BENTZIUS, Johannes

CHARMINGLY STAMPED AND PAINTED

BENTZIUS, Johannes Thesauri latinitatis purae compendium

Strasbourg, Exudebant haer. Bernh. Iobini, 1596

£7,950.00

8vo. pp. (xvi) 666 [i.e., 696] (lxxxiv) + 96 blank ll. Roman letter, with Gothic, occasional Italic, double column. Woodcut printer’s device to t-p, decorated initials and ornaments. Lightly browned, a few ll. and edges a bit dusty, two tiny worm holes to first two gatherings occasionally touching a letter, small ink (?) smudge to lower outer blank corner of 2R5-6. A good copy in elegant contemporary vellum, yapp edges, traces of ties and of green, black and red paint to boards, double blind ruled to a panel design, outer border with blind-stamped tendrils, centre panel with blind-stamped cornerpieces and lozenge-shaped centrepiece, all with gouges and interlacing ribbons, raised bands, title inked to spine, all edges red and gauffered. C18 sketched map of a region of northern Germany inked to front pastedown, ex-libris of Hermann Levy to ffep, another with longer note dated 1852 to first blank leaf at rear, C19 armorial bookplate of Sir Joseph Radcliffe [2nd] Bart. of Rudding Park to ffep, C18 ex-libris of Johannes Rumpus anno 16(00?) to t-p.

An elaborately bound copy of the second, substantially enlarged edition of this scarce Latin-German lexicon. The lovely contemporary binding of German influence, as shown by the traces of green, black and red paint on the vellum, suggests this was a present. Johann Bentz (fl. late C16-early C17) from Brussels was professor at Strasbourg, and the author of Latin textbooks on rhetoric and grammar. This is the second, much enlarged edition (‘alterum’), published by the same printer in the same year as the first (‘primum’). Like the first, it is divided into subjects (or ‘loci’), e.g., God, the soul, justice, temperance, history, the state, geometry, medicine, astronomy, the graphic crafts and the ‘evil’ arts. Under ‘De graphicis artificiis’ are ‘typographia’, ‘typographus’, ‘excudere’, ‘operae typographicae’, ‘typus’, ‘loculi’ or ‘capsulae’ (the printers’ type drawers), ‘praelum’, ‘sphaera’, ‘atramentum typographicum’ (blank ink), ‘minium’ (red ink), ‘fusor typorum’ (the type founder), ‘bibliopegus’ (bookbinder), and ‘compingere’ (to bind). In most sections, Latin words are listed alphabetically, with a German translation. This second edition was reset in double column, and substantially revised with additional Latin and German synonyms, and long lists of related Latin phrases (either adjectives or verbs), so that the young owner could learn how to write in Latin on specific subjects (traditional and contemporary) using an idiomatic language. A detailed subject and a diagrammatic index were added as preliminaries, and the work concluded with an 83-page dictionary of all the German words mentioned in the work. A scarce work of linguistic and typographical interest.

No copies recorded in the US.Index Aureliensis 116947; Jones, German Lexicography, 195 (mentioned in the entry for ‘Primum’ 1596); Monumenta Germaniae Pedagogica LII, p.170 (mentioned with ‘Primum’ 1596). Not in BM STC Ger.
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