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Bernardino GÓMEZ MIEDES (1521 - 1589)  Auf Merkliste setzen

Bernardini Gomesii Miedis archidiaconi saguntini, canonici’que valentini Commentariorum de sale libri quattuor. Ad Philippum II. Hispaniarum, atque Indiarum regem catholicum. Valentiae, ex Typographia Petri à Huete, 1572. Folio, [8], XII, 391, [21] pp., *4, A6, B-Z8, a-b8, c4, d10. Large Habsburg coat of arms on the title page in place of the printer’s device. A clean and wide-margin copy with excellently preserved original limp vellum binding.

First, utterly rare edition, of the very first encyclopaedic work dealing with salt, as well as the more substantial ever written on this subject, it deals with salt’s production and trade from ancient times up to the mid-16th century, including important accounts related to its mineralogical and chemical characteristics, along with its medicinal and dietary uses. While the scientific aspects of Miedes’ treatise involve the first two books, with particular attention to medical uses and salt-making practices, observed by the author in several regions of Europe, the third and fourth books deal with salt in an allegorical-symbolic sense, with deep philosophical and religious digressions. Always travelling since the end of the 1530s, Bernardino Gómez Miedes, utriusque iuris doctor, completed his studies in Paris, Leuven and Antwerp. To deepen his knowledge in the literary, historical and philosophical field ,he stayed for about ten years in Rome, between the late 1540s and ‘50s, where he conceived these Commentaries on Salt. At the beginning of the 1560s he was back in Valencia, canon of the city and Archdeacon of Sagunto, after a long homecoming through Italy, Germany and France. The bulk of the biographical information on Miedes comes from his Commentaries, which in many respects are an accurate autobiographical account of his wanderings. This work, the first of his to be published and certainly the most important, was written in over twenty years and in it can be observed many different styles of writing and prose. From the diaristic passages, interwoven with learned quotes, anecdotes, chronicles and local legends, to the purely technical sections, with descriptions drawn from the careful study of an enormous amount of philosophical, medical and scientific sources and the accounts of the long journeys that Miedes undertook in almost forty years. The author’s travel reports are paired with information derived from the accounts of Spanish expeditions overseas (detailed references to the Americas, both scientific-naturalistic and historical can be found). A purely humanistic prose coexists effortlessly with a philosophical-spiritualistic and a historiographical one, and the complex but always enjoyable style of writing is precisely what makes this treatise an unrepeatable unicum and Bernardino Gómez Miedes one of the most eclectic writers of Spanish humanism. The Commentariorum de sale knew wide success and a second, enlarged edition in five books, published in 1579 (Valentiae, ex Officina Petri Huete) and reprinted in Germany (Ursellis, ex Officina Typographica Cornelij Sutorij, sumptibus Ioan. Berneri Francofurtens. Bibliop., 1605). REF. DUVEEN p. 403; PALAU 104100; OCLC 84319457; S. I. RAMOS MALDONADO (ed.), Bernardino Gómez Miedes. Comentarios sobre la sal (Madrid, Alcañiz, 2003) (Seller ref. MC0231)

5800,- EUR
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Sachgebiete: Chemie, Erstausgaben, Geschichte

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