CATELAN, Laurent. 
Auf Merkliste setzen
Ein schöner newer historischer Discurs, von der Natur, Tugenden, Eigenschafften und Gebrauch dess Einhorns: Auch wie und wo dasselbig zu finden und zu fangen: Deszgleichen von der Prob desz rechten wahren Einhorns: Beneben vielen andern denckwürdigen Historien und Geschichten, durch Laurentium Catelanum, vornehmen Apoteckern dess Hertzogen von Vandosme, zu Montpellier, in frantzösischer Sprach beschrieben. Nunmehr aber von Georgio Fabro, der Artzney d. fürstl. Hess. und der Keys. Burg Friedberg besteltem Medico, in Hochteutsch trewlich ubergesetzt, und mit schönen in Kupffer gestochenen Figuren gezieret. Frankfurt am Main, Lucas Jennis, 1625. 8vo. (23),+ (blank),+ 149 pp. With 7 full page engravings in text. Minor spotting, one plate cut in frame. Later marbled brown paperboards, spine with handwritten paper label. From the library of C.F.G.R. Schwerdt, with his fine engr. hunting, hawking and shooting bookplate.
VD17 39:117690K. USTC 2006860. Wütrich II, 165. Brüning I, 1431. First German edition of the famous alchemical tract by Laurent Catelan, translated from the French by Georg Faber (1575-after 1632). With seven illustrations engraved by Matthäus Merian senior, all 122x77 mm in size. The French original, ”Histoire de la nature, chasse vertus, proprietez et usage de la lycorne”, was published with one illustration in Montpellier in 1624. Laurent Catelan (c.1568–1647) was a French hermetic pharmacist and naturalist in Montpellier, and a large naturalist collector. Catelan argues like in most occult theories that what’s most beautiful and important in nature is by necessarity hidden, and he follows Paracelsus’ medical ideas rather than Galenus. His work about the unicorn and its use is the longest of his three alchemical treatises on rare and marveolous medical products, the other two are about the Bezoar and the Mandrake. In this work about the unicorn he consider in the first part the different kind of unicorns and how to separate the real one from the false, i.e. the ones with a single horn, like the rhinoceros, but without the magic power. After this he describes how to identify the real unicorn, where to find them and how to hunt them. They are, according to Catelan, not the the elegant and beautiful white animals as depicted in the renaissance but wild beasts with invinceble strenght, and they can’t be captured alive. Still he belives that they are drawn to maidens and falls asleep in their laps, but he does not understand why this wild beast do that. The engraver Matthäus Merian however stays close to the classic image of an unicorn in rest. The largest part is devoted to the medicinal uses of the unicorn’s horn, and how it can be a powerful antidote against all poisons. And, by the way, Catelan tells the reader, he happens to have a real horn in his possesion. (See Bruno Faidotti, ”Un apothicaire de Montpellier” 2022.) The German translator Georg Faber was the personal physician to the Landgraf court in Hessen and the book is with printed dedication to the Landgräfin Anna Margaretha. Carl Franz Georg Richard Schwerdt and his wife Mathilde had a large book collection on hunting and he published the large ”Hunting, Hawking, Shooting Illustrated in a Catalogue of Books, Manuscripts, Prints and Drawings” in four volumes.
2200,- EUR
Differenzbesteuert/Subject to margin taxation
Sachgebiete: Alchemie, Jagd, Naturwissenschaften, Zoologie
Kontakt zum
