?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
Lemnius, Levinus (1505-1568) Occulta Naturae Miracula, von den Wunderbarlichen Geheimnissen der Natur.
Leipzig: Vogel für Steinmann, [1572].
First German edition, large quarto, in four parts, unpaginated, translated from Latin by Jakob Horst (1537-1600), no date on title pages or colophons, imprint date from Horst's preface; two divisional title pages printed in red and black, all blanks present, many inscribed with contemporary notes (faded), illustrated with one folding plate of the twelve winds bound at the end of the text; bound in very good half russet morocco with marbled paper boards, some browning to contents, marginalia, 7 3/4 x 5 3/4 in.
Not in Ferguson, few copies of the first German translation appear in the auction record.
Lemnius's influential book of secrets saw great popularity from its first appearance in print (1559), well into the 20th century. Guided by the Hippocratic Corpus, Aristotle, Christianity, and a belief in the four humors, he forged a complicated treatise that covers generation and reproduction, psychology, hygiene, demonology, diet, use of alcohol, influence of the stars, natural history, monstrous births, and much more.
