FALCONIA PROBA, Valeria, Francesco POLA, Bernardus BRUSCHUS (all after VIRGILIUS & OVIDIUS) and Carolus SCRIBANIUS.
[Elegantes variorum Virgilio-Ovidio-centones de opificio mundi, Christo Deo, Deique Matre, SS. Francisco et Car. Borromaeo].
[Munich, Anna Berg (widow of Adam Berg the elder) for Raphael Sadeler, 1617]. Small 8vo (15 x 9.5 cm). Contemporary French gold- and blind-tooled black morocco, each board with a frame of blind fillets and a gold centrepiece comprising an HD monogram surrounded by 4 gothic S's (Hobson's S fermé), and the 6 spine compartments with alternately a gothic s and a small fleur-de-lis, the 2nd compartment with "[PR]OB[A]" above the fleur-de-lis:, blind fillets on the board edges. 82 of 98, [2] pp.
€ 3,500
Rare first edition of a collection of five works of verse (one not known before the present edition, and three more not long before) in a remarkable contemporary binding with a monogram HD surrounded by four gothic S's, the S's featuring a diagonal line from the upper right to the lower left terminal: an addition to the "S fermé" bindings known to the bookbinding historian Geoffrey Hobson, who records 2 others with an HD monogram, in 1602 and ca. 1600. Hobson's 35-page article devoted to bindings of this sort leaves many questions unanswered, but they are probably all French and he calls them "tout intéressants et précieux". Hobson also notes that this style of S can appear in watermarks and ironically (for it is almost certainly coincidence) the paper of the present edition is watermarked with a crowned double-headed eagle with a similar S on its heart-shaped breast.
The first four works are "centos": patchwork texts constructed by selecting and rearranging lines or phrases from a classical work (in this case Virgil and Ovid) to produce a different narrative (in this case Christian religious works), while the last work is wholly original and concerns the opposition between worldly and divine love. The edition as a whole has several Jesuit and Counter-Reformation associations.
Although Raphael Sadeler engraved illustrations for the present edition and an emblematic device for the colophon, all appear on integral leaves with the verso blank, and they have all been carefully removed from the present copy. This has no effect on the text, however, which remains complete. The book is otherwise in very good condition and only slightly browned. The binding has some cracks in the hinges, minor damage at the foot of the spine, and if the spine was gold-tooled the gold has been lost, but it remains in good condition. BMC STC German (17th century), V432; USTC 2108593 (9 copies); VD17 23:327242C (3 copies); WorldCat (4 copies); for related bindings: G.D. Hobson, "Le problème de l'S fermé", in: Les reliures à la fanfare (1970), pp. 85-119, esp. p. 95.
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