Nova Librorum Rariorum Conlectio, Qui Vel Integri Insersuntur vel Adcurate Recensentur. Fasciculus Primus [-Quintus].

Halle:: Officina Rengeriana, 1709-1717., 1709. Two volumes (containing 3 parts). Sm. 8vo. Volume 1: 38, [pp. 39-64 skipped] 65-190, [2]; [2], 191-376; [4], 377-596, [2]; [6], 597-782; [4], [1-11], 12-148, [16] pp.; Volume 2: [12], 1-80, 81*-86*, 81-338, [17]; [2], 416, [38] pp. Head- and tail-pieces, decorated initials, and additional wood cuts. Folding table (between pages 244 and 245 of first volume), engraved frontispiece. Handsome nineteenth century dark green morocco, raised bands, spine gilt title of "Nova Librorum/ Rarior. Conlectio", surrounded by gilt borders with armorials, all edges gilt, dentelles, marbled endpapers; rubbed and lightly soiled, spine ends worn, joints starting; occasional foxing and browning. With gilt coat of arms of "J. Gomez de la Cortina et Amicorum / Fallitur Hora Legendo" on all covers, leather book label of Gomez on both front pastedowns, paper label of "A. Dureau" on front pastedown of second volume. Generally very good condition. "A Small But Extremely Nice and Exquisite Library" – Jocher. This periodical reprints in this collection a series of rare tracts written between the 16th and early eighteenth centuries. One of apparently two different issues, published between 1709 and 1717. The British Library copy (5 parts only) contains an alternative signature "a" at the beginning [8 leaves] and includes a table of contents. The BM copy also follows the same mispagination at p. 38, skipping 39-64 – thus this copy is not lacking in that specific part of the collation. Even so, the BM copy contains a prefatory section lead by the name of Christiano Frederico Boernero, followed by the contents leaf, both missing in this copy [unapparent due to signature "a" not being present]. In any case a re-set table of contents section is found before the index of volumes one and two. Issued in two volumes: volume I [primus] containing fascicules 1-5. [I = 1-190; II = 191-(375); III = (376)-596; IV = 597-781; V = 1-148 Volume II: [secundus] 1-338; [tertius] 1-416 pp. In second volume there is an engraved frontispiece depicting the "pagan caricature", being a restoration "of the picture described by Tertullian", with an upper unfurled scroll with the title "Ononychotus", the character of the figure being embellished with ass-like ears (his face is otherwise human). This is mentioned by the editor Heinius as actually being Ononychites. The issue of "ass worship" is touched on relating to this text. While the editor clearly references Tertullian, Farrar describes an issue relating to "vulgar prejudices" in this case "ass-worship." See: Rev. Adam Storey Farrar, M.A., A Critical History of Free Thought in Reference to the Christian Religion. The Bampton Lectures, 1858-62. (p. 572). I am not familiar with the elongated history of this issue but Farrar calls this prejudice treason against Christianity. Groschuff (died 1709) edited the first three fascicles of this rare collection of obscure and rare scholarly curiosa, described by Jocher as "kleine aber ungemein nette und auserlesene Bibliothek" ("a small but extremely nice and exquisite library"). The twenty-one pieces cover a variety of subjects but many are of classical Greek and Latin subjects and were published in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The next two fascicles are edited by Tilgner and are of similar content but include a few longer pieces. Such as, G. Burton, Historia linguae Graecae (pp. 597-708, after the London 1657 edition), and J. Hasaeus, De Beryti jureconsultorum academia (1-119). Apparently, the series was successful enough to be continued with a change of name and now edited by Johann Philipp Hein, whose Observationum sacrarum liber primus was the first fascicle (not present here but the second part is) and the long work by Paganinus Gaudentius, which occupies the rest of both parts. Provenance: Don Joaquin Gomez de la Cortina, Marquis de Morante (1808-1868): "J. Gomez de la Cortina et Amicorum / Fallitur Hora Legendo." Richard Hopwood Thornton (1855-1932), University of Oregon School of Law and an Episcopal clergyman of Portland Oregon, has properly identified Gomez as Don Joaquin Gomez de la Cortina, Marquis de Morante, born in Mexico in 1808. "He became Rector of the University of Madrid, and was a great collector of books. His library was dispersed about thirty years ago [c.1870]. Mr. Richard Copley Christie wrote a notice of him for private circulation . . . Gomez died, as the result of a fall from a ladder in his library, about the year 1868." – Notes and Queries . . . New Ser. – vol. VIII, July-Dec. 1901. (p. 342). Apparently Gustav Brunet wrote an 8-volume catalogue of the library of Don Joaquin Gomez de la Cortina, published in Madrid, however I have been unable to verify this. Richard Copley Christie describes the Marquis de Morante as "the most eminent bibliophile that Spain has produced – one of the very few Spaniards worthy of the name of a bibliophile – the collector of by far the most extensive private library that has ever been formed in the Peninsula," and naming the library as, the "Bibliotheca Cortiniana" – sometimes stamped with these words in gold. Many of the books in the library were bound by Gil, of Madrid, "in mottled calf, or green or plum-colored morocco . . . the arms of the marquis, were generally stamped in gold on the sides, in some cases with a monogram . . . the bookplate on the inside had sometimes the arms surmounted by a count's coronet . . ." p. 9. See: Richard Copley Christie, The marquis de Morante: his library and its catalogue, Manchester, 1883. REFERENCES: "Bibliotheque A. Dureau". Alexis Dureau (1831-1904), identified by the University of Toulouse, he was the author of Notes bibliographiques pour servir a l'etude de l'histoire et de l'archeologie, 1866. Note sur l'enseignement et l'exercice de la medecine en Danemark, 1870; Des Poissons electriques: Expose anatomique et physiologique, 1868. Histoire de la medecine et des sciences occultes. Notes bibliographiques pour servir a l'histoire du magnetisme animal; analyse de tous les livres, brochures, articles de journaux publies sur le magnetisme animal, en France et a l'etranger, a partir de 1766 jusqu'au 31 de?c. 1868 . . . Premiere partie.: Livres imprimes en France, 1869. Contribution a l'histoire de la bibliographie medicale, 1902. Full title: Nova Librorum Rariorum Conlectio, Qui Vel Integri Insersuntur vel Adcurate Recensentur. Fasciculus Primus [-Quintus] [with:] Nova Variorum Scriptorum Conlectio, [Groschuff, cont.]Tam Editorum Quam Ineditorum, Rariorum Etiam, Et Recens Elaboratorum. Quae Omnia Integradantur. Fasciculus Secundus [-Tertius]. (Inventory #: LV2024)