A fine early edition of Tritheim’s famous bibliography, first published in Basle 1494, which has here been augmented by an appendix of 16th century authors including, amongst others, Filippo Beroaldo, Guillaume Budé and Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples. Sebastian Brant’s 18-line verse in praise of Tritheim from the Basle edition is found on the title-page. A second edition was printed in Paris 1512, this being the third.
Tritheim’s Catalogus was the first bibliography to be produced as a work of practical reference. Here he lists chronologically some 982 authors with a short biography of each and in all around 7000 titles. The index holds an alphabetical list of the author’s first names, which, despite the book’s title, also includes lay authors.
Johann Tritheim (1462-1516) was a German Benedictine, abbot of Sponheim, and Renaissance scholar, a prolific author whose catalogue of ecclesiastical writers was completed in 1492. Trithemius synthesised a vast amount of ancient and medieval sources, and his work was much sought-after by scholars as a reliable reference work and guide to forming a learned library.
Provenance: some early marginalia, front free endpaper with inscriptions of Ludovicus Vrancx (16th century), Petrus van Spoelberch (1576-1636), provost of Leljeudael (diocese of Cambrai, near Malines), and J[ean] G[erard] Smolderen (1773-1854), his sale, Antwerp, 3 September 1855, lot 1703.
Some light dampstaining, a little heavier towards end.
VD16 T 1999. Adams T966. BMSTC (German), p. 870. Breslauer-Folter 7 (first edition).
