Hieronymus Muenzer and other fifteenth century bibliophiles / [Ernst Philip Goldschmidt].

  • Ernst Philip Goldschmidt
Date:
1938
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Hieronymus Muenzer and other fifteenth century bibliophiles / [Ernst Philip Goldschmidt]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    * 49 i 111 IRON Y M IS \IU I NZER AM) () 1 ! 11 R FI FI El'N I'M CENTURY l!l l>I.I () IM 111.1 S ’ « L. P. Goldschmidt London W2SZ5EsasasisK u Is true that we can learn a great deal about a man by jjj t S glancing over the bookshelves in his library, it is all rhe cj 1 § more certain that when by some kind chance the entire jj] [)j book collection of a scholar of 500 years ago has been preserved for us through the centuries, we will be able to gather quite a good deal of valuable knowledge about him, his way of life. Ins interests, and his work, by studying the volumes of his library. It was my good fortune over twenty years ago, when I was working tor the incipient Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendriieke, to stumble upon such a survival, the library of a XVth century physician who liveekat N uernberg and died in 1508. It was in the library of Prince Dietrichstein at Nikolsburg, Moravia, that I found, while cataloguing a collection of about 600 incunabula which had stood there undisturbed since the XVII th century, that over and over again in the covers of the ancient bindings, the same owner’s inscription in red ink kept on recurring, and it was soon obvious that some X\ th century collection was here incorpo¬ rated in its entirety. As I went on with my work, I kept track of these vol¬ umes and finally found that out of the 600, about 150 volumes bore this entry : Hie liber est viei Hieronyvii Monetarii de Feltkircbev, artii/m et medicincie doctoris, quern viibi comparavr Nuremberge anno Domini /qSj—or something like that. > Naturally, I not only made a list of these books which had remained «> conveniently together, but I tried my best, off and on through the last twenty years, to find out all I could about this Dr. Alonetarius, who he was, where he lived, and what he did. After all sorts of delays and v icissitudes, and after the Nikolsburg library has ultimately been entirely dispersed and scattered all over the world, I am now at last about to publish a little book on the man and his library, and thus to preserve the ;ecord at least of an interesting survival which unfortunately has not \ ■ v • • r ki ad before the Section Y Historical and Cultural Medicine, January 12, 19.US