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SAMBUCUS, Johannes (1531-1584). Emblemata. Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 8 September 1564.
8o (180 x 115mm). Woodcut historiated title-border, woodcut portrait of the author, woodcut dedicatory figure, 166 woodcut emblems within varied borders, and 46 woodcut medals on last four leaves by A. Nicolai, C. Muller and G. van Kampen after Lucas d'Heere and Pieter Huys. (A few leaves with light marginal soiling.) Contemporary limp vellum, manuscript title and paper label on spine (lacking ties). Provenance: J. Vignols (early ownership inscription on title); Captain Bernard (ownership inscription on title); Earl of Bandon? (armorial bookplate with motto "Haud Umquam Indignis" in pastedown); Owen Holloway (pencil note on flyleaf); acquired from Quaritch, 1983.
FIRST EDITION of at least five. Whitman believed the emblem of a tennis game on p. 133 to be the earliest in a printed book. In fact, the tennis emblem had already appeared in Guillaume de la Perriéres's Le theatre des bons engins of 1539, and then in the Picta Poesis of Barthélémy Aneau (first edition 1552; Vershbow II, lot 89). Here, there is greater form to the rackets and dress of the players, and includes tennis balls. While the net still appears to be a simple rope, two lines of the accompanying poem, "Temporis iactura" ("A Waste of Time"), draw a comparison between the allure of tennis nets and the more useful nets used in hunting birds. Addressed "Ad pilulam" ("To the tennis ball"), the poem treats the ball as the deceiver of the young men who waste their time chasing after it. Adams S-218; Brunet V, 104-05; Fairfax Murray German, 391; Praz 17th-Century Imagery II, p. 148, Whitman p.176.
8o (180 x 115mm). Woodcut historiated title-border, woodcut portrait of the author, woodcut dedicatory figure, 166 woodcut emblems within varied borders, and 46 woodcut medals on last four leaves by A. Nicolai, C. Muller and G. van Kampen after Lucas d'Heere and Pieter Huys. (A few leaves with light marginal soiling.) Contemporary limp vellum, manuscript title and paper label on spine (lacking ties). Provenance: J. Vignols (early ownership inscription on title); Captain Bernard (ownership inscription on title); Earl of Bandon? (armorial bookplate with motto "Haud Umquam Indignis" in pastedown); Owen Holloway (pencil note on flyleaf); acquired from Quaritch, 1983.
FIRST EDITION of at least five. Whitman believed the emblem of a tennis game on p. 133 to be the earliest in a printed book. In fact, the tennis emblem had already appeared in Guillaume de la Perriéres's Le theatre des bons engins of 1539, and then in the Picta Poesis of Barthélémy Aneau (first edition 1552; Vershbow II, lot 89). Here, there is greater form to the rackets and dress of the players, and includes tennis balls. While the net still appears to be a simple rope, two lines of the accompanying poem, "Temporis iactura" ("A Waste of Time"), draw a comparison between the allure of tennis nets and the more useful nets used in hunting birds. Addressed "Ad pilulam" ("To the tennis ball"), the poem treats the ball as the deceiver of the young men who waste their time chasing after it. Adams S-218; Brunet V, 104-05; Fairfax Murray German, 391; Praz 17th-Century Imagery II, p. 148, Whitman p.176.