Historiarum sui Temporis. Partis Primae...Libri VI
Ambrosium & Hieronymum Drouart, 1604.
Second Edition. Hardcover (Full Leather). Very Good Condition. Item #045016
ISBN: NoISBN
5 volumes bound in 9 in contemporary calf. Worn at the edges and corners, spines a little dry, but intact and attractive overall. Volume 1 with a single title page (some copies were apparently bound with a second title page noting Estienne, the publisher of the Folio edition). Old bookplates inside covers, ownership marks and stamps to titles and first pages, occasionally trimmed a little close on the top edge, just touching the running title, scattered minor pencil marks, light dampstain to the corners of a section of vol vii, but otherwise clean and a very good set overall.
This is the second edition of Thou's history, published 1604-1608, and the first octavo edition. It was published just after the Folio edition, a few months after for the first volumes, and almost simultaneously thereafter. The first two octavo volumes (corresponding to the first folio volume and printed in 1604, identified here as Pars I and Partis Primae Tomus II) is bound in four volumes, as is the second volume, published in two octavo volumes in 1606 and corresponding to the Folio volume also published in 1606. They are identified as Tomus Secundi Pars Prima and Tomi Secundi Pars altera. The final volume, identified as Libri VI, is bound in one and published in 1608 (the Folio edition was published in 1607-8). Because Thou was editing and changing his systems of identification as he published the books, the naming system is a little odd - this final volume follows the third and fourth octavo volumes, and not the first two in how it is numbered. 1005pp, index; 1013, index; 958, index; 886, index; 501, privilege, index. Kinser pages 10-20. Graesse VII 147.
Thou's history is one of the great monuments of Renaissance history and in its scientific, factual take on events, was much more a work of the enlightenment than the counter-reformation. As a result, and despite some minor changes from the first edition, all of the later books (dealing with the wars of religion and other topics) ended up on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1609. A 1620 edition collected all of the history and added Thou's Mémoires. Size: Octavo (8vo). 9-volume set (complete). Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Over 3 kilos. Category: History; Antiquarian & Rare. Inventory No: 045016.
Price: $5,000.00