Margarita Philosophica

[Strasbourg]: [Joh. Grüninger], 1512. Quarto. Modern full dark brown calf with central decorative blindstamped device within single blindstamped rule to both boards, raised bands on spine in decorative blindstamped compartments, earlier dark red leather title label gilt, red speckled edges. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 3 preliminary leaves + 647, [i] (blank) pp. + 4ff. (most with extensive early annotations in manuscript).

Book I
A1-4, B1-Z8, a1-k8

Book II
A1-4, B1-F6, G1-4, H1-6, J1-N4

Title printed within fine woodcut border; colophon to foot of final recto. With numerous diagrams, tables, and fine woodcut illustrations throughout, some full-page, and musical examples in Hufnagel notation to N3v-N4r, N5r-N6r, and N7-N8.

The full-page print to M4v in the "Musicae speculativae" section depicts an ensemble of musicians playing organ, harp, lute, and flute; a poet wearing a laurel; and a central female figure with an elaborate ornamental headdress holding a score with a 6-note hexachordal scale running in two directions printed on two 5-line staves.

The half-page print to C3r in the "Musica figurata" section depicts small naked figures (?putti) holding a large sheet of (?vocal) music notated on a 4-line stave with a shawm-like instrument in the foreground.

With fine manuscript initials and hand-drawn highlights in red and blue and with numerous woodcut illustrations, some full-page and some extending into margin, and decorative initials throughout. Occasional hand coloring, including to illustration to verso of B3 in Book II.

With early signature to foot of title.

With manuscript ownership markings to front pastedown ("WGT Barter, 19/11/[18]67" and "Auctor hjus libri Georgius Reisch. L'auteur était prieur d'une chartreuse au près de Fribourg"); to front free endpaper (1829 White Knights ..." and small rectangular handstamp "Bibliotheca Heleriana;" and to verso of final leaf of text ("Ex librio [?]Dupuia"). Early manuscript annotations to 5 pages of section on architecture and occasionally throughout.

Binding very slightly worn, rubbed, and bumped; endpapers slightly browned. Minor internal wear and soiling; light uniform browning; upper margins slightly cropped, not affecting text; outer margins slightly cropped, just touching some annotations; early repair to short tear to verso of h2, just touching marginal text; final 4ff. dampstained; very occasional minor smudging to highlights. Lacking folding world map.

A very good copy overall. Sixth edition of the work first published in Freiburg in 1503 by Schott. Cortot, pp. 164-65 (the 1508 edition). Gaspari I, (other editions). Hirsch I, 497. Wolffheim I, 963 (the 1599 Italian edition). Not in Damschroder and Williams, Davidson, Matthew, or Reese. RISM Écrits, p. 695.

Rare Book Hub records only 2 copies of this 1512 edition having come to auction since 1923.

In 12 books: Latin grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy, physics, natural history, physiology, psychology, and ethics.

Reisch was a German scholar and music theorist. "He was in close contact with the best humanists of his time, was one of Johannes Eck's teachers, and was considered one of Germany's most learned men; Erasmus referred to him as an 'oracle' among the Germans.

[The] Margarita philosophica ... was an enormously popular Latin dialogue textbook and was frequently reissued; its last edition appeared in 1600. ... The fifth book is divided into two parts, concerning the 'principles' and 'practice' of music, and cites such authorities as Pythagoras, Plato, Augustine, Boethius and al-Fārābī. On the whole it is a typical Renaissance didactic treatise, dealing with definitions and origins of music, divisions into musica mundana, humana and instrumentalis, classification of consonances and dissonances, use of the monochord, medieval church modes and hexachord solmization. Of special interest are the relatively extensive music examples, which in the first edition are written in Hufnagelschrift. The 1512 edition [the present one] incorporates a part of Nicolaus Wollick's Opus aureum musicae (1501) to serve as a section on musica figurata." T. Herman Keahey in Grove Music Online

Considered to be the first printed encyclopedia, the present work is of primary importance for its attempt to summarize all extant knowledge.

In addition to its musical interest, the Margarita Philosophica is also of great interest to the history of woodcut book illustration and contains an early anatomical diagram (a5r), the oldest printed depiction of the human eye (b5r), a very early depiction of the brain (c2v), and purportedly the first polar projection. Some of the woodcuts are attributed to noted Swiss printmaker Urs Graf (ca. 1425-1528.

A fascinating post-incunable, offering significant insight into the 16th century worldview.