Milestones of Science Books

TRITHEMIUS, Johannes.

Liber octo questionum, quas illi dissoluendas proposuit Maximilianus Caesar.

Cologne: Melchior von Neuss, 1534.

Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003934

8vo (142 x 95 mm). 64 unnumbered leaves, including final two blanks H7-8; title within elaborate woodcut border, woodcut initials. Signatures: A-H⁸. Bound in later hardback with probably original vellum spine (ink lettered) and boards back with marbled paper (wear to extremities, boards rubbed, corners bumped). Text with light even browning, title-page working loose; large historiated woodcut initials, margins trimmed close in some places affecting printed marginals; a few text markings in red crayon. Provenance: Jean-Baptiste Verdussen, bookseller-publisher and first director of the Royal Academy of Antwerp with his copper-engraved bookplate to rear paste-down (in an oval, a stork feeds another with a snake, with the motto "Virtus Pietas Homini Tutissima"). ----

RARE COLOGNE EDITION of this work by Johannes Trithemius, best known for his cabbalistic Steganography, used to create coded, keyed texts. In this work, addressed to Emperor Maximilian in 1508, the author deals with the question of demons, of which he distinguishes six genera: those of the four elements (genus igneum, genus aereum, genus terrestrium, genus aquaticum), a 'subterranean' genus (subterraneum) and a 'lucifuge' genus (lucifugum), which hates light. The work is largely based on Psellus' 11th century treatise on demons.
Content: 1. De fide & intellectu. 2. De fide necessaria ad salutem. 3. De miraculis infidelium. 4. De scriptura sacra. 5. De reprobis atq[ue] maleficis. 6. De potestate maleficarum. 7. De permissione divina. 8. De providentia dei.
Bibliography: VD-16 T-1987; Adams T-978; STC German (BL London) 870. Not in Machiels, BN Paris. - Visit our website to see more images!

Price: 2,800 €  *  convert currency