LUCK, Johann Jacob.

An excellent copy of the first edition of this beautifully illustrated work on numismatics, with the arms of Nicolas Joseph Foucault (1643-1721), one of his age’s most celebrated antiquarians.

Johann Jacob Luck (1574-1653) was a native of Strasbourg who, after completing his legal studies, served as historiographer and genealogist for the Rappoltstein noble family between 1608 and 1623. A passionate numismatist, he owned a collection of several thousand medals and coins. The present treatise is groundbreaking in its use of coins, medals and emblems to illustrate historical events. Beginning in 1500 with Louis XII of France and ending in 1599 with Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, Luck’s historical treatise uses the portraits and scenes depicted on the coins and medals that it reproduces (in chronological order) as starting-points for biographical discussions of the century’s most important rulers and for historical treatments of its most memorable battles and political events. This fascinating work constitutes a history of sixteenth-century Europe told through coins. “In Luck’s text, coins are the driving evidentiary force for a history of Europe in the years 1500 to 1600, serving not as mere material footnotes but as a narrative itinerary for epochal events.” (Stielau)

While many of the coins reproduced in this work were in Luck’s collection, others are reproduced from the earlier work Symbola divina et humana pontificium, imperatorum, regum by Jacob Typot (1540-1601). The present copy is in the first state (USTC 2137262) without the added poems in praise of the author, and with the preface in its original setting.

Nicolas-Joseph Foucault (1643-1721) was a royal administrator in the reign of Louis XIV and a renowned antiquarian and bibliophile. He was educated at a Jesuit college and graduated in canon and civil law at Orléans in 1665. From 1674 to 1706, he held administrative posts successively in Montauban, Pau, Poitiers and Caen; most notably he was appointed master of requests (Maître des requêtes) by the king in 1674 and held this position for twenty years. Throughout this time, Foucault displayed an interest in art and archeology and assembled a fine collection of rare books and manuscripts, antique figures, medals and coins, most of which had been discovered in France. “Sa collection de manuscrits […] comprenait, entre autres, cent vingt-trois livres d’heures, dont celles de René d’Anjou, des bibles, des cartulaires et un riche ensemble de pièces sur l’histoire, le droit public et l’administration de la France, réunies en 180 volumes in-folio. Ses séries numismatiques n’étaient pas moins célèbres. Lorsqu’il décida de s’en séparer, en 1708, sa collection comptait autour de quinze mille monnaies, toutes antiques, soit autant, par exemple, que celle de Christine de Suède.” (Avisseau-Broustet) In his old age, however, Foucault was forced to sell off his collections and his library was in part dispersed before his death (it appeared on the market from 1715 onwards).