Proscenium Vitae Humanae Sive Emblematum Secularium, de Bry 1627.
Size: 7 3/8 x 5 3/4 in.
This emblem book is titled Proscenium Vitae Humanae Sive Emblematum Secularium and was written by Johann Theodor de Bry (Joan Theodorum de Bry on the title page) and published in Frankfurt by Wilhelm Fitzers in 1627. The title means the Proscenium of Human Life or Secular Emblems - a proscenium is the front part of a stage in a theater, usually between the curtain and the audience - so the book is about the parts of life that appear in front of us or ahead of us.
Johann de Bry (1561 - 1623) was a Flemish-born German engraver, etcher, and publisher, known for his work in his father’s renowned publishing house in Frankfurt am Main. The father, Theodor de Bry, played a key role in illustrating early European expeditions to the Americas and was forced to flee his native Netherlands during the Spanish Inquisition. The father was Protestant and the Spanish controlled the south of the country, so father and family moved around Europe and finally settled in Frankfurt. After his father died, Johann completed the America series, which contributed significantly to a European understanding of New World cultures, and he was involved in publishing several emblem books, such as the book at auction here.
The book is 3/4 bound, with a maroon spine, the title impressed on the spine and a gilt library number at the bottom. The brown boards have a Newberry Library seal on the front cover, a bookplate from the Newberry library on the front paste-down and a typed note at the bottom of the page which says the book has been properly removed from the Library, with marbled endpapers, the title page is engraved with nine circular figures and two small white shields left blank, followed by an engraved figure of Typus vere Amicitie and 13 pages of preliminaries in Latin and German - the preliminaries include an explanation about Typus vere Amicitie and a list of the 72 emblems in the book - the text includes emblems about Bacchus and Alchemy, and all the emblems are numbered in Roman numerals. The book was first published in 1596 and this is the third edition, most of the verses are in Latin and German, and some have verses in French as well.
The book measures 7 3/8 x 5 3/4 inches wide and is in good condition, The binding is tight and the pages are pretty clean, with light wear along the edges of the spine and at the tips, the tips are turned in, there’s light browning in some of the margins and heavier browning in the margins for emblems LXI and LXII, light red marks in the margins on a couple of emblems towards the rear, a chip at the bottom of emblems XXXV and LXII, occasional offset, and we are not sure, but it appears a blank endpaper has been removed before the title page, emblem XXXVI is missing, but no emblems have been torn out of the book, from what we can tell, and the sequence is a little goofy for emblems LVII and LVIII. Emblem LVII is missing and there are two emblems numbered LVIII - they both have different images too - and we’re wondering if the first emblem marked LVIII was supposed to be marked LVII, and it seems like these mistakes were made in the binding process.
WorldCat shows only one copy in Special Collections around the world (at Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany) and there are several ebook copies and one on microfilm as well, and that’s it, so the book is rare and hard to find. In 2014 Christies sold a copy for £3250 ($4400) without the buyer’s premium, Bonham’s sold a copy for £2250 ($3000 with the premium) in 2015, we found two modern reprints for sale online that don’t go for much, and we realize there is a wide discrepancy between the sale prices at Christie’s and Bonham’s and our starting price, but we are starting the bidding low just to get the bidding going.
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