KILIAN, Wolfgang.
NARCISSUS LUTTRELL’S COPY
Serenissimorum Austriae ducum, archiducum, regum, imperatorum genealogia, a Rudolpho I.
Augsburg, [typis Lucae Praetorii], 1623£2,250.00
FIRST EDITION. Sm. Folio. ff. 78 [A-Z2, a-q2]. Roman letter with italic. Engraved t-p, full-page engraved genealogy preceding text, double folding map and genealogy, 8 pp. of royal and ducal armorial shields, finely engraved, 6 per page, numerous engraved portraits throughout. Some copies include a final leaf with colophon and engraved printer’s device to verso, and alphabetical index of the portraits to recto, though this must be by way of substitution as they are recorded as having the same number of leaves as our copy. Some light staining to edges of t-p and first few quires, including folding maps. Repair to lower edge of t-p and to second leaf with loss of a few lines on verso, folding map and genealogy mounted on Japanese paper. Early 17th-century panelled calf, rebacked, supralibros gilt of Robert Glascock (1600-1657), within border of blind and gilt fillets, cornerpieces gilt, board edges roll-tooled in gilt, slightly rubbed. Edges stained red. Verso of t-p with Narcissus Luttrell’s (1657-1732) monogram inkstamp, ms. note, “1693”, in his hand. Engraved armorial bookplate of John Baker Holroyd, Lord Sheffield, of Sheffield Place in Sussex, to front pastedown.
First edition of this richly illustrated work of Habsburg genealogy by the Augsburg engraver Wolfgang Kilian (1581-1662), with a distinguished English provenance. Kilian’s finely engraved heraldic shields are accompanied by full-page and folding genealogies of the Habsburg emperors, the largest attributing their origin to the legendary Frankish king Pharamund. The map depicts Habsburg territories in Switzerland and Alsatia. The engraved portraits of the Habsburg emperors, archdukes and dukes each contain a small emblem, which is accompanied by Latin verses continued below the engraving in letterpress. Narcissus Luttrell was an English political historian and diarist, and a noted and prolific book collector. Luttrell is best-known for his habit of buying everything that was published as it came out, including a vast array of pamphlets concerning fictitious Popish Plot of the late 1670s. ‘After more than three decades of acquisitions (beginning in his student days), he calculated in 1706 that he had laid out over £1500 on such purchases; unfortunately, his wish that his library pass intact to some ‘public’ institution such as Gray’s Inn was not wholly heeded by his descendants. So while a substantial number of the printed works from his library were eventually acquired by the British Library, many (often bearing his colophon) have found resting places elsewhere’ (ODNB). There does not seem to be any connection between Glascock, an Irish collector and the book’s previous owner (who appears to have had quite an extensive library), and Luttrell; presumably it was purchased on the second-hand market.
USTC 2019434; Graesse IV, 16.