Sambucus, Emblemata cum aliquot nummis antiqui operis, Antwerp, 1564, contemporary brown morocco gilt

Sambucus, Joannes. Emblemata cum aliquot nummis antiqui operis, Ioannis Sambuci Tirnaviensis Pannonii. Antwerp: Christophe Plantin, 1564

First edition of the first original emblem book published by Christophe Plantin, and the first original emblem book to appear outside of France or Italy. Joannes Sambucus (János Zsámboky, 1531-1584) was a Hungarian humanist with a significant collection of books and manuscripts, which upon which Plantin drew for many of his publications of classical authors. Copies were often bound interleaved, as here, for use as an album amicorum, though this copy has not been used in that way (for an emblem book that has been used like this, see lot 625).

The emblems are structured in the usual fashion, with a heading above the woodcut and Latin verses below. Several emblems are dedicated to particular friends or patrons of Sambucus, from Hubert Goltzius (an emblem of a map of the world) to Achille Bocchi (see lots 460-461) and Archbishop Ferenc Forgách.

The majority of the woodcuts are after drawings by Lucas d'Heere with 80 redrawn by Pieter Huys, as they were found to be unsatisfactory. The blocks were then cut by Arnold Nicolai, Cornelis Muller and finally by Gerard Janssen van Kampen following the failure of the first two cutters to supply blocks at the rate promised. Amongst the emblems is an early depiction of tennis, played with just a rope and accompanied by the motto 'Temporis iacture' (a waste of time). The original blocks remain in the collection of the Plantin-Moretus Museum.

Whilst much of the work is dedicated to emblems, it concludes with a chapter on ancient coins, which opens with a dedicatory letter to Jean Grolier, bibliophile and numismatist.

8vo (181 x 118 mm). Italic type. collation: A-P⁸: 240 leaves. Woodcut title page, woodcut initials and tailpieces, woodcut portrait of Sambucus, 167 emblems in 19 varying woodcut borders, 23 woodcuts of coins at end, interleaved throughout, but without annotations except for one manuscript line of Greek. (Marginal dampstaining to first few and final few pages, small marginal tear to head of D2, small stain in gutter where blank leaf tipped in between K1 and K2, occasional browning and foxing.)

binding: Contemporary chestnut morocco (188 x 124 mm), small central gilt armorial surround with corner heart stamps, spine with gilt fillet decoration, edges gilt and gauffered, watermark on interleaving similar to Briquet 6291, 6298 and 6300 [Rome, Prague and Brussels respectively, all mid-sixteenth century]. (Ends of spine and joints repaired, corners repaired, binding slightly rubbed.) 

provenance: Samuel Ashton Thompson Yates (1842-1903), bookplate dated 1894, sale, Christie’s, 16 July 2014, lot 157. acquisition: Purchased at the preceding sale. references: Landwehr, Emblem Books of the Low Countries 709; Voet 2168; Praz p. 148