Magnus. Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus. 1555

Property of the Late Gunnar Skoog

MAGNUS, OLAUS

Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus, earumque diversis statibus, conditionibus, moribus, ritibus... Rome: Giovanni Maria Viotti, (January) 1555

FIRST EDITION, folio (266 x 193mm.), numerous woodcuts (including a full-page map of Scandinavia), woodcut initials, woodcut device with arms of Magnus on final leaf (otherwise blank), eighteenth-century French red morocco gilt (in the style of Derome), spine gilt in compartments with green morocco lettering-pieces, gilt edges, F1-2 supplied from another copy (since 1980), a few marginal paper repairs, paper flaw at upper corner of S3, RR3-4 and CCC1 repaired at foredge, repair to BBB6 (in text but without loss)

An attractive copy of Olaus Magnus's comprehensive survey of the peoples and customs of Scandinavia. A few of the woodcuts (including the map) were previously used in Johannes Magnus's history of the Goths and the Swedes, printed in Rome by Viotti in 1554.

LITERATURE:

Edit16 39066; Mortimer, Harvard Italian 270

PROVENANCE:

Minims of Soissons, inscription on title-page dated 1604; Major Andrew McLaughlin, armorial bookplate at end, sale, Sotheby's Monaco, 8 October 1980, lot 1832 (stating that this is the Marquess of Hamilton's copy, though the copy in the Hamilton sale was in russia, not morocco), extract from sale catalogue pasted to verso of flyleaf