and a nice chronological explanation of how the text of Phylon fits in the history and dissemination of the “Seven Wonders” . What I found most useful are the charts and I will use them here. But first Allatius.

The main source of our knowledge of Allatius is the incomplete life by Stephanus Gradi, Leonis Allatii vita, published by Cardinal Mai, in Nova Bibliotheca Patrum. A complete enumeration of his works is contained in E. Legrand, Bibliographie hellenique du X VII eme siecle (Paris, 1895, iii. 435-471). Leonis Allatii Hellas (Athens, 1872), are inaccurate and untrustworthy. For a special account of his share in the foundation of the Vatican Library, see Curzio Mazzi, Leone Allacci e la Palatina di Heidelberg (Bologna, 1893).

Allatius, was born on the island of Chios (then part of the Ottoman Empire and known as Sakız) in 1586. He was taken by his maternal uncle Michael Nauridis to Italy to be educated at the age of nine, first in Calabria and then in Rome where he was admitted into the Greek college. A graduate of the Pontifical Greek College of St. Athanasius in Rome, he spent his career in Rome as teacher of Greek at the Greek college, devoting himself to the study of classics and theology. He found a patron in Pope Gregory XV. In 1622, after the capture of Heidelberg by Tilly, when the Protestant Elector of Bavaria Frederick V was supplanted by a Catholic one, the victorious elector Maximilian of Bavaria presented the war booty (The Palatinate library composed of 196 cases containing about 3500 manuscripts) to Pope Gregory. Allatius supervised its transport by a caravan of 200 mules across the Alps to Rome, where it was incorporated in the Vatican library.This took Allatius almost a year to process. The death of Gregory XV. just before his return deprived him of a fitting reward (Vatican Librarian); and he was even suspected of having appropriated or given away part of this charge. He was supported by the liberality of some of the cardinals, especially Francesco Barberini, who made him his private librarian (1638). Alexander VII. appointed him keeper of the Vatican library in 1661, and he lived the retired life of a scholar until his death. All but 39 of the Heidelberg manuscripts, which had been sent to Paris in 1797 and were returned to Heidelberg at the Peace of Paris in 1815, and a gift from Pope Pius VII of 852 others in 1816, remain in the Vatican Library to this day.

Allatius is perhaps best known today for his De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (A Discussion of the Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ), a minor essay mentioned in Fabricius’s Bibliotheca Graeca (xiv. 17) as an unpublished work. According to an unconfirmed nineteenth-century source,its thesis – is that the rings of Saturn (then-recently observed by telescope) are the prepuce of Jesus. Makes one wonder about the conversations about Astronomy around the Vatican?

BUT! there is more (and we haven’t even come to the Wonders yet?) Allatius was trained as a physician. In 1645 he included the first methodical discussion of vampires, in De Graecorum hodie quorundam opinationibus (“On certain modern opinions among the Greeks)

By the seventeenth century most texts (that we know of today) by Byzatine authors were already printed yet because of Allatius’ access to the Vatican, and perhaps because it was after the ‘age of wonder’

The classic seven wonders were:

Great Pyramid of Giza
Hanging Gardens of Babylon
Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Colossus of Rhodes
Lighthouse of Alexandria
The only ancient world wonder that still exists is the Great Pyramid of Giza

The Seven Wonders were first defined as themata (Greek for ‘things to be seen’ which, in today’s common English, we would phrase as ‘must sees’) by Philo of Byzantium in 225 BCE, in his work On The Seven Wonders. Other writers on the Seven Wonders include Herodotus, Callimachus of Cyrene and Antipater of Sidon. Of the original seven, only the Great Pyramid exists today.

GREAT PYRAMID AT GIZA
The Great Pyramid at Giza was constructed between 2584 and 2561 BCE for the Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu (known in Greek as `Cheops’) and was the tallest man-made structure in the world for almost 4,000 years. Excavations of the interior of the pyramid were only initiated in earnest in the late 18th and early 19th centuries CE and so the intricacies of the interior which so intrigue modern people were unknown to the ancient writers. It was the structure itself with its perfect symmetry and imposing height which impressed ancient visitors.

HANGING GARDENS OF BABYLON
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, if they existed as described, were built by Nebuchadnezzar II between 605-562 BCE as a gift to his wife. They are described by the ancient writer Diodorus Siculus as being self-watering planes of exotic flora and fauna reaching a height of over 75 feet (23 metres) through a series of climbing terraces. Diodorus wrote that Nebuchadnezzar’s wife, Amtis of Media, missed the mountains and flowers of her homeland and so the king commanded that a mountain be created for her in Babylon. The contoversy over whether the gardens existed comes from the fact that they are nowhere mentioned in Babylonian history and that Herodotus, `the Father of History’, makes no mention of them in his descriptions of Babylon. There are many other ancient facts, figures, and places Herodotus fails to mention, however, or has been shown to be wrong about. Diodorus, Philo, and the historian Strabo all claim the gardens existed. They were destroyed by an earthquake sometime after the 1st century CE.

STATUE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia was created by the great Greek sculptor Phidias (known as the finest sculptor of the ancient world in the 5th century BCE, he also worked on the Parthenon and the statue of Athena there in Athens). The statue depicted the god Zeus seated on his throne, his skin of ivory and robes of hammered gold, and was 40 feet (12 m) tall, designed to inspire awe in the worshippers who came to the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Not everyone was awestruck by the statue, however. Strabo reports, “Although the temple itself is very large, the sculptor is criticized for not having appreciated the correct proportions. He has shown Zeus seated, but with the head almost touching the ceiling, so that we have the impression that if Zeus moved to stand up he would unroof the temple” (Seven Wonders). The Temple at Olympia fell into ruin after the rise of Christianity and the ban on the Olympic Games as `pagan rites’. The statue was carried off to Constantinople where it was later destroyed, sometime in either the 5th or 6th centuries CE, by an earthquake.

TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS AT EPHESOS
The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, a Greek colony in Asia Minor, took over 120 years to build and only one night to destroy. Completed in 550 BCE, the temple was 425 feet (about 129 m) high, 225 feet (almost 69 m) wide, supported by 127 60 foot (about 18 m) high columns. Sponsored by the wealthy King Croesus of Lydia, who spared no expense in anything he did (according to Herodotus, among others) the temple was so magnificent that every account of it is written with the same tone of awe and each agrees with the other that this was among the most amazing structures ever raised by humans. On July 21, 356 BCE a man named Herostratus set fire to the temple in order, as he said, to achieve lasting fame by forever being associated with the destruction of something so beautiful. The Ephesians decreed that his name should never be recorded nor remembered but Strabo set it down as a point of interest in the history of the temple. On the same night the temple burned, Alexander the Great was born and, later, offered to rebuild the ruined temple but the Ephesians refused his generosity. It was rebuilt on a less grand scale after Alexander’s death but was destroyed by the invasion of the Goths. Rebuilt again, it was finally destroyed utterly by a Christian mob lead by Saint John Chrysostom in 401 CE.

MAUSOLEUM OF HALICARNASSUS
The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was the tomb of the Persian Satrap Mauslos, built in 351 BCE. Mauslos chose Halicarnassus as his capital city, and he and his beloved wife Artemisia went to great lengths to create a city whose beauty would be unmatched in the world. Mauslos died in 353 BCE and Artemisia wished to create a final resting place worthy of such a great king. Artemisia died two years after Mauslos and her ashes were entombed with his in the mausoleum (Pliny the Elder records that the craftsmen continued work on the structure after her death, both as a tribute to their patroness and knowing the work would bring them lasting fame). The tomb was 135 feet (41 m) tall and ornately decorated with fine sculpture. It was destroyed by a series of earthquakes and lay in ruin for hundreds of years until, in 1494 CE, it was completely dismantled and used by the Knights of St. John of Malta in the building of their castle at Bodrum (where the ancient stones can still be seen today). It is from the tomb of Mauslos that the English word `mausoleum’ is derived.

COLOSSUS OF RHODES
The Colossus of Rhodes was a statue of the god Helios (the patron god of the island of Rhodes) constructed between 292 and 280 BCE. It stood over 110 feet (just over 33 m) high overlooking the harbor of Rhodes and, despite fanciful depictions to the contrary, stood with its legs together on a base (much like the Statue of Liberty in the harbor off New York City in the United States of America, which is modeled on the Colossus) and did not straddle the harbour. The statue was commissioned after the defeat of the invading army of Demetrius in 304 BCE. Demetrius left behind much of his siege equipment and weaponry and this was sold by the Rhodians for 300 talents (approximately 360 million U.S. dollars) which money they used to build the Colossus. The statue stood for only 56 years before it was destroyed by an earthquake in 226 BCE. It lay in impressive ruin for over 800 years, according to Strabo, and was still a tourist attraction. Pliny the Elder claims that the fingers of the Colossus were larger than most statues of his day. According to the historian Theophanes the bronze ruins were eventually sold to “a Jewish merchant of Edessa” around 654 CE who carried them away on 900 camels to be melted down.

LIGHTHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIA
The Lighthouse at Alexandria, built on the island of Pharos, stood close to 440 feet (134 m) in height and was commissioned by Ptolemy I Soter. Construction was completed sometime around 280 BCE. The lighthouse was the third tallest human-made structure in the world (after the pyramids) and its light (a mirror which reflected the sun’s rays by day and a fire by night) could be seen as far as 35 miles out to sea. The structure rose from a square base to a middle octagonal section up to a circular top and those who saw it in its glory reported that words were inadequate to describe its beauty. The lighthouse was badly damaged in an earthquake in 956 CE, again in 1303 CE and 1323 CE and, by the year 1480 CE, it was gone. The Egyptian fort Quaitbey now stands on the site of the Pharos, built with some of the stones from the ruins of the lighthouse.

September 28, 2017 0

Some how I managed to take three classes from Huston Smith (The World’s Religions (originally titled The Religions of Man) has sold over two million copies) I misdeed this story, I was perhaps distracted by His notion of “”empirical metaphysics” which he writes about in his book Cleansing the Doors of Perception which was more the direction I was exploring at that time (organically). Now some thirty years later, The ‘ inorganic’ spread of mystical states/texts interest me and I was informed of this Great Story of textual transmission by my colleague Paul Dowling of Liber Antiquus. http://www.liberantiquus.com

The Greek legend of “Barlaam and Ioasaph” which is sometimes attributed to the 7th century John of Damascus, but actually it was transcribed by the Georgian monk Euthymius in the 11th century. The first Christianized adaptation was the Georgian epic Balavariani dating back to the 10th century. A Georgian monk, Euthymios of Athos, translated the story into Greek, some time before he was killed while visiting Constantinople in 1028. There the Greek adaptation was translated into Latin in 1048 and soon became well-known in Western Europe as Barlaam and Josaphat.

The story of Barlaam and Josaphat or Joasaph is a Christianized and later version of the story of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha.

901G Billy, Jacques de,; 1535-1581. translator Traditionally (but incorrectly)–attributed to St. John of Damascus

S. Ioannis Damasceni Historia, De Vitis Et Rebvs Gestis SS. Barlaam Eremitæ, & Iosaphat Indiæ regis, Iacobo Billio Prunæo, S. Michaelis in eremo Coenobiarcha interprete.

Coloniæ, In Officina Birckmannica, sumptibus Arnoldi Mylij. ANNO M.D.XCIII. Duodecimo A-S12 T6 ( -T6). $950

This copy is bound in contemporary vellum, an ownership stamp has been ripped out of the title page (see image )

VD 16 J 533; AdamsB 206.

One of the best known examples of the hagiographic novel, this is the tale of an Indian prince who becomes aware of the world’s miseries and is converted to Christianity by the monk Barlaam. Barlaam and Josaphat (Ioasaph) were believed to have re-converted India after her lapse from conversion to Christianity, and they were numbered among the Christian saints. Centuries ago likenesses were noticed between the life of Josaphat and the life of the Buddha; the resemblances are in incidents, doctrine, and philosophy, and Barlaam’s rules of abstinence resemble the Buddhist monk’s. But not till the mid-nineteenth century was it recognised that, in Josaphat, the Buddha had been venerated as a Christian saint for about a thousand years.

The origin of the story of Barlaam and Ioasaph—which in itself has little peculiar to Buddhism—appears to be a Manichaean tract produced in Central Asia

It was welcomed by the Arabs and by the Georgians. The Greek romance of Barlaam appears separately first in the 11th century. Most of the Greek manuscripts attribute the story to John the Monk, and it is only some later scribes who identify this John with John Damascene (ca. 676–749). There is strong evidence in Latin and Georgian as well as Greek that it was the Georgian Euthymius (who died in 1028) who caused the story to be translated from Georgian into Greek, the whole being reshaped and supplemented.

The Greek romance soon spread throughout Christendom, and was translated into Latin, Old Slavonic, Armenian, and Arabic. An English version (from Latin) was used by Shakespeare in his caskets scene in The Merchant of Venice.

JOSAPHAT, a corruption of Bodhisatwa. Barlaam and Josaphat,

{Ioasaph (Georgian Iodasaph, Arabic Yūdhasaf or Būdhasaf) is derived from the Sanskrit Bodhisattva. The Sanskrit word was changed to Bodisav in Persian texts in the 6th or 7th century, then to Budhasaf or Yudasaf in an 8th-century Arabic document (possibly Arabic initial “b” ﺑ changed to “y” ﻳ by duplication of a dot in handwriting). This became Iodasaph in Georgia in the 10th century, and that name was adapted as Ioasaph in Greece in the 11th century, and then as Iosaphat or Josaphat in Latin}

has been so completely received into the bosom of the Latin Church, that the names of ‘ the holy saints Barlaam and Josaphat of India, on the borders of Persia,’ have been canonized, and have their proper day, November 27th, as may be read in the Martyrologium of Cardinal Baronius, authorized by Pope Sextus v. for general use in the Catholic world, at page 177 of the 1873 edition, endorsed by His Holiness Pius IX. The Greek Church assigns a different day to the holy Iosaph, sou of Abener, king of India, and omits Barlaam. Josaphat or Iosaph is Bodhisat, or the condition of Sakya before he became a Buddha, and the religious romance of St. John of Damascus is simply a Greek version of the life of Gautama. Professor Max Muller pointed out the fact that Gautama, under the name of St. Josaphat, is now officially recognised and honoured and worshipped throughout the whole of Roman Catholic Christendom as a Christian saint! And just as Barlaam and Josaphat is an offshoot of Buddhist literature, so the wide series of tales represented by the Pancha Tantra, Kalila and Damna, Fables of Bidpai, Æsop’s Fables and La Fontaine’s, are mainly traceable not only to an Indian, but to a Buddhist source. Sindbad the Sailor, and other tales of the Arabian Nights, have their birth in Buddhist Jutakas; Boccaccio, Chaucer, Gower, and Spencer have been indebted to this treasurehouse of Buddhist folk-lore; even the three caskets and the pound of flesh in the Merchant of Venice are ideas found in this wonderful old story-book. —Contemporary Review, 1870.

ON THE MIGRATION OF FABLES.

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, ON FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1870.

From Chips from a German Workshop, by F. Max Müller, Vol. IV, pp. 139–198. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons [1881].

At the court of Khalif Almansur, where Abdallah ibn Almokaffa translated the fables of Calla and Dimna from Persian into Arabic, there lived a Christian of the name of Sergius, who for many years held the high office of treasurer to the Khalif. He had a son to whom he gave the best education that could then be given, his chief tutor being one Cosmas, an Italian monk, who had been taken prisoner by the Saracens, and sold as a slave at Bagdad. After the death of Sergius, his son succeeded him for some time as chief councillor (πρωτοσύμβουλος) to the Khalif Almansur. Such, however, had been the influence of the Italian monk on his pupil’s mind, that he suddenly resolved to retire from the world, and to devote himself to study, meditation, and pious works. From the monastery of St. Saba, near Jerusalem, this former minister of the Khalif issued the most learned works on theology, particularly his “Exposition of the Orthodox Faith.” He soon became the highest authority on matters of dogma in the Eastern Church, and he still holds his place among the saints both of the Eastern and Western Churches. His name was Joannes, and from being born at Damascus, the former capital of the Khalifs, he is best known in history as Joannes Damascenus, or St. John of Damascus. He must

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have known Arabic, and probably Persian; but his mastery of Greek earned him, later in life, the name of Chrysorrhoas, or Gold-flowing. He became famous as the defender of the sacred images, and as the determined opponent of the Emperor Leo the Isaurian, about 726. It is difficult in his life to distinguish between legend and history, but that he had held high office at the court of the Khalif Almansur, that he boldly opposed the iconoclastic policy of the Emperor Leo, and that he wrote the most learned theological works of his time, cannot be easily questioned.

Among the works ascribed to him is a story called “Barlaam and Joasaph.” 1 There has been a fierce controversy as to whether he was the author of it or not. Though for our own immediate purposes it would be of little consequence whether the book was written by Joannes Damascenus or by some less distinguished ecclesiastic, I must confess that the arguments hitherto adduced against his authorship seem to me very weak.

The Jesuits did not like the book, because it was

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a religious novel. They pointed to a passage in which the Holy Ghost is represented as proceeding from the Father “and the Son,” as incompatible with the creed of an Eastern ecclesiastic. That very passage, however, has now been proved to be spurious; and it should be borne in mind, besides, that the controversy on the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, or from the Father through the Son, dates a century later than Joannes. The fact, again, that the author does not mention Mohammedanism, 1 proves nothing against the authorship of Joannes, because, as he places Barlaam and Joasaph in the early centuries of Christianity, he would have ruined his story by any allusion to Mohammed’s religion, then only a hundred years old. Besides, he had written a separate work, in which the relative merits of Christianity and Mohammedanism are discussed. The prominence given to the question of the worship of images shows that the story could not have been written much before the time of Joannes Damascenus, and there is nothing in the style of our author that could be pointed out as incompatible with the style of the great theologian. On the contrary, the author of “Barlaam and Joasaph” quotes the same authors whom Joannes Damascenus quotes most frequently—eg., Basilius and Gregorius Nazianzenus. And no one but Joannes could have taken long passages from his own works without saying where he borrowed them. 2

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The story of “Barlaam and Joasaph”—or, as he is more commonly called, Josaphat—may be told in a few words: “A king in India, an enemy and persecutor of the Christians, has an only son. The astrologers have predicted that he would embrace the new doctrine. His father, therefore, tries by all means in his power to keep him ignorant of the miseries of the world, and to create in him a taste for pleasure and enjoyment. A Christian hermit, however, gains access to the prince, and instructs him in the doctrines of the Christian religion. The young prince is not only baptized, but resolves to give up all his earthly riches; and after having converted his own father and many of his subjects, he follows his teacher into the desert.”

The real object of the book is to give a simple exposition of the principal doctrines of the Christian religion. It also contains a first attempt at comparative theology, for in the course of the story there is a disputation on the merits of the principal religions of the world—the Chaldæan, the Egyptian, the Greek, the Jewish, and the Christian. But one of the chief attractions of this manual of Christian theology consisted in a number of fables and parables with which it is enlivened. Most of them have been traced to an Indian source. I shall mention one only which has found its way into almost every literature of the world: 1—

“A man was pursued by a unicorn, and while he tried to flee from it, he fell into a pit. In falling he stretched out both his

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arms, and laid hold of a small tree that was growing on one side of the pit. Having gained a firm footing, and holding to the tree, he fancied he was safe, when he saw two mice, a black and a white one, busy gnawing the root of the tree to which he was clinging. Looking down into the pit, he perceived a horrid dragon with his mouth wide open, ready to devour him, and when examining the place on which his feet rested, the heads of four serpents glared at him. Then he looked up, and observed drops of honey falling down from the tree to which he clung. Suddenly the unicorn, the dragon, the mice, and the serpents were all forgotten, and his mind was intent only on catching the drops of sweet honey trickling down from the tree.”

An explanation is hardly required. The unicorn is Death, always chasing man; the pit is the world; the small tree is man’s life, constantly gnawed by the black and the white mouse—i.e., by night and day; the four serpents are the four elements which compose the human body; the dragon below is meant for the jaws of hell. Surrounded by all these horrors, man is yet able to forget them all, and to think only of the pleasures of life, which, like a few drops of honey, fall into his mouth from the tree of life. 1

But what is still more curious is, that the author of “Barlaam and Josaphat” has evidently taken his very hero, the Indian Prince Josaphat, from an Indian source. In the “Lalita Vistara”—the life, though no doubt the legendary life, of Buddha—the father of Buddha is a king. When his son is born, the Brahman Asita predicts that he will rise to great glory, and become either a powerful king, or, renouncing the throne and embracing the life of a hermit

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become a Buddha. 1 The great object of his father is to prevent this. He therefore keeps the young prince, when he grows up, in his garden and palaces, surrounded by all pleasures which might turn his mind from contemplation to enjoyment. More especially he is to know nothing of illness, old age, and death, which might open his eyes to the misery and unreality of life. After a time, however, the prince receives permission to drive out; and then follow the four drives, 2 so famous in Buddhist history. The places where these drives took place were commemorated by towers still standing in the time of Fa Hian’s visit to India, early in the fifth century after Christ, and even in the time of Hiouen Thsang, in the seventh century. I shall read you a short account of the three drives: 3—

“One day when the prince with a large retinue was driving through the eastern gate of the city, on the way to one of his parks, he met on the road an old man, broken and decrepit. One could see the veins and muscles over the whole of his body, his teeth chattered, he was covered with wrinkles, bald, and hardly able to utter hollow and unmelodious sounds. He was bent on his stick, and all his limbs and joints trembled. ‘Who is that man?’ said the prince to his coachman. ‘He is small and weak, his flesh and his blood are dried up, his muscles stick to his skin, his head is white, his teeth chatter, his body is wasted away; leaning on his stick, he is hardly able to walk, stumbling at every step. Is there something peculiar in his family, or is this the common lot of all created beings?’

“‘Sir,’ replied the coachman, ‘that man is sinking under old age, his senses have become obtuse, suffering has destroyed his strength, and he is despised by his relations. He is without support and useless, and people have abandoned him, like a dead tree in a forest. But this is not peculiar to his family.

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[paragraph continues]In every creature youth is defeated by old age. Your father, your mother, all your relations, all your friends, will come to the same state; this is the appointed end of all creatures.’

“‘Alas!’ replied the prince, “are creatures so ignorant, so weak and foolish as to be proud of the youth by which they are intoxicated, not seeing the old age which awaits them? As for me, I go away. Coachman, turn my chariot quickly. What have I, the future prey of old age—what have I to do with pleasure?” And the young prince returned to the city without going to the park.

“Another time the prince was driving through the southern gate to his pleasure-garden, when he perceived on the road a man suffering from illness, parched with fever, his body wasted, covered with mud, without a friend, without a home, hardly able to breathe, and frightened at the sight of himself, and the approach of death. Having questioned his coachman, and received from him the answer which he expected, the young prince said, ‘Alas! health is but the sport of a dream, and the fear of suffering must take this frightful form. Where is the wise man who, after having seen what he is, could any longer think of joy and pleasure?’ The prince turned his chariot, and returned to the city.

“A third time he was driving to his pleasure-garden through the western gate, when he saw a dead body on the road, lying on a bier and covered with a cloth. The friends stood about crying, sobbing, tearing their hair, covering their heads with dust, striking their breasts, and uttering wild cries. The prince, again, calling his coachman to witness this painful scene, exclaimed, ‘Oh, woe to youth, which must be destroyed by old age! Woe to health, which must be destroyed by so many diseases! Woe to this life, where a man remains so short a time! If there were no old age, no disease, no death; if these could he made captive forever!’ Then, betraying for the first time his intentions, the young prince said, ‘Let us turn back, I must think how to accomplish deliverance.’

“A last meeting put an end to hesitation. He was driving through the northern gate on the way to his pleasure-gardens, when he saw a mendicant, who appeared outwardly calm, subdued, looking downwards, wearing with an air of dignity his religious vestment, and carrying an alms-bowl.

“‘Who is that man?’ asked the prince.

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“‘Sir,’ replied the coachman, ‘this man is one of those who are called Bhikshus, or mendicants. He has renounced all pleasures, all desires, and leads a life of austerity. He tries to conquer himself. He has become a devotee. Without passion, without envy, he walks about asking for alms.’

“‘This is good and well said,’ replied the prince. ‘The life of a devotee has always been praised by the wise. It will be my refuge, and the refuge of other creatures; it will lead us to a real life, to happiness and immortality.’

“With these words the young prince turned his chariot, and returned to the city.”

If we now compare the story of Joannes of Damascus, we find that the early life of Josaphat is exactly the same as that of Buddha. His father is a king, and after the birth of his son, an astrologer predicts that he will rise to glory; not, however, in his own kingdom, but in a higher and better one; in fact, that he will embrace the new and persecuted religion of the Christians. Everything is done to prevent this. He is kept in a beautiful palace, surrounded by all that is enjoyable; and great care is taken to, keep him in ignorance of sickness, old age, and death. After a time, however, his father gives him leave to drive out. On one of his drives he sees two men, one maimed, the other blind. He asks what they are, and is told that they are suffering from disease. He then inquires whether all men are liable to disease, and whether it is known beforehand who will suffer from disease and who will be free; and when he hears the truth, he becomes sad, and returns home. Another time, when he drives out, he meets an old man with wrinkled face and shaking legs, bent down, with white hair, his teeth gone, and his voice faltering. He asks again what all this means, and is told that this is what happens

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to all men; and that no one can escape old age, and that in the end all men must die. Thereupon he returns home to meditate on death, till at last a hermit appears, 1 and opens before his eyes a higher view of life, as contained in the Gospel of Christ.

No one, I believe, can read these two stories without feeling convinced that one was borrowed from the other; and as Fa Hian, three hundred years before John of Damascus, saw the towers which commemorated the three drives of Buddha still standing among the ruins of the royal city of Kapilavastu, it follows that the Greek father borrowed his subject from the Buddhist scriptures. Were it necessary, it would be easy to point out still more minute coincidences between the life of Josaphat and of Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion. Both in the end convert their royal fathers, both fight manfully against the assaults of the flesh and the devil, both are regarded as saints before they die. Possibly even a proper name may have been transferred from the sacred canon of the Buddhists to the pages of the Greek writer. The driver who conducts Buddha then he flees by night from his palace where he leaves his wife, his only son, and all his treasures, in order to devote himself to a contemplative life, is called Chandaka, in Burmese, Sanna. 2 The friend and companion of Barlaam is called Zardan. 3 Reinaud

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in his “Mémoire sur l’Inde,” p. 91 (1849), was the first, it seems, to point out that Youdasf, mentioned by Massoudi as the founder of the Sabæan religion, and Youasaf, mentioned as the founder of Buddhism by the author of the “Kitáb-al-Fihrist,” are both meant for Bodhisattva, a corruption quite intelligible with the system of transcribing that name with Persian letters. Professor Benfey has identified Theudas, the sorcerer in “Barlaam and Joasaph,” with the Devadatta of the Buddhist scriptures. 1

How palpable these coincidences are between the two stories is best shown by the fact that they were pointed out, independently of each other, by scholars in France, Germany, and England. I place France first, because in point of time M. Laboulaye was the first who called attention to it in one of his charming articles in the “Débats.”

February 23, 2017 0

The Seven Wonders of the World!

Philo byzantius. De Septem orbis spectaculis, Leonis Allatii opera nunc primum graece et latine prodit, cum notis.

In 1640,Leo Allatius(1586-1669), a Librarian at the Vatican Library published and translated a Manuscript of De Septem Orbis

Spectaculis.

The classic seven wonders were:

February 20, 2017 0

Lucretius: On the Nature of Things!

Lucretius, has always made me feel hopeful and some how more connected to the universe and less to the subjective problems we perceive.

“Happy is he who has discovered the causes of things and has cast beneath his feet all fears, unavoidable fate, and the din of the devouring Underworld.” VIRGIL

“In De Rerum Natura, Lucretius sought to clear the mental rubbish that obscures reality. He exposed flaws in common assumptions about gods. To begin with, he scoffed at the anthropocentric notion that gods created the earth for humans.”Gary Sloan

T.Lucretius Carus His Six Books Of Epicurean Philosophy, Done into English Verse, with Notes. The Third Edition. Demetri, Teq; Tigelli Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare Cathedras; i, Puer, atque meo citus hœc subscribe libello.

London: Printed for Thomas Sawbridge at the Three Flewer-de-luces in little Britain, and Anthony Stephens Bookseller near the Theatre in Oxford, 1683 $1,800

Octavo, 7.25 x 4.75 inches. Third edition. (π1), A4, b-e4, f2, A-E4, (a)-(g)4, h2.

This copy is bound in original full calf its front joint is cracked at the foot, up to the second band, the rear joint is

beginning to crack at either end, but it is completely sound and still quite appealing. The leaves are very clean and fresh, with deep impressions of the type.

This translation was prepared by Thomas Creech (1659-1700). The prefatory material contains commendatory poems by John Evelyn, NahaumTate, Thomas Otway, and Aphra Behn among others, many of which were added after the first edition. Creech’s Lucretius first appeared in 1682, with certain portions of the text, notably those in the fourth book about the nature of love, left untranslated.In this edition they are present in translation. Both Pope and Evelyn praised the translation, and Dibdin says that the editor’s erudition, research, and correctness in this excellent and scarce work are acknowledged by every critic.The influence of Lucretius can be seen in Pope’s ‘Essay on Man.’ Lucretius was also favorite reading of Shelley, Wordsworth, and Tennyson.

“Creech’s translation of Lucretius vied in popularity with Dryden’s Virgil and Pope’s Homer. The son of one of his friends is reported to have said that the translation was made in Creech’s daily walk round the parks in Oxford in sets of fifty lines, which he would afterwards write down in his chamber and correct at leisure. […] When Dryden published his translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace, he disclaimed in the preface any intention of robbing Creech ‘of any part of that commendation which he has so justly acquired,’ and referred to his predecessor’s ‘excellent annotations, which I have often reprinted in the last century, and was included in the edition of the British poets which was issued by Anderson.” (DNB)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/lucretiu/

Nunc Lucretius (Nunc=Now) (oswaldsobrino.com)

February 15, 2017 0

Who was The Earl of Rochester, John Wilmot…..?

I find it hard to pin down who Rochester was, maybe it is because he revealed of much contradictory emotion in his verse, or maybe it is his reputation of which so much is written about displays the uneasy relation between actions , feelings and expression. I highly recommend the Movie version of his life ,The Libertine (2004) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375920/.

But there must be so much more, I read and (re)read some of his poems and wonder “How?” other poems fit easily into Restoration literature taken to its absurdist extreame. Rochester was maybe never sure who he was himself, explaining his ‘inconstancy, his drinking, his syphilis, and is disguises…

“All I shall say for myself on this score is this, if I appear to any one like a counterfeit, even for the sake of that chiefly ought I to be construed a true man, [for] who is the counterfeit’s example, his original, and that which he employs his industry and pains to imitate and copy? Is it therefore my fault if the cheat by his wits and endeavours makes himself so like me, that consequently I cannot avoid resembling of him?”

-from Dr. Alexander Bendo’s advertisement of services (in the 1696 edition of Poems, page 138; see below)

All of these paradoxes keep me reading Rochester and finding New customers for his books , currently I have three editions of his works [1696,1705 and 1709. and a copy of Burnet’s “some Passages 1680]

Here is a link to the Poetry Foundations very good biography of him. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-wilmot

Love and Life: A Song

BY JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER

All my past life is mine no more,

The flying hours are gone,

Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er,

Whose images are kept in store

By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;

How can it then be mine?

The present moment’s all my lot;

And that, as fast as it is got,

Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,

False hearts, and broken vows;

If I, by miracle, can be

This live-long minute true to thee,

’Tis all that Heav’n allows.

Rochester is generally considered to be the most considerable poet and the most learned among the Restoration wits. A few of his love songs have passionate intensity; many are bold and frankly erotic celebrations of the pleasures of the flesh. He is also one of the most original and powerful of English satirists. His “History of Insipids” (1676) is a devastating attack on the government of Charles II, and his “Maim’d Debauchee” has been described as “a masterpiece of heroic irony.” A Satyr Against Mankind(1675) anticipates Swift in its scathing denunciation of rationalism and optimism and in the contrast it draws between human perfidy and folly and the instinctive wisdom of the animal world.

In 1674 Rochester was appointed ranger of Woodstock Forest, where much of his later poetry was written. His health was declining, and his thoughts were turning to serious matters. His correspondence (dated 1679–80) with the Deist Charles Blount shows a keen interest in philosophy and religion, further stimulated by his friendship with Gilbert Burnet, later bishop of Salisbury. Burnet recorded their religious discussions in Some Passages of the Life and Death of John, Earl of Rochester (1680).
(see a description below of a copy currently in my stock) In 1680 he became seriously ill and experienced a religious conversion, followed by a recantation of his past; he ordered “all his profane and lewd writings” burned.

735F Wilmot, John. Earl of Rochester. 1647-1680

Poems, (&c.) on several occasions: with Valentinian: a tragedy. Written by the right honourable John late earl of Rochester.

London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1696 $6,600

Octavo, 11 x 17.5 cm. Second edition. A8,a8, B-R8

The spine has been rebacked with the original boards so the binding is tight and secure throughout, and bound with new endpapers. A previous owner has written his name several times throughout but this does not affect the text and indeed adds to the book. The pages are clean, if browned. The only flaw is wormholes to the pages’ top margins. These are predominantly from page 200 to the end but with other smaller worming present in the book. There has also been some bookworm damage to the rear board, and this has now been repaired. Needless to say, the worms are long since gone.

“During Rochester’s lifetime only a few of his writings were printed as broadsides or in miscellanies, [Later this week I’ll write about Miscellanies] but many of his works were known widely from manuscript copies, a considerable number of which seem to have existed. ( I do wish I could come apon one of these!) […] In February of 1690/91, Jacob Tonson, the most reputable publisher of the day, produced a volume entitled ‘Poems On Several Occasions.’ The appearance of the author’s name and title on the title-page is significant. It may indicate that this edition was produced with the approval of the Earl’s family and friends, and it is possible that they may have intervened to prevent the publication of Saunders’s projected edition [license obtained from the Stationer’s Company by Saunders in November of 1690, no edition was ever produced]. Tonson’s edition is introduced by a laudatory preface written by Thomas Rymer which states that the book contains ‘such Pieces only, as may be receiv’d in a vertuous Court’ and is therefore to be regarded only as a selection of Rochester’s writings. Nevertheless it contains, in addition to twenty-three genuine poems which had appeared in the [pirated] Antwerp editions of 1680, sixteen others, including some of Rochester’s best lyrics. No spurious material seems to have been admitted to this collection, but there is a possibility that salacious passages may have been toned down to suit the taste of a ‘virtuous Court.’”

“[Wilmot] is one of these English poets who deserve to be called ‘great’ as daring and original explorers of reality; his place is with such memorable spiritual adventurers as Marlowe, Blake, Byron, Wilfred Owen and D. H. Lawrence. Like Byron and Lawrence, he was denounced as licentious, because he was a devastating critic of conventional morality. Alone among the English poets of his day, he perceived the full significance of the intellectual and spiritual crisis of that age. His poetry expresses individual experience in a way that no other poetry does till the time of Blake. It makes us feel what it was like to live in a world which had been suddenly transformed by the scientists into a vast machine governed by mathematical laws, where God has become a remote first cause and man an insignificant ‘reas’ning Engine.’ [See ‘A Satyr Against Mankind] In his time there was beginning the great Augustan attempt to found a new orthodoxy on the Cartesian-Newtonian world-picture, a civilized city of good taste, common sense and reason. Rochester’s achievement was to reject this new orthodoxy at the very outset. He made three attempts to solve the problem of man’s position in the new mathematical universe. The first was the adoption of the ideal of the purely aesthetic hero, the ‘Strephon’ of his lyrics and the brilliant and fascinating Dorimant of Etherege’s comedy. It was a purely selfish ideal of the ethical hero, the disillusioned and penetrating observer of the satires. This ideal was related to truth, but its relationship was purely negative. The third was the ideal of the religious hero, who bore a positive relation to truth. This was the hero who rejected the ‘Fools-Coat’ of the world and lived by an absolute passion for reality. In his short life Rochester may be said to have anticipated the Augustan Age and the Romantic Movement and passed beyond both. In the history of English thought his poetry is an event of the highest significance. Much of it remains alive in its own right in the twentieth century, because it is what D.H. Lawrence called ‘poetry of this immediate present, instant poetry … the soul and the mind and body surging at once, nothing left out.” (Quoted from Vivian de Sola Pinto’s edition of Wilmot’s Poems published by ‘The Muses Library’)

Wing 1757; Prinz XIV;Grolier’s Wither to Prior #987; O’Donnell A 16 (Prologue), BB 4.1c.

756d Burnet, Gilbert. 1643-1715

Some Passages Of The Life and Death Of the Right Honourable John Earl of Rochester, Who died the 26th of July, 1680. Writen by his own Direction on his Death-Bed, By Gilbert Burnet, D.D.

London: Printed for Richard Chiswel, at the Rose and Crown in St. Pauls Church-Yard, 1680 $1,600 Octavo, 6.7 x 4.3 inches. First edition, second issue without the errata on A8 verso. A-N8 (A1 and N8 blank). The portrait of the Earl of Rochester is bound opposite the title page. This copy is bound in contemporary full calf, blindstamped borders, with loss at the spine head. A previous owner’s ink and pencil notes to endpapers, and a previous owner has inked a simple design. The upper corner of the lower board is cracked.

John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester was known as a libertine and a poet, and often referred to as the “Rake of Rochester.” This work is the product of Rochester’s death-bed repentance, when he charged Burnet “not to spare him in anything which [he] thought might be of use to the Living.” Burnet, while obliged to mention the faults, added: “I have touched them as tenderly as the Occasion would bear: and I am sure with much more softness than he desired”. As Dr. Johnson wrote: “This is a work which the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.”

Wither to Prior 125; Wing B-5922.

1007E Wilmot, John. Earl of Rochester. 1647-1680

Poems, On several occasions: with Valentinian: a tragedy. Written by the right honourable John late Earl of Rochester.

London: Printed for Jacob Tonson, 1705 $4,500

Octavo, 7.5 X 4.5 inches . The third edition of the authentic works. A8, a8 B- R8 This copy is bounds in modern panneled calf,in a early eighteenth style. It has the lighter than usual age spotting through out for this edition, a very nice copy.

Prinz XVII* ( an exact reperint of the 1691 XIII {the best collection }

Grolier’s Wither to Prior #988; O’Donnell A 16 (Prologue), BB 4.1c.

349F Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of. 1647-1680

The Works of the Right Honourable the Earls of Rochester, and Roscommon. With Some Memoirs of the Earl of Rochester’s Life, by Monsieur St. Evremont: In a Letter to the Dutchess of Mazarine. The Third Edition. To which is added, A Collection of Miscellany Poems. By the most Eminent Hands. [bound with] Miscellaneous Works by the Right Honourable The Earl of Roscommon

London: Printed by E. Curll, at the Peacock without Temple-Bar, 1709 SOLD

Octavo, 7.6 x 4.75 inches. Third edition. [π]2, c8, a-b8, A-D8, E6 (Leaves E7 and E8, and F1-5 [pages 76 to 90] have all been sliced out of this copy because of the licentious nature of the poems therein.), F6-8, G-L8; A-M8, N1. This copy lacks the portrait of Rochester. This copy is in good condition in contemporary boards.

The following poems were excised from this copy: “A Description of a Maidenhead,” “The Virgin’s Desire,” “The Perfect Enjoyment,” and “The Imperfect Enjoyment.”

ESTC T95392.

Spy Games: The Intrigues of Aphra Behn (infamousscribblers.wordpress.com)

February 9, 2017 0

Seven English Restoration Plays!

“FROM 1642 onward for eighteen years, the theaters of England remained nominally closed. There was of course evasion of the law; but whatever performances were offered had to be given in secrecy, before small companies in private houses, or in taverns located three or four miles out of town. No actor or spectator was safe, especially during the early days of the Puritan rule. Least of all was there any inspiration for dramatists. In 1660 the Stuart dynasty was restored to the throne of England. Charles II, the king, had been in France during the greater part of the Protectorate, together with many of the royalist party, all of whom were familiar with Paris and its fashions. Thus it was natural, upon the return of the court, that French influence should be felt, particularly in the theater. In August, 1660, Charles issued patents for two companies of players, and performances immediately began.”

( published in A Short History of the Theatre. Martha Fletcher Bellinger. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927. pp. 249-59)

273F Susanna Centlivre 1667?-1723

The gamester: a comedy. As it is acted at the New Theatre in Lincolns-Fields by Her Majesty’s servants. The prologue spoke by Mr. Betterton. Written by N. Rowe, Esq

London: Printed for J. Knapton, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, E. Curll at the Dial and the Bible, R. Gosling at the Mitre and Crown, both against St. Dunstan’s — Church in Fleetstreet, and A. Bettesworth on London-Bridge, 1714 $950

Duodecimo 6.3 x 3.75 inches A4, B-D12, E2. 75 pages. Third edition. This copy has a pale splotch on the title page, and two leaves have a slight water stain. It is a large copy, and has been recently rebound in full parchment over boards.

“A sad lot were all these early feminine intruders into the field of letters, —Aphra Behn, Mrs. Manley, Mrs. Pilkington, and the rest. Mrs. Centlivre was the best of them. Almost the first of her sex to adopt literature as a calling, she may well be regarded as an unconscious reformer, the leader of a forlorn hope against that literary fortress which was so long defended by the cruel sneers of its masculine garrison. She fell upon the glacis. But over her body the Amazons have marched on to victory.” (H. A. Huntington, “Mrs. Centlivre,” Atlantic Monthly, 1882, vol. 49, page 764 DSC_0038 (1)

.“[Centlivre’s] plays have a provoking spirit and volatile salt in them, which still preserves them, from decay. Congreve is said to have been jealous of their success at the time, and that it was one cause which drove him in disgust from the stage. If so, it was without any good reason, for these plays have great and intrinsic merit in them, which entitled them to their popularity, and besides, their merit was of a kind entirely different from his own.” (William Hazlitt, 1818, “Lectures on the English Comic Writers,” Lecture viii.The original source for the plot line was Jean Francois Regnard’s “Le Joueur.” The prologue was written by Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). ESTC T26857; NCBEL II, 781.

759F John Dryden 1631-1700

The Indian Emperour; or, the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. Being the Sequel of the Indian Queen.

London, Printed for H. Herringman, and are to be sold by Joseph Knight, and Francis Saunders, at the Sign of the Blue Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange, 1686 $1,100

Quarto 15.5 x 20 cm A-I4 Fifth Edition Disbound, some spotting but otherwise in fine condition.

“ The Indian Emperor or The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards 1665, rhymed heroic tragedy comes into full being. The Indian Emperor gave an adequate test of the heroic couplet in serious drama and established Dryden’s position as a dramatist. In the conflicts of love and honour between characters of high rank, including personages like Montezuma and Cortez, who move, before a foreign and semi historical background, through scenes of stirring incident toward the triumphant union of martial hero and angelic heroine and the death of those unable to survive the tragic stress, Dryden assembled many elements of earlier English plays, and wedded heroic action to the heroic couplet by the new formula of ‘heroic drama’.” (Nettleton, 55-56)

John Dryden , “English poet, dramatist, and literary critic who so dominated the literary scene of his day that it came to be known as the Age of Dryden…The son of a country gentleman, Dryden grew up in the country. When he was 11 years old the Civil War broke out. Both his father’s and mother’s families sided with Parliament against the king, but Dryden’s own sympathies in his youth are unknown.About 1644 Dryden was admitted to Westminster School, where he received a predominantly classical education under the celebrated Richard Busby. His easy and lifelong familiarity with classical literature begun at Westminster later resulted in idiomatic English translations.In 1650 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his B.A. degree in 1654. What Dryden did between leaving the university in 1654 and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 is not known with certainty. In 1659 his contribution to a memorial volume for Oliver Cromwell marked him as a poet worth watching.
His “heroic stanzas” were mature, considered, sonorous, and sprinkled with those classical and scientific allusions that characterized his later verse. This kind of public poetry was always one of the things Dryden did best.When in May 1660 Charles II was restored to the throne, Dryden joined the poets of the day in welcoming him, publishing in June Astraea Redux, a poem of more than 300 lines in rhymed couplets. For the coronation in 1661, he wrote To His Sacred Majesty. These two poems were designed to dignify and strengthen the monarchy and to invest the young monarch with an aura of majesty, permanence, and even divinity. Thereafter, Dryden’s ambitions and fortunes as a writer were shaped by his relationship with the monarchy. On Dec. 1, 1663, he married Elizabeth Howard, the youngest daughter of Thomas Howard, 1st earl of Berkshire. In due course she bore him three sons.Dryden’s longest poem to date, Annus Mirabilis (1667), was a celebration of two victories by the English fleet over the Dutch and the Londoners’ survival of the Great Fire of 1666. In this work Dryden was once again gilding the royal image and reinforcing the concept of a loyal nation united under the best of kings. It was hardly surprising that when the poet laureate, Sir William Davenant, died in 1668, Dryden was appointed poet laureate in his place and two years later was appointed royal historiographer…Soon after his restoration to the throne in 1660, Charles II granted two patents for theatres, which had been closed by the Puritans in 1642. Dryden soon joined the little band of dramatists who were writing new plays for the revived English theatre. His first play, The Wild Gallant,( see below) a farcical comedy with some strokes of humor and a good deal of licentious dialogue, was produced in 1663. It was a comparative failure, but in January 1664 he had some share in the success of The Indian Queen, a heroic tragedy in rhymed couplets in which he had collaborated with Sir Robert Howard, his brother-in-law. Dryden was soon to successfully exploit this new and popular genre, with its conflicts between love and honour and its lovely heroines before whose charms the blustering heroes sank down in awed submission. In the spring of 1665 Dryden had his own first outstanding success with The Indian Emperour, a play that was a sequel to The Indian Queen….Besides being the greatest English poet of the later 17th century, Dryden wrote almost 30 tragedies, comedies, and dramatic operas. He also made a valuable contribution in his commentaries on poetry and drama, which are sufficiently extensive and original to entitle him to be considered, in the words of Dr. Samuel Johnson, as “the father of English criticism.”After Dryden’s death his reputation remained high for the next 100 years, and even in the Romantic period the reaction against him was never so great as that against Alexander Pope. In the 20th century there was a notable revival of interest in his poems, plays, and criticism, and much scholarly work was done on them. In the late 20th century his reputation stood almost as high as at any time since his death. (Sutherland, encyclopedia Britannica)

Wing D 2293; Woodward & McManaway 420; MacDonald, H. John Dryden; 69f

252F John Dryden 1631-1700

The Wild Gallant: A Comedy. As it was Acted at the Theater-Royal, By His Majesties Servants. Written By John Dryden, Esq;

London: Printed by H. Hills, for H. Herringman, at the Blew-Anchor, in the Lower-Walk of the New-Exchange, 1684 $600

Quarto 8.5 x 6.5 inches A3, B-H4, [I]1. 55 pp. Second edition. This copy is bound in neat tan cloth and corners with marbled paper boards and a gold-lettered spine.

The Wild Gallant was Dryden’s first play, it was “acted at the King’s House on the fifth of February, 1662/3. It failed, and was withdrawn. An attempt was made, under the auspices of Lady Castlemaine, to give it a little fashion at court, where it was acted on the twenty-third of February, but with no better result. The audience could not reconcile the title with the story, nor make out with certainty which was the ‘Wild Gallant.’ ‘The king,’ says Pepys, ‘did not seem
pleased at all the whole play, nor any body else.’ […] The comedy was revived, with considerable alterations, in the season of 1667, not 1669, as stated by Sir Walter Scott, who, in this and other instances, assumes the date of publication as determining the date of production. Dryden excuses himself in the prologue on the revival, for not having originally made the play sufficiently licentious, and promises to make amends in future. ‘It would be doing him a great injustice,’ says honest Mr. Genest, ‘not to acknowledge that he was as good as his word.’” (Annotated Edition of the English Poets, by Robert Bell) Wing D-2401; MacD 72c; W & M 487.

253F John Dryden 1631-1700

An Evening’s Love: Or, The Mock-Astrologer. As it is Acted By Their Majesties Servants. By Mr. Dryden.

London: Printed for Henry Herringman, and are to be sold by Richard Bentley, at the Post-House in Russel-street, Covent-Garden, 1691 $750

Quarto 8.6 x 6.5 inches A-K4. 63 pp. Fourth edition. This copy is disbound.

DSC_0037 (3) “Produced at the King’s House on the twenty-second of June, 1668. The descent of this comedy has been traced through the French from the Spanish. There is no mistaking its origin. The Spanish dances in its veins with a sprightliness Dryden has nowhere so pleasantly sustained. The most curious element in it is the intimate knowledge it reveals of the mysteries of astrology. The state of society that could have endured the prologue to this must have renounced even the affectation of decency.” (Annotated Edition of the English Poets, by Robert Bell) Wing D-2276; MacD 75d; W & M 413.

254F [John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester] Earl of Rochester & Fletcher, John 1647-1680

Valentinian: A Tragedy. As ‘tis Alter’d by the late Earl of Rochester, And Acted at the Theatre-Royal. Together with a Preface concerning the Author and his Writings. By one of his Friends.

DSC_0037 (4)

London: Printed for Timothy Goodwin at the Maiden-head against St. Dunstans-Church in Fleetstreet, 1685 $ 5,500

Quarto 8.7 x 6.6 inches A4, a-c4, B-L4, M2. 82 pp. First edition. This is bound in paper wrappers The title is a little stained and it is trimmed close but it is overall a decent copy.

Valentinian is a Jacobean era stage play, a revenge tragedy written by John Fletcher that was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647. The play dramatizes the story of Valentinian III, one of the last of the Roman Emperors, as recorded by the classical historian Procopius.Like many plays in Fletcher’s canon, Valentinian was both revived and adapted during the Restoration period. This adaptation under the same title by the poet and playwright John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester was staged in 1684 at Drury Lane and published in 1685. Rochester changed the play’s order of scenes and eliminated the final act entirely, making Fletcher’s heroine Lucina the central focus of the drama.

The manuscript copy of Rochester’s version is titled “Lucina’s Rape.” Pinto regards Rochester’s work as a transforming of a loosely structured melodrama into a “symbolic poem full of profound meaning.” It may not have been performed until 1684, and it was not published until 1685. This text was taken from a prompt copy of Lucina’s Rape , and reveals that Rochester’s reworking itself had been further ‘Alter’d’ to the extent of having four scenes reordered and 86 lines removed. Lucina’s Rape Or The Tragedy of Vallentinian , British Library Add. MS 28692 (title-page) What obviously appealed to Rochester was the basis for a satiric portrait of Charles II provided by Fletcher’s portrayal of a Roman emperor as a lustful monster. Rochester’s relationship with the King seems always to have been fragile, with the poet veering between seeing him as a father figure to respect and a fallen human being to despise

“An adaptation by Rochester, in poor taste, of Beaumont and Fletcher’s tragedy of ‘Valentinian’ appeared in 1685, under the title ‘Valentinian: a Trage DSC_0038 (2) dy.’ When the play was produced in 1685, Betterton played Aecius with much success and Mrs. Barry appeared as Lucina. Three prologues were printed, one by Mrs. Aphra Behn.

”The prologue by Aphra Behn is a “long and eloquent defense of the character and writings of Rochester” (Pforzheimer)

Wing F-1354; W & M 1299; MacD 233; Pforzheimer 1069.

849G Sir George Etherege 1634?-1691

The comical revenge, or, love in a tub. Acted at His Highness the Duke of York’s Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-fields. Licensed, July 8. 1664.

Roger L’Estrange London: Printed for Henry Herringman, and are to be sold at his shop at the Blew-Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange,1669 $1,700

Quarto 8.75 x 6.5 inches A-I4, K4.(In this edition, there is a comma after title word “revenge” and leaf A2r has catchword “hope”. Another edition has a semi-colon after “revenge” and leaf A2r has catchword “the”.) This is a good copy, in boards. This is a rare edition Listing only 4 copies in ESTC.

The first work published by Etherege was The Comical Revenge, or Love in a Tub. It was published in 1664 and may have been produced for the first time late in the previous year. This comedy was an immediate success and Etherege found himself, in a night, famous. Thus introduced to the wits and the fops of the town, Etherege took his place in the select and dissolute circle of Rochester, Dorset and Sedley. On one occasion, at Epsom, after tossing in a blanket certain fiddlers who refused to play, Rochester, Etherege and other boon companions so “skirmished the watch” that they left one of their number thrust through with a pike and were fain to abscond. Etherege married a fortune, it is not certain when, and, apparently for no better reason, was knighted. On the death of Rochester, he was, for some time, the “protector” of the beautiful and talented actress, Mrs. Barry. 63 Ever indolent and procrastinating, Etherege allowed four years to elapse before his next venture into comedy. She Would if She Could, 1668.“The reputation of Sir George Etherege has risen considerably in the present century, and although there is now some danger of his being given an importance that he would have been the first to disown, he undoubtedly stamped his own unemphatic image on the Restoration theater. The comic world of his first two plays, although it is almost as unreal to the modern playgoer as the world of Edwardian musical comedy, is still young and fresh; it has the cool fragrance of those early mornings in the sixteen-sixties that Etherege knew so well as he went rollicking home after a night of pleasure. […] His gentlemen never do anything that he and his friends would have been ashamed to do themselves. Whatever his moral standards may be, we have at least the satisfaction of feeling (as we do not with Dryden) that he is not consciously lowering them to make an English comedy. […] (Sutherland)

Wing E-3370; W & M 546; Hazlitt, page 45.

[Another edition]

137F Sir George Etherege 1634?-1691

The Comical Revenge: Or Love in a Tub. As it is now Acted By Their Majesty’s Servants. By Sir George Etherege.

London: Printed by T. Warren for Henry Herringman, and are to be Sold by J. Tonson, F. Saunders, T. Bennet, and K.Bentley, 1697 $1,100

Quarto 8.75 x 6.5 inches A-I4, K2. Seventh edition. This play first appeared 1664. This is a good and clean copy. Bound in modern boards.

Wing E-3373; W & M 550; Hazlitt, page 45.

August 23, 2016 1

Ten (more) Books by Jesuits from the 17th Century!

Another short List of some books by Jesuits currently in my inventory. Please enjoy.

271G Campion, Edmund. 1540-1581

Historia Anglicana ecclesiastica : a primis gentis susceptae fidei incunabulis ad nostra fere tempora deducta, et in quindecim centurias distributa

Duaci : Sumptibus Marci Wyon, Typographi Iurati, sub signo Phoenicis, 1622 $4,400

DSC_0037 (4) Folio, 332 X 210 mm . a4, e4, i4, A-4Z4, 5A-5E4. This copy is bound in original full vellum. Historia Wicleffiana eivsdem avctoris”: p. [661]-732./ “Catalogus. Ex Anglico Ioannis Speed Latinva, in quo suo uno aspectu videre est omnium tum monasteriorum …” p. 741-779. DSC_0038 (2)

“Shortly after dawn on July 18, 1581, the cry went out: “I have found the traitors!” With a crowbar the false wall at the head of the stairs was torn away, revealing the huddled figures of Edmund Campion and two companions, three priests lately returned to their native England to minister to those resisting the oppression from the new English Church. Their discovery set them upon the path to martyrdom.

Edmund Campion was born on January 25, 1540 into an England of religious and social upheaval. Protestantism had usurped the Catholic Church as the spiritual authority; the dissolution of monasteries and the suppression of Catholic beliefs and believers intensified as land-hungry nobles and men of power continued, in the name of the young, sickly Edward VI, the transformation begun by Henry VIII. Campion was 13 and the most promising scholar at Christ’s Hospital school in London when he was chosen to read an address to Mary Tudor upon her arrival in London as queen in 1553. Campion received a scholarship to Oxford at age 15, and, by the time Elizabeth rose to power (“restoring” Protestantism as the national religion) upon Mary’s death in 1558, he was already a junior fellow.

At Oxford Campion’s erudition, charisma, and charm gained him noteriety; his students even imitated his mannerisms and style of dress. Queen Elizabeth visited in 1566 and for her entertainment was treated to academic displays. Campion, the star of the show, single-handedly debated four other scholars and so impressed the queen that she promised the patronage of her advisor (and one of the principal architects of the Reformation in England) William Cecil, who referred to Campion as the “diamond of England.”

It was the hope of the crown that Campion would become a defender of the new faith which, though favored by the temporal power, lacked learned apologists. Yet even as he was ordained to the Anglican diaconate, he was being swayed toward Rome, influenced in great part by older friends with Catholic sympathies. In 1569 he journeyed to Dublin, where he composed his <History of Ireland>. At this point Campion was at the summit of his powers. He could have risen to the highest levels of fame had he stayed his course. But this was not to be. By the time Campion left Ireland, he knew he could not remain a Protestant.

Campion’s Catholic leanings were well-publicized, and he found the atmosphere hostile upon his return to England in 1571. He went abroad to Douay in France, where he was reconciled with the Church and decided to enter the Society of Jesus. He made a pilgrimmage to Rome and journeyed to Prague, where he lived and taught for six years and in 1578 was ordained a Jesuit priest.

In 1580 he was called by superiors to join fellow Jesuit Robert Parsons in leading a mission to England. He accepted the assignment joyfully, but everyone was aware of the dangers. The night before his departure from Prague, one of the Jesuit fathers wrote over Campion’s door, “<P. Edmundus Campianus, Martyr.>”

Campion crossed the English Channel as “Mr. Edmunds,” a jewel dealer. His mission was nearly a short one: At Dover a search was underway for Gabriel Allen, another English Catholic expatriate who was rumored to be returning to England to visit family. Apparently Allen’s description fit Campion also, and he was detained by the mayor of Dover, who planned to send Campion to London. Inexplicably, while waiting for horses for the journey, the mayor changed his mind, and sent “Mr. Edmunds” on his way.

Upon reaching London, Campion composed his “Challenge to the Privy Council,” a statement of his mission and an invitation to engage in theological debate (see “Classic Apologetics” in this issue). Copies spread quickly, and several replies to the “Challenge” were published by Protestant writers, who attached to it a derogatory title, “Campion’s Brag,” by which it is best known today.

The power and sincerity of the “Brag” is accompanied by a degree of naivete: Campion’s statement of purpose was of no value during his later trial for treason, and the challenge to debate, repeated later in his apologetic work <Decem Rationes>, was as much an invitation to capture. And his capture seemed almost inevitable: Elizabeth had spies everywhere searching for priests, the most sought after of whom being her former “diamond of England.”

Campion and his companions traveled stealthily through the English countryside in the early summer of 1581, relying on old, landed Catholic families as hosts. They said Mass, heard confession, performed baptisms and marriages, and preached words of encouragement to a people who represented the last generation to confess the faith of a Catholic England.

There were close calls. Many homes had hiding places for priests—some even had secret chapels and confessionals—and the Jesuits had to rely on these more than once. Campion took extraordinary risks, never able to turn down a request to preach or administer the sacraments, and more than once he escaped detection while in a public setting.

His fortune changed while visiting the home of Francis Yate in Lyford Grange, which was west of London. Yate was a Catholic imprisoned for his faith who had repeatedly asked for one of the Jesuit fathers to tend to the spiritual needs of his household. Though it was out of the way and the queen’s searchers were reportedly in hot pursuit, Campion was unable to resist the request.

He traveled to Lyford, heard confessions, preached well into the night, and departed without difficulty after saying Mass at dawn. Some nuns visiting the home shortly thereafter were upset to hear they had just missed Campion, and so riders were dispatched to pursuade him to return, which he did. Word of his return reached George Eliot, born and regarded as Catholic but in fact a turncoat in the pay of the queen; he had a general commission to hunt down and arrest priests. Eliot arrived at Lyford with David Jenkins, another searcher, and attended a Mass. He was greatly outnumbered by the Catholics, and, fearing resistance, made no move to arrest Campion. He departed abruptly to fetch the local magistrate and a small militia and returned to the Yate property during dinner. News of the approaching party reached the house, and Campion and his two priestly companions were safely squirreled away in a narrow cell prepared especially for that purpose, with food and drink for three days.

Later Eliot and Jenkins both claimed to have discovered the priests, offering the same story: A strip of light breaking through a gap in the wall leading to the hiding place was the giveaway—both men took credit for noticing it, and each reported being the one to break through the wall. No doubt each sought the credit for capturing the infamous Campion, for no priest was more beloved by the Catholics nor more despised by the crown.

Campion was taken to the Tower and tortured. Several times he was forced to engage in debates, without benefit of notes or references and still weak and disoriented from his

rackings and beatings. He acquited himself admirably, all things considered: a testament to his unparalled rhetorical skills.

His trial was a farce. Witnesses were bribed, false evidence produced; in truth, the outcome had been determined since his arrival. Campion was eloquent and persuasive to the last, dominating the entire procedure with the force of his logic and his knowledge of the Scripture and law, but in vain. He and his priestly and lay companions were convicted of treason on November 14 and were sentenced to death. His address to the court upon sentencing invoked the Catholic England for which he had fought, the Catholic England which was about to die: “In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors—all the ancient priests, bishops and kings—all that was once the glory of England.”

On December 1,1581 the prophecy hanging over his door in Prague was fulfilled: Campion was hanged, drawn, and quartered. The poet Henry Walpole was there, and during the quartering some blood from Campion’s entrails splashed on his coat. Walpole was profoundly changed. He went overseas, took orders, and 13 years later met his own martyrdom on English soil. Campion was beatified by Leo XIII in 1886.” by Todd M. Aglialoro Campion

see De Backer-Sommervogel vol II col 589

459G Canisius, Peter (Saint) (1521-1597)

Commentariorum de Verbi Dei Corruptelis tomi duo. Prior de Venerando Christi

Domini Praecursore Ioanne Baptista, Posterior de Sacrosancta Virgine Maria deipara disserit, et utriusque personae historiam omnem adversus
Centuriatores Magdeburgicos aliosq; Catholicae Ecclesiae hostes diserte vindicat. Postrema et Plenior utriusque operis, in unum volumen nunc primum redacti

editio, D. Petro Canisio Societatis Iesu Theologo, tùm Authore, tùm Recognitore.

Accessit index Copiosus, partim locorum Scripturae Sacrae, quae passim tractantur, partim rerum praecipuarum, quae utroque Tomo continentur

[Bound with]

Alter tomvs Commentariorvm de verbi Dei corrvptelis, adversvs novos et veteres sectariorvm errores … De S. Joan. Baptista. De B. V. Maria

Ingolstadii : Ex officina typographica Davidis Sartorii, 1583

Folio, 8 1⁄2 X 13 inches. Second Edition Numerous full-page woodcut illustrations including one of John the Baptist, the Tree of Jesse with crowned kings and Mary and Child at the top and the key episodes of Mary’s life Bound in 17th century full vellum.

$6,500

“In 1543 [Canisius] visited Peter Faber and, having
made the ‘spiritual exercises’ under his direction,
was admitted into the Society of Jesus at Mainz, on
8 May. With the help of Leonhard Kessel and
others, Canisius, laboring under great difficulties,
founded at Cologne the first German house of that
order; at the same time he preached in the city and
vicinity, and debated and taught in the university.
In 1546 he was admitted to the priesthood. […]
[Canisius] spent several months under the direction
of Ignatius in Rome [in 1547]. On 7 September 1549, he made his solemn profession as Jesuit at Rome, in the presence of the founder of the order.
[Under Ignatius’ direction, Canisius also set up Jesuit colleges in Vienna, Ingolstadt, Prague,
Zabern, Munich, Innsbruck, and Dillingen.] By the appointment of the Catholic princes and the order of the pope he took part in the religious discussions at Worms. As champion of the Catholics he repeatedly spoke in opposition to Melanchthon. The fact that the Protestants disagreed among themselves and were obliged to leave the field was due in a great measure to Canisius. […]

One of Canisius’ most important works, is “Commentariorum de Verbi Dei corruptelis liber primus: in quo de Sanctissimi Præcursoris Domini Joannis Baptistæ Historia Evangelica . . . pertractatur”. Here the confutation of the principal errors of Protestantism is exegetical and historical rather than scholastical; in 1577 “De Maria Virgine incomparabili, et Dei Genitrice sacrosancta, libri quinque” was published at Ingolstadt. Later he united these two works into one book of two volumes, “Commentariorum de Verbi corruptelis” (Ingolstadt, 1583, {the book discussed here} and later Paris and Lyons); the treatise on St. Peter and his primacy was only begun; the work on the Virgin Mary contains some quotations from the Fathers of the Church that had not been printed previously, and treats of the worship of Mary by the Church.

A celebrated theologian of the present day called this work a classic defence of the whole Catholic doctrine about the Blessed Virgin (Scheeben, “Dogmatik”, III, 478) De Backer- Sommervogel vol II col. 674

479G Drexel, Jeremias. 1581-1638

Aloe Amari sed salubris succi Ieiunium quod in aula ser[enissi]mi utriusque Bauariae Ducis Maximiliani S.R.I. Archidapiferi, Electoris etc. explicavit et latine Scripsit Hieremias Drexelius e Societate jesu.

München : formis Cornelij Leysserij elect. typography & biblipolæ(IS), Lesser, Cornelius 1637 Formis Cornelij Leysserij $860 (ON HOLD)

Duodecimo, . First Edition A-X12 Y6 The frontispiece depicts angels trying to tempt a hermit with plates of food. The book is bound in full contemporary vellum. Drexel, born on the 15th of August in 1581 entered the Society of Jesus in 1598. Soon after, he became a professor of the humanities and rhetoric at Dillingen. For twenty-three years he was the court preacher to the elector of Bavaria where he wrote this work on fasting . cf.Weiss 817 (1650 edition). He was professor of humanities and rhetoric at Augsburg and Dillengen, and for twenty-three years court preacher to the Elector of Bavaria. His writings enjoyed an immense popularity. Chief among them was his “Considerationes de Æternitate” (Munich, 1620), of which there were nine editions; in addition to these Leyser printed 3200 copies in Latin and 4200 in German. It was also translated into English (Cambridge, 1632; Oxford, 1661;

London, 1710 and 1844) and into Polish, French, and Italian. His “Zodiacus Christianus” or “The Twelve

Signs of Predestination” (Munich, 1622) is another famous book but there seems to have been an edition anterior to this; in 1642 eight editions had already been issued and it was translated in several European languages. “The Guardian Angel’s Clock” was first issued at Munich, 1622, and went through seven editions in twenty years; it was also translated extensively. “Nicetas seu Triumphata conscientia” (Munich, 1624) was dedicated to the sodalists of a dozen or more cities which he names on the title page; “Trismegistus” was printed in the same year and place; “Heliotropium” or “Conformity of the Human Will with the Divine Will” came out in 1627; “Death the Messenger of Eternity” also bears the date 1627. His fancy for odd titles shows itself in other books also. Thus there are the “Gymnasium of Patience”; “Orbis Phaëton, hoc est de universis vitiis Linguæ”. The only work he wrote in German was entitled “Tugendtspregel oder Klainodtschatz” (Munich, 1636). He has also a “Certamen Poeticum”; Rosæ selectissimarum virtutum”; “Rhetorica Coelestis”; “Gazophyacium Christi”. There are in all thirty-four such books. Other works are “Res bellicæ expeditionis Maximiliani” (1620), and some odes and sermons.

His writings on the eternal truth, the virtues and the Christian exemplar were popular; hundreds of thousands of copies of his works were printed. By 1642 in Munich alone, 170,700 copies of his works had appeared. His first work, De aeternitate considerationes, concerned various representations of eternity. Another of his works, Heliotropism, discussed man’s recognition of the divine will and conformity to it.

De Backer-Sommervogel vol, III col, 199, no.; Pörnbacher, K. Jeremias Drexel,; p. 186, no. 18

474G Gautruche , Pierre. 1602-1681

Philosophiae ac mathematicae totius institutio : Cum assertionibus disputatis & vario genere problematum ; ad usum Studiosae Iuventutis.

Cadomi,[Caen] apud Adamum Cavelier et Joannem Cavelier. M.DC.LVI. 1654 $1,700

Octavo, . [8], 360, [20], 359 [i.e. 357, 3] p Bound in full contemporary vellum. The body of the book a bit loose from the spine This books contents are V.1. Logica et moralis ; v.2.Physica universalis ; v.3. Physica particularis ; v.4. Metaphysica ; v.5. Mathematica ; v.6. Idea et summa simulque index universae hujus philosophiae per theses digestae, adjecto… indice theologico. Parte altera ostenduntur scopuli novorum dogmatum philosopho cuique ac theologo vitandi. Each section has its own title page.

Gautruche,a French Jesuit, entered the Society in 1621, after studying in Rennes, he was sent to the College of Mount Caen in 1642, where he taught philosophy two years before (perhaps)he was sent to La Flèche. In 1653 Gautruche returned to college Du Monte as prefect of studies and professor of theology, two charges he held until 1679, two years before his death. From 1668 he also gave the mathematics course, a matter of particular interest to, and it seems also of influenced to the Archbishop of Avranches, Pierre-Daniel Huet ,who developed an enthusiasm for mathematics. Gautruche is the author of the first textbook of philosophy published by a French Jesuit. He remained in this regard the only book of its kind in France until the publication of the manual of another Jesuit, Gaspard Buhon in 1723.

De Backer-Sommervogel vol III col 1286 no.1

77G González ,de Santalla, Tirso. 1624- 1705.

Fundamentum theologiae moralis, id est Tractatus theologicus de recto usu opinionum probabilium, in quo ostenditur, ut quis licite possit sequi opinionem probabilem faventem libertati adversus legem, omnino necessarium esse et sufficere, quod post diligentem veritatis inquisitionem, ex sincero desiderio non offendendi Deum susceptam, opinio illa ipsi appareat, attenta ratione et authoritate, vel unice verisimilis, vel manifesti verisimilior quam opposita, stans pro lege adversus libertatem, ac idcirco ad ipso judicetur vera judicio absoluto, firmo et non fluctuante

DSC_0037 (1)

Coloniæ Agrippinæ: Köln : sumptibus Aloysii Ghissardi(IS), Ghissardi, Luigi 1694

$900

Quarto, 9 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches. a8, b6, A-R8, S10

As an ardent adversary of probabilism González had frequently asked his superiors to have some Jesuit write against the doctrine. He himself had composed a work in which he defended probabiliorism, assigning, however, an exaggerated importance to the subjective estimation of the degree of probability. The general revisors of the Society unanimously rendered an unfavorable opinion on the work, and accordingly, in 1674, the Superior General Giovanni Paolo Oliva refused permission for its publication. González received encouragement from Pope Innocent XI and by his order the Holy Office issued a decree, in 1680, ordering the superiors of the Society to allow their subjects to defend probabiliorism, a permission that had never been denied.

González was born in 1622 in Argante a small town in Leon, Spain. He had entered the Society at the age of 20 in 1642 and became a renowned parish-mission preacher in a team with a certain Gabriel Guillén. The two of them were known all over Spain for their Parish missions and worked successfully together from 1665 until 1672.

Then González was appointed to teach Theology at Salamanca and it was there that he became obsessed with the theological opinions known among theologians as probabilism versus probabiliorism, one more rigorous on Moral issues than the other after which there was a falling out of friendship with Guillén. After the death of de Noyelle the 13th General Congregation was called for June 22 until Sept. 7, 1667. The Pope had made it clear that he wanted the Congregation to elect González General and to approve a decree expressly stating that Jesuits were free to defend probabiliorism with a clear conscience. The 65 year old González was elected General as Innocent had requested on July 6, 1687.

When the project of King James II of England to return it to Catholic rule failed, He escaped the forces of William of Orange in December 1688 of Paris. Fearing the dangers of his own court, King Louis XIV then requested the Jesuits provide him safety and hide him in the grounds of the Collège de Clermont in Paris. General González sent Michelangelo Tamburini S.J. to meet with the king at the Collège de Clermont and propose to him a plan to subvert the Protestant nobility and their Freemasonry clubs by “resurrecting” the mythology of the Templars and instituting a higher authority Freemason lodge. King James II agreed and implemented the first 25 rites of the Scottish Rite as written by the Jesuits. In 1696, the 14th, General Congregation was called by González at the request of the Pope. This was done in accord with the decree of Innocent X, which required the Jesuits to have a General Congregation every nine years. González was 80 years old by this time and was failing physically. His Assistants advised him to choose a Vicar General and he chose Michelangelo Tamburini to help him. The next “9 year” General Congregation was coming closer and was called for January 1706. The General insisted on imposing his own moral ideas on the whole Society and the Theologians balked. As the delegates began arriving in Rome for the 15th General Congregation, Thyrsus González was called to eternal reward and a great sigh of relief was heard among the delegates and in Jesuit houses around the world.

After a Generalate of 18 years and 3 months González died on October 27, 1705. He was succeeded as superior general by Michelangelo Tamburini (1706–1730).

De Backer-Sommervogel vol.III col.1595 no.6

503G Hugo, Herman. 1588-1629

Pia Desideria tribus libris Comprehensa.1. Gemitus animæ pænitentis: 2. Vota animæ sanctæ: 3. Suspiria animæ amantis:

Antuerpiæ : apud Lucam de Potter, in candido Lilio, 1676 $1,800 Octavo, 6 x 4 in. Nineth edition. The first was printed in 1624. *8 A-R12 S4. There are 45 full-paged emblems throughout the work and an engraved frontispiece. Two of the emblems, leaves *6 and A4, have been hand colored. This copy is bound in full contemporary calf.

The Pia desideria was the most popular emblem book of the seventeenth century…It gained enormous influence both on the continent and in England through Francis Quarles’ Emblemes. The Pia desideria appeared in over forty-four Latin editions and many other Latin translations. (Summerized from Ratio Studiorum: Jesuit Education, 1540-1773 21-22)
The genre of the emblem book was the particular domain of the Jesuits, they produced more books in this area than did any other identifiable group of writers. One reason for this was that “Jesuit emblematists saw the emblem as the means to a noble end: the spread of the Gospel, God’s Kingdom, the betterment of society – all key concepts in the Spiritual Exercises.”
Before he joined the order of the Jesuits, he received five years of secondary education in the Humaniora (including studies in philosophy and theology). He arrived at the University of Louvain in 1602, and was made ‘Magister Artium’ in 1604. Shortly thereafter he decided to become a Jesuit, entering the novitiate at Doornail in September of 1605. He then spent two years to familiarize himself with the Ignatian method for beginning Jesuits. Due to the increasing demand of trained personel in the order, he probably served as a teacher in the order while continuing his own studies after that. He took his vows in September 1607, and was ordained as a priest in 1613 in Louvain. By 1617 he had completed his studies in Louvain. He then spent one year in Lier, where he served a probationary year – intended to give young priests further experience with Igantius’s Spiritual Exercises. After this year, he was called to Brussels to serve as prefect of studies under the rectorship of Father Antoine Sucquet. In 1621, he accompanied the Duke of Aerschot to Madrid, to express the sympathy of the Flemish nobility to Philips IV, who had just be installed as the new Spanish king. After the trip to Spain, and a brief trip to Rome in 1623, Hugo worked as a chaplain to the Spanish armies in the southern Netherlands. He died in 1629, still serving the armies, in Rheinberg (Germany), after the Spanish armies were defeated at ‘s Hertogenbosch.

The engravings of the Pia desideria were made by the illustrator Boëtius à Bolswert, who was engaged in this project by publisher Hendrick Aertssens. Bolswert produced 45 copperplates that were used again for the Goddelycke wenschen by Justus de Harduwijn, published in 1629. Hugo’s Pia desideria became very popular from the moment it was published. In all it was reprinted 49 times, and 90 translations and adaptations of the Pia desideria were published in all the major European languages. Therefore, the Pia desideria was one of the most widely distributed, most widely translated and imitated religious books (not just emblem books) of the seventeenth century.

Hugo’s Pia desideria contains emblems constructed on the basis of the three stages of mystical life, and filled with references, allusions, and quotations taken from various sources (the Bible, ancient works, hagiography, mystical writings).

Leach, M. C.The Literary and Emblematic Activity of Herman Hugo, S.J. (1588-1629) Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1979

De Backer-Sommervogel vol. IV, cols.514/5. Landwehr, J. Emblem and fable books (3rd ed.) 354

560G Sebastián Izquierdo 1601-1681; Ignatius of Loyola, Saint,; 1491-1556.

Practica de los Exercicios Espirituales de Nuestro Padre San Ignacio

Romae : Por El Varese, 1675 3800 Octavo 6 X 4 inches A-G H . Second Spanish edition.

The copy offered here is a little browned but not badly , it is bound in modern full calf with gilt spine by Roycroft. The Jesuit Sebastián Izquierdo in his Práctica de los ejercicios espirituales, written in 1665 translated in to Italian the same year then in 1678 translated into Latin and later published in several translations and versions offers an illustrated guide to the Ignatian spiritual exercises. The illustrations, 12 of them, are the subject of image meditation which was a favorite method of the Jesuits who, beginning with the monumental Evangelicae Historiae Imagines (1593) of Jerónimo Nadal, actively took hold of religious iconography and adjusted and concentrated it for the teaching of the Societies ( and Ignatius’ ) vision. The images are not just simple depiction’s instead they are mnemonic devices. These images are points of departures and give the current 21st century reader a precious examples of images that inspire meditation, direct the reception of the teachings and anchor them in the memory. Particularly memorable is the Image of Hell on page 72, or the Puteus Abyssi (the bottomless pit) . The lay-out shows the pedagogical intentions and possibilities of this little book: there are 12 parts consisting of 12 separate quires, numbered from ‘A’ to ‘M’ and paginated each from 1-12, each with its own full-page illustration , these could have been meant to be distributed separately – according to match the educational needs or level of the students. The Images are in high contrast, with plenty of Bloody and memorable images.The Puteus Abyssi depicts a poor man who is naked and sitting in a chair in some sort of oubliette. He has sevenswords, each with animal head handles, in him and each is strategically stuck in various parts of the body. The swords are labeled for the passions. Most interesting of these might be the sword marked ‘Vengeance’ it is hanging offer the mans head, the Idleness sword is stuck between his legs, Gluttony in his stomach, Lust … Envy in his back, Avarice between his Shoulders and Pride in his heart.Izquierdo was also the author of Pharus scientiarum, a treatise on the methodology and propaedeutic to be used to access knowledge, conceived it as a single science. In this work, which is felt the imprint of Raymond Lully and traditions are assimilated Aristotelian and Baconian logic, outlines some of the ways that will travel later Leibniz and expressed some original ideas on mathematics and logic that have earned their author be among the most outstanding Spanish of his time in those fields. Thus, for example, used it not only featured Spanish mathematicians, like his contemporary John Caramuel or illustrated Tomás Vicente Tosca , but also significant foreign mathematicians as Athanasius Kircher , Gaspar Knittel or Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , the latter, in particular, cited another work of its author, his Disputatio of Combinatione, in Combinatorial Art (1666). DeBacker-Sommervogel, vol.IV, col 700 no.4 ; Landwehr:Romantic 412.; Praz,p.382: Palau y Dulcet (2nd ed.); 291352:Toda 2466.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

632G Kircher, Athanasius (& Kestler) . 1602-1680

Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis, Qua Summa Argumentorum Multitudine & Varietate Naturalium rerum scientia per experimenta Physica, Mathematica, Medica, Chymica, Musica, Magnetica, Mechanica comprobatur atque stabilitur. Quam Ex Vastis Operibus Adm. Revdi. P. Athanasii Kircheri extraxit, & in hunc ordinem per classes redegit Romæ, Anno M. DC. LXXV. Joannes Stephanus Kestlerus Alsata, Authoris discipulus, & in re litterariâ assecla, & coadjutor.

Amsterdam: Ex Officinâ Janssonio-Waesbergiana, 1680 $11,500

Folio, 9.4 x 14.25 in. First and only edition. *4, A-Z4, Aa-Ii4. There are many illustrations in this book: an extra engraved title page, one hundred and sixty text woodcuts, and ten text engravings, some of which are very large. These illustrations all depict scientific instruments and experiments. This is a very good copy bound in original full vellum with a gilt spine.

Physiologia Kircheriana Experimentalis “Thus in the most varied branches of science Kircher played the role of pioneer. Even medicine received his attention. His scientific activities brought him into correspondence with scholars laboring in the most different fields, as the numerous volumes of his extant letters show. It is to his inventive mind that we owe one of the earliest of our counting machines: the speaking-tube and æolian harp were perfected by him. He was also the inventor of the magic lantern [depicted in this volume] which has since been brought to such perfection and is today almost indispensable. [All of Kircher’s inventions are illustrated in the present work, including three different depictions of magic lanterns.]” (CE)

“This work, edited by one of Kircher’s pupils, Johann Stephan Kestler, is a codification of Kircher’s observations and experiments across the entire spectrum of his researches in physics. Naturally there are large sections on light and shadow, magnetism, acoustics, and music; but there are also experiments and observations in hydraulics, alchemy, and a myriad of other topics. This compendium was perhaps a response to entreaties from Kircher’s fellow scientists, who appreciated his keen observations and experiments but did not care to wade through some forty volumes to glean them. The book is an example of what Kircher’s writings could have been like at the hands of a good editor. Kircher died the year this book was published, and it is uncertain to what extent he was involved in its publication. The Physiologia is not only a measure of Kircher’s scientific curiosity and the vast range of his scientific researches, but also a barometer of his age, a catalogue of the scientific concerns of his time.” (Merrill)

. Kircher produced some forty treatises “on virtually every imaginable aspect of ancient and modern knowledge”, each one “demonstrat[ing] his dizzying array of linguistic, paleographic, historical, and scientific skills, and … advertis[ing] his myriad inventions, possession of strange and exotic artifacts, and mysterious manuscripts” (Findlen)

Merrill #29; Sommervogel IV 1076, 24; Caillet II, 365.5796; Brunet III, 669; Clendening 13.26;

Garrison/Morton 80.580.Findlen, ed., Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything

375G Sucquet è Societate Iesu., R.P. Antonij. 1574-1627

Piæ considerationes ad declinandum à malo et faciendum bonum : cum iconibus Viae vitae aeternae R.P. Antonij Sucquet è Societate Iesu.


Vienna Austriæ : Wien : [s.n.], 1672             $1,900

Quarto,4 3⁄4 X 7 inches .

( no printed signatures) π 4 A-T4 V2
This copy is bound in full original vellum over

pasteboards.

An abridgment in 32 chapters of Sucquet’s Via vitae aeternae. Backer-Sommervogel cites the editor as Jean-Baptiste Plengg. There is an engraved emblematic title page signed “I.M. Lerch sc. Viennae;” The other 32 illustrations (numbered 1-32) are full-page emblems engraved by Boetius a Bolswert–See Landwehr. The Illustrations are printed on the verso of leaf, recto is blank; accompanied by explanatory text on facing leaf. The text and illustrations are printed within ruled border.

This popular emblematical work is arranged as a series of meditations, by the Jesuit Antoine Sucquet. Many religious emblem books were published during the 17th and 18th centuries, and of these, Sucquet’s work was one of the most popular. Because of its engravings by Boëtius a Bolswert , it was especially important for the development of the 17th-century Christian iconography.

The counter-reformation produced a great number of emblematic meditation-books where text and illustrations are interwoven. Emblem books were therefore much favoured by the Jesuits for the purposes of teaching, as religious propaganda, and to provide subjects for meditation. The 17th-century Jesuit curriculum prescribed that emblems were composed in the schools. Members of the highest classes in the Flemish Jesuit colleges each composed an emblem, and the production of the entire class was collected in commemorative albums painted by professional artists and calligraphers. The meditation on the soul’s relation to Christ was precisely guided by provision of references in the engravings. The first religious catholic emblem book was published in 1571 and composed by Arias Montanus. In 1601 Jan David composed the first Jesuit emblem book, the “Veridicus Christianus”. Sucquet’s work is composed around the widely spread concept of the “homo viator in bivio”, the creature who during his life again and again arrives at the cross and has to make the good choice for the narrow and difficult path to his eternal destination. Sucquet made clear that vision is the most important sense of a human being. It had foundational importance for the Christian iconography of the seventeenth century. According to Brunet the work was very much searched after by the pious for its texts, by the curious minds for the 32 engravings by Boetius a Bolswert.

Praz, M. Studies in 17th cent. imagery (2nd ed.),; p. 506; Corpus librorum emblematum. Jesuit series,; J.1414; Landwehr, J. German emblem books,; 564; De Backer- Sommervogel,; VI, column 892, no. 2

August 22, 2016 0

Seven Jesuit books from the 17th century

1) 620G Lenaert Leys (Lessius) 1554-1623

R.P. Leonardi Lessi E Societate Jesu, Sacrae Theologiae In Academia Louvaniensi Quondam Professoris, De Jure et Justitia Compendium. A quodam Patre eiusdem Societatis compilatum

Duaci, [i.e. Douai]. Apud Joannem Serrurier, Typographum juratum, 1640. $2,500

Octavo 7 X 4 1/2 inches a8, A-Z8,Aa7 (complete) about the fifth edition,the Approbation is dated23 jan 1634 This very nice copy is bound in near contemporary black morocco, gilt, later paper lettering-pieces. Rubbed, with some marking to boards. A.E.G. From the library of Ramsgate Monastery, with bookplate and library pouch to the front board. Lenaert Leys (1554-1623), Flemish Jesuit and professor of theology at Louvain, consultant to Antwerp merchants on legal matters. An early edition of this useful Douai-printed compendium of Leys groundbreaking legal work De Justitia et Jure (Louvain, 1605), which dealt with numerous commercial and business mattersand the ethical banking practices. Lessius is best known for this treatise De justitia and iure (De justice and law) in 1605 which was reprinted twenty times during the seventeenth century .

It was the first time a theologian seriously studying the moral problems raised by the economy and finance . Lessius went to Antwerp, then a city in full economic expansion, to study first hand how banks and modern trade worked. He acquired the competence in this area – a rare thing among the clerics of the time – gave considerable weight to his proposed solutions to the problems raised. Today historians of economics admire the subtlety of his analyzes of issues related to lending at interest . Among other things he gave information to calculate exactly what a fair price, giving up in this area which was proposed by his mentor, St. Thomas Aquinas ..

BT Gordon, Economic Analysis Before Adam Smith: Hesiod to Lessius, Macmillan, 1975.; Bernard Dempsey, Interest and usury, Dobson, 1943.

109. ;VD16.; ZV 957; Adams. A- 208.

2) 833G Richard, 1618-1693 Archdekin,

THEOLOGIA QUADRIPARTITA :POLEMICA, Praecipuas Fidei Controversias, ad brevem, ac facilem Metrodum redactas, PRACTICA, Resolutiones Theologicas, ac omnia prope SACERDOTIS munia accommodatas, SACRA, Apparatum alphabeticum, cum Praxi et Conceptibus Contionum pro singulis anni Dominicis; CATECHETICA, Summam Doctrinae Christianae, selectissimis exemplis, et brevi explicatione illustratam complectens__

Pragæ : Typis Universitatis Carolo- Ferdinandae in Collegio Societ. Jesu ad S. Clementem,1678 $2,800

Octavo 6 1/2 X 4 inches π1,)(6, )o(8,A-Z8, Aa-Pp8,Qq4. {[XXVIII], 582, [XXXI]}

First and only edition. Bound in the original Vellum binding, two brass clasps, manuscript title on spine. _

The ‘ Controversias Fidei’ had a wonderful success. A few copies of the work which found their way to the university of Prague were received with such enthusiasm that some transcripts of the whole were made for the use of the students; and in 1678 the book was reprinted, without the knowledge of the author, at the University

Press.__ARCHDEKIN, or ARSDEKIN, RICHARD an Irish Jesuit, who has adopted both forms of his name on his own title-pages, and is also known as Mac Gioi.la Cuddy, was the son of Nicholas Archdekin and his wife Ann Sherlock, and was born at Kilkenny 16 March 1618. He went through a course of classical studies, and for two years applied himself to philosophy before he entered the Jesuit order; and he studied theology for four years at Louvain. Entering the Society of Jesus at Mechlin 28 Sept. 1642, he was in due time enrolled among the professed fathers of the order. He was teaching humanities in 1650; he studied under the Jesuits at Antwerp and Lille; and arrived at the Professed House at Antwerp 26 March 1653. For six years he taught humanities, and he was professor of philosophy, moral theology, and Holy Scripture for a long period, chiefly at Louvain and Ant werp. His death occurred in the latter city 31 Aug. 1693._Father Archdekin, who was proficient in the Latin, Irish, English, and Flemish languages, composed the following works:— 1. ‘A Treatise of Miracles, together with New Miracles, and Benefits obtained by the sacred reliques of S. Francis Xaverius exposed in the Church of the Society of Jesus at Mechlin,’ Louvain, 1667, 8vo, in English and Irish. This very scarce book is supposed to be the first ever printed in the two languages in conjunction. 2. ‘Precipure Controversiie Fidei ad facilem methodum redactae; ac Resolutiones Theologicoe ad omnia Sacerdotis munia, pnesertim in Missionibus, accommodatse,’ Louvain, 1671, 8vo. At the end of this volume, which is a summary of theology, is usually found: 3. ‘ Vitie et Miraculorum Sancti Patricii Hiberniie Apostoli Epitome, cum brevi notitia Hibernioe et Prophetia S. Malachise’ (Louvain, 1671,8vo), a life of St. Patrick, with a short notice of Ireland, and the prophecy of St. Malachi respecting the succession of the popes. The ‘ Controversias Fidei’ had a wonderful success. A few copies of the work which found their way to the university of Prague were received with such enthusiasm that some transcripts of the whole were made for the use of the students; and in 1678 the book was reprinted, without the knowledge of the author, at the University Press. The third edition, which was printed at Antwerp with the author’s corrections and additions, was followed by a fourth and fifth at Cologne and Ingolstadt; and the sixth, again at Antwerp, by a seventh again at Cologne. These particulars are gathered from the prefaces to the eighth edition, which appeared at Antwerp in 1686r and where the title, the bulk, and the arrangement of the work are so altered that it would hardly be recognised as the same. The ‘ Controversioe Fidei’ of 1671 is a small octavo of 500pages. In the edition of 1686 the title is ‘Theologia Tripartita Universal and the three volumes quarto, of which it consists, comprise in all about 1,100 pages closely printed in double columns, containing about five times the matter of the ‘Controversial’ The work includes a life of Oliver Plunket, the catholic archbishop of Armagh, who was executed at London in 1681r and a life of Peter Talbot, the catholic archbishop of Dublin, who died in imprisonment at Dublin in 1680. In addition to these Archdekin’s work contains a number of anecdotes connected with the history of Ireland, introduced as examples in support of his theological doctrines. Archdekin’s work displays much order, knowledge, and precision, but some of his decisions in cases of conscience have been controverted by higher authority in the catholic church. In 1700 it was prohibited until correction should be made by the Congregation of the Index. The first edition published with the necessary corrections appears to have been also the last. It appeared at Antwerp in 1718, and was the thirteenth of the whole.

[Foley’s Records, vii. 15; Oliver’s Collectanea S. J., 231; O’Reilly’s Irish Writers, 198 ; Ware’s Writers of Ireland, ed. Harris, 203; Thomas Watts, in Biog. Diet. Soc. D. U. K.; Ribadeneira, Bibl. Scriptorum Soc. Jesu,,ed. Southwell, 718; Backer, Bibliotheque des Ecrivains de la Compagnie do Jesus (1869), 267; Foppens.Bibl. Belgica, 1066.] T. C._Sweeney? see DeBacker Sommervogel vol I col 515-521

3) 589G Tomasso Ceva 1648-1737

Carmina. (Jesus puer, etc.-Silvæ, etc.-Philosophia novo-antiqua, etc.)._

Venetiis : ex typographia Gasparis Girardi 1732 $2,900

Octavo Bound in original calf. Editio Veneta Tomasso Ceva came from a rich and famous Italian family; he was the brother of Giovanni Ceva. In 1663 he entered the Society of Jesus and at an early age became professor of mathematics at Brera College in Milan.__Ceva’s first scientific work, De natura gravium (1669), deals with physical subjects—such as gravity, the attraction of masses for each other, free fall, and the pendulum—in a philosophical and even theological way. (For example, several pages are devoted to the concept of the spatium imaginarum.) Ceva wrote the treatise in two months of steady work; in his “Conclusion,” he asks his readers for emendations.__Ceva’s only truly mathematical work is the Opuscula mathematica (1699; parts were published separately in the same year as De ratione aequilibri, De sectione geometrico-hormonia et arithmetica, and De cycloide; de lineis phantasticis; de flexibilibus). The book is discussed in Acta eruditorum (1707); its particular importance is that it is the summation of all of Ceva’s mathematical work. It is concerned with gravity, arithmetic, geometric-harmonic means, the cycloid, division of angles, and higher-order conic sections and curves. It also contains a report on an instrument designed to divide a right angle into a specified number of equal parts; this same instrument was described in 1704 by L’Hospital—who makes no mention, however, of Ceva.__Higher-order curves are also the primary subject of an extensive correspondence between Ceva and Guido Grandi. Ceva proposed the problem; Grandi reported that such curves had well-defined properties. Grandi replied to Ceva’s questions not only in letters, but also in a work on the logarithmic curve published in 1701 with an appended letter by Ceva.__Ceva’s contribution to mathematics was modest; he is perhaps better remembered as a poet. Although some of his verse is mathematical and philosophical, he is best known for his religious poem Jesus Puer, which went through many printings and was translated into several languages. The German poet Lessing called Ceva a great mathematician as well as a great poet, while Schubart, writing in 1781, considered him the greatest Jesuit poet-genius. Ceva’s mathematical and scientific works are De natura gravium libri duo Thomae Cevae (Milan, 1669); Instrumentum pro sectione cujuscunque anguli rectilinei in partes quotcunque aequales (Milan, 1695; repr. in Acta eruditorum [16951, p. 290); and Opuscula mathematica Thomae Cevae e Soc. Jesu (Milan, 1699), discussed in Acta eruditorum (1707), pp. 149–153.___ !!Sylvae. Carmina Thomae Cevae (Milan, 1699, 1704, 1733); _Ceva’s correspondence with Grandi is in the Braidense Library (eight letters) and the Domus Galilaeana, Pisa (485 letters).__An important secondary source is Guido Grandi, Geometrica demonstratio theorematum Hugenianorum circa logisticam, seu logarithmicam lineam, addita epistola geometrica ad P. Thomam Cevam (Florence, 1701).__Herbert Oettel De Backer-Sommervogel Vol II col 1019 no.15

4) 516G Giovanni Pietro Pinamonti

La religiosa in solitudine : opera in cui si porge alle monache il modo d’impiegarsi con frutto negli esercizij spirituali di s. Ignazio e può anche seruire a chiunque brama di riformare con vn tal mezo il proprio stato

Bologna : nella stamperia del Longhi(IS), Longhi: 1696 $2300

Duodecimo 5 1/4 X 3 inches A-Z12, Aa12. -(lacking the blank Aa12) First? Edition Bound in contemporary vellum. Pinamonti was born in 1632 in Pistoia. In 1647 he joined the Society of Jesus , completing his studies in Rhetoric and Philosophy , completing the school year of Theology . From1664 , along with Paul Segneri , began the activity in the missions, devoting himself especially to the confessions.
Father Pinamonti was known for his humble and peaceful manner.

De Backer-Sommervogel vol.VI col 776, no 9 ( not mentioning this Edition! but 1695?)

5) 490G Georg Stengel or Stengelio 1584-1651

Labyrinthi ab Aegyptiis structi fraudes, cum mundi a diabolo seducti periculis collatae. Pars prior.

Ingolstadt, Gregor Henlin, 1630 $3,400

Octavo Acording to Debacker-Sommervogel there was never a second part published. )(8, A-Z8, Aa-Ss8, Tt2 Second? Edition Bound in full contemporary vellum.

Georg Stengel was born in 1584 in Augsburg he entered the Society of Jesus in 1601 and spent his whole life close to Ingolstadt. , he was a novice at Landsberg and taught at Munich, in 1618 he was Rector at the college at Dillingen and in 1640 he retrned to Ingolstadt. Stengel believed that all the punishments of God point to the need for an implacable persecution of witches on the Franconian model. (between 1600 and 1605 in Lower Franconia hundreds of ‘witches’ were burnt 250 in Fulda, 139 in Freigericht and more than 100 in Hanau) Stengel, while a professor at Ingolstadt, (in his great work, “De judiciis divinis”) urges, as reasons why a merciful God permits illness, his wish to glorify himself through the miracles wrought by his Church, and his desire to test the faith of men by letting them choose between the holy aid of the Church and the illicit resort to medicine, declares that there is a difference between simple possession and that brought by bewitchment, and that the latter is the more difficult to treat. DeBacker-Sommervogelvol. VII col. 1552 no. 46 Not listing a 1630 edition but a 1628 and a 1651

6) 679G Gaspar Schott ( Aspasius Caramuelius) ; Athanasius Kircher 1608-1666

Joco-seriorum naturæ et artis, sive, Magiæ naturalis centuriæ tres, das ist, Drey-Hundert nütz- und lustige Sätze allerhand merckwürdiger Stücke, von Schimpff und Ernst, genommen auss der Kunst und Natur, oder natürlichen Magia Athanasii Kicheri Diatribe .

Franckfurt am Mayn : In Verlegung Johann Arnold Cholin,1672 $5,500

Quarto 8 X 5 inches [6] unsigned leaves, A-Z4, Aa-Tt4. First Edition This copy is bound in full contemporary sheep. Rare first (?) German trsl. of this esoteric work by the German Jesuit and scientist G. Schott (1608-1666) describing scientific and magical tricks to show that science can be fun and enjoyable. There are twenty two engraved plates. (some folding) depicting how these incentions work for example how to build a fireplace, how to walk on water or how to catch fish with your hands. Bound after the Schott work is a treais by Athanasius Kircher, titled “Diatribe, Oder Beweisschrifft”. Ms. ownership entry “Joannes Michaël Jenigen, jurisprudentia et (…) professor”.

DeBacker-Sommervogel vol.VII col.911 no.13 ; Faber du Faur,; no. 1011; [Caillet 10003 and cf. Caillet 10002] ;. VD-17 14:637268W

7) 642G Athanasius Kircher 1602-1680

R.P. Athanasii Kircheri e societate jesu Itinerarium Exstaticum, quo mundi opificium, id est: Coelestis expansi, fiderumque tam errantium, quam sixorum natura, vires, proprietates, singulorumque compositio & structura, ab infimo Telluris globo, usque ad ultima Mundi confinia, per ficti ratus integumentum explorata, nova hypothesi exponitur ad veritatem_[Bound with ]_R.P. Athanasii Kircheri E Societate Jesu Iter Exstaticum II. Qui & Mundi subterranei prodromus dicitur.

Trnava (Zapadoslovensky kraj, Slovakia): Fridericum Gall, 1729 $SOLD

Duodecimo 5 x 3 inches π, A-Z12; Aa-Bb12, Cc7; A-D12, E5 This copy is bound in full contemporary calf, slightly wormed and bumped, with an elaborately blind-tooled spine and inlaid title. Overall, a very good copy with clean leaves of a rare edition of an important work. This is a very rare edition of Kircher’s Iter Exstaticum. OCLC records no copies of this edition and only the Stanford copy could be located world-wide. Sommervogel’s entry for this edition states that this work is a total of 468 pages, but the copy they examined probably lacked the second part, with continuous pagination to 604 as well as the seperately paginated “Dialogus III” (106 pgs.) both present in this copy. _The first part of this two part work tells of an imaginary astronomical journey made by our author. “The Itinerarium Exstaticum is one of Kircher’s most curious works. He wrote the treatise in the form of a narrative in which a certain Theodidactus —Kircher himself— is caught up in a dream-vision or an ecstatic journey and is guided through the heavens by a spirit named Cosmiel. The genre was not uncommon: the Somnium Scipionis of Cicero and Kepler’s Somnium, published posthumously in 1634, both recount dream-journeys to the moon. In the first dialogue Kircher recounts the journey to the moon, which he finds scarred with mountains and craters, contrary to the Aristotelian view. He flies on to Venus, which he discovers is made of the four elements, and so on to each of the other planets and through the region of the fixed stars. The sun itself has blemishes, Kircher proclaims. He himself had seen sunspots through a telescope several years earlier [which are depicted in one of the engravings.]” (Merrill) Kircher also mentions the rings around Jupiter, the pluralirty of inhabited worlds, and in one plate depicts six possible planetary systems._The second part of Kircher’s imaginary journey takes him to the underground world, and serves as an outline of the theories developed five years later in his Mundus Subterraneus. This work presents a unified theory of the dynamics of the earth, its rivers, oceans, mountains and volcanoes._“Having journeyed through the heavens with the angel Cosmiel, Theodidactus descends with a second guide, Hydriel, and examines the waters and their natures. Cosmiel then returns and shows him the land, its geography, its characteristics, and wonders. The dialogue also treats animals and plants and their generation and corruption. In the third dialogue they explore the wonders of the submarine world, and in the fourth the subterranean world.” (Merrill) DeBacker-Sommervogel vol.IV col.1056

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A discussion of interesting books from my current stock A WordPress.com site

Tag

Antiquarian books

The Fourth Crusade

Introduction

A Conflict of Emperors

The Western Empire

Pope Innocent III

Venice

The Crusaders Assemble

A New Deal

Zara

The Battle for Constantinople

Pretenders and Contenders

A Momentous Decision

Capture of Constantinople

Results of the Fourth Crusade

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The story of Barlaam and Josaphat or Joasaph is a Christianized and later version of the story of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha.

S. Ioannis Damasceni Historia, De Vitis Et Rebvs Gestis SS. Barlaam Eremitæ, & Iosaphat Indiæ regis, Iacobo Billio Prunæo, S. Michaelis in eremo Coenobiarcha interprete.

ON THE MIGRATION OF FABLES.

A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION, ON FRIDAY, JUNE 3, 1870.

From Chips from a German Workshop, by F. Max Müller, Vol. IV, pp. 139–198. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons [1881].

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T.Lucretius Carus His Six Books Of Epicurean Philosophy, Done into English Verse, with Notes. The Third Edition. Demetri, Teq; Tigelli Discipulorum inter jubeo plorare Cathedras; i, Puer, atque meo citus hœc subscribe libello.

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This is also very good link on Lucretius:

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Love and Life: A Song

All my past life is mine no more,

The flying hours are gone,

Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er,

Whose images are kept in store

By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;

How can it then be mine?

The present moment’s all my lot;

And that, as fast as it is got,

Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,

False hearts, and broken vows;

If I, by miracle, can be

This live-long minute true to thee,

’Tis all that Heav’n allows.

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( published in A Short History of the Theatre. Martha Fletcher Bellinger. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927. pp. 249-59)

The gamester: a comedy. As it is acted at the New Theatre in Lincolns-Fields by Her Majesty’s servants. The prologue spoke by Mr. Betterton. Written by N. Rowe, Esq

The Indian Emperour; or, the Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. Being the Sequel of the Indian Queen.

The Wild Gallant: A Comedy. As it was Acted at the Theater-Royal, By His Majesties Servants. Written By John Dryden, Esq;

An Evening’s Love: Or, The Mock-Astrologer. As it is Acted By Their Majesties Servants. By Mr. Dryden.

Valentinian: A Tragedy. As ‘tis Alter’d by the late Earl of Rochester, And Acted at the Theatre-Royal. Together with a Preface concerning the Author and his Writings. By one of his Friends.

The comical revenge, or, love in a tub. Acted at His Highness the Duke of York’s Theatre in Lincolns-Inn-fields. Licensed, July 8. 1664.

The Comical Revenge: Or Love in a Tub. As it is now Acted By Their Majesty’s Servants. By Sir George Etherege.

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Another short List of some books by Jesuits currently in my inventory. Please enjoy.

Historia Anglicana ecclesiastica : a primis gentis susceptae fidei incunabulis ad nostra fere tempora deducta, et in quindecim centurias distributa

Commentariorum de Verbi Dei Corruptelis tomi duo. Prior de Venerando Christi

Domini Praecursore Ioanne Baptista, Posterior de Sacrosancta Virgine Maria deipara disserit, et utriusque personae historiam omnem adversus Centuriatores Magdeburgicos aliosq; Catholicae Ecclesiae hostes diserte vindicat. Postrema et Plenior utriusque operis, in unum volumen nunc primum redacti

editio, D. Petro Canisio Societatis Iesu Theologo, tùm Authore, tùm Recognitore.

Accessit index Copiosus, partim locorum Scripturae Sacrae, quae passim tractantur, partim rerum praecipuarum, quae utroque Tomo continentur

Alter tomvs Commentariorvm de verbi Dei corrvptelis, adversvs novos et veteres sectariorvm errores … De S. Joan. Baptista. De B. V. Maria

Aloe Amari sed salubris succi Ieiunium quod in aula ser[enissi]mi utriusque Bauariae Ducis Maximiliani S.R.I. Archidapiferi, Electoris etc. explicavit et latine Scripsit Hieremias Drexelius e Societate jesu.

Philosophiae ac mathematicae totius institutio : Cum assertionibus disputatis & vario genere problematum ; ad usum Studiosae Iuventutis.

Pia Desideria tribus libris Comprehensa.1. Gemitus animæ pænitentis: 2. Vota animæ sanctæ: 3. Suspiria animæ amantis:

Practica de los Exercicios Espirituales de Nuestro Padre San Ignacio

Piæ considerationes ad declinandum à malo et faciendum bonum : cum iconibus Viae vitae aeternae R.P. Antonij Sucquet è Societate Iesu.

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R.P. Leonardi Lessi E Societate Jesu, Sacrae Theologiae In Academia Louvaniensi Quondam Professoris, De Jure et Justitia Compendium. A quodam Patre eiusdem Societatis compilatum

Domini Praecursore Ioanne Baptista, Posterior de Sacrosancta Virgine Maria deipara disserit, et utriusque personae historiam omnem adversus
Centuriatores Magdeburgicos aliosq; Catholicae Ecclesiae hostes diserte vindicat. Postrema et Plenior utriusque operis, in unum volumen nunc primum redacti

Alter tomvs Commentariorvm de verbi Dei corrvptelis, adversvs novos et veteres sectariorvm errores … De S. Joan. Baptista. De B. V. Maria