Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets.

  • John Ferguson
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Bibliographical notes on histories of inventions and books of secrets. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    and are not enumerated by Beckmann in his valuable catalogue.^ In the second list it is curious that the date of every copy is prior to 1600. In the first list the majority of dates are also before 1600. This accords with my observation that the later editions are less common, and that those of last century are the hardest to get. Of certain of them I have never been able to see a copy in any collection. This may be accounted for in various ways. One may suppose that of the earlier editions large numbers were printed, while of the later there were only limited issues. On the other hand, the book may not have been latterly in request, and the copies were destroyed wholesale; if so, then of certain editions not one appears to have escaped. My own is the largest collection I know of in the meantime, containing, as it does, 37 numbers, besides duplicates of the editions of 1499, 1529, 1546, {1570), 1644, 1663, and some others. The British Museum contains 32 ; the Bibliotheque Nationale 20. Other libraries contain two or three, or may get the length of half a dozen, or even of a dozen. All these together, however, represent but a part of the subject, for there is on record upwards of a hundred different editions; of which some 75 have been described from actual copies in my monograph referred to. The remaining fourth I have not seen. A full account of all these editions, including an analysis of the places where and dates when they were printed, and a consideration of a number of questions relating to the book’s history, presents a considerable amount of interest Tj the bibliographer. Every- thing conspires to show that Polydore Vergil’s book was a popular and prominent one. 6. The following little tract, which is in Sir William Hamilton’s collection in the University Library, was overlooked by me in my former notices, though it is mentioned by Beckmann and described in considerable detail. lohanuU Matthai | Lvnensis | Libellvs | De Rervm Iq- | ventoribvs | Ex recognitione Aug. lufUniani | Epifcopi Nebienfi'i. | M. Antonii Sabellici | De Rervm Et Ariivm | inventoribus Poema. | * | Hambvrgi, | la Bibliopolio Micbaelis Heiingii. | Anno do IDC xiii. Small 8vo. Signatures A to E in eights ; pagination [2] 76 (which is an error for 78, because 61-62 are repeated). I Transactions of the Ayclucological Society of Glasgow, 18S3, II. p. 233.