Main Content
Summary
Author: Camden, William
Title: Britannia sive florentissimorum regnorum, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, et insularum adiacentium ex intima antiquitate chorographica descriptio ... nunc denuo recognita, & plurimis locis adaucta.
Publication: London, Ralph Newbery 1587.
Price: £2,950
Reference: 08837
Full Description
8vo. (16) + 648 + (22)pp. Contemporary full panelled vellum, with stamped portrait of Duke Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in an inner decorative panel on upper cover, and the Duke's arms in a similar panel on lower cover. The binding carries the stamped date 1590 beneath the portrait on the upper cover. Some wear to spine and sides of binding, including loss of surface on lower cover in an area above the upper right hand corner of the inner panel containing the ducal arms. Presentation copy to Heinrich Meibom (1555-1625), Professor of History and Poetry at the University of Helmstedt, with presentation inscription to Meibom on title leaf and Meibom's own ownership inscription at foot of front free endpaper (the endpaper repaired for minor loss of surface at its right-hand margin). Some ink reading marks in text, a crease mark at some outer right-hand top corners, and an old light stain on a few outer margins, but generally a fresh copy.
A presentation copy to the celebrated German academic Heinrich Meibom the elder (1555-1625) of the second edition of William Camden's Britannia, the first book to attempt a reconstruction of the early history of Britain on the basis of topographical as well as literary evidence. Meibom was at this time Professor of History and Poetry at the University of Helmstedt, founded by Duke Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1576, and the presentation inscription, signed D.C. , describes him as "Cl(arissimo) M(agistro) Henrico Meibomo vati musis carissimo", the last three words translatable as "a poet most dear to the muses" and referring to Meibom's reputation as a writer of Latin verse. Meibom's ownership of this copy is further attested by the inscription "Sum ex libris M. Henrici Meibomii" at the foot of the front free endpaper. What is especially notable about the copy is that it is in a contemporary stamped and dated vellum binding carrying on its upper cover a portrait of Duke Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, the founder both of the University of Helmstedt and of the ducal book collection which was to be enlarged by a seventeenth-century successor into the great library now held in the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel. The portrait is accompanied by the Duke's motto, "Aliis inserviendo consumor" (I spend my own energies serving others), which was taken up in the nineteenth century as a motto for library workers generally, and is now the motto of the Beta Phi Mu library and information science society in the USA. The lower cover carries the Duke's coat of arms surrounded by his name and titles. Stamped portrait bindings of this character are most uncommon, and the added presence of the "Aliis inserviendo consumor" inscription gives this particular binding a special resonance.