magic

One of the earliest Tudor editions in English (and published within the author’s lifetime) of this celebrated treatise on ‘firsts’, inventions and origins, which includes some of the earliest accounts in English of the invention of printing, theatre, mathematics, medicine, magic, religion, law, government (as well as wine, prostitution and warm baths). First published in Latin in 1499 (Venice) and considerably augmented in 1521, De inventoribus rerum digested a huge mass of classical, biblical and contemporary learning and became a Renaissance bestseller. Vergil revised it continually and as many as forty editions appeared before the author’s death in 1555. The English translation, the present abridgement by Thomas Langley, did not appear until 1546, by which time the Urbino-born Polydore had been resident in England for several decades. A diplomat, scholar, historian and humanist, Vergil counted Henry VIII, Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More, Cuthbert Tunstall, Thomas Linacre and Baldessare Castiglione among his acquaintances and correspondents. Langley’s dedication for the translation was to Sir Anthony Denny, a prominent courtier and close counsellor of Henry VIII.
The work is divided into eight books, from which Langley makes succinct abridgements, of which a selection of chapter headings gives a flavour:
I. 9. ‘The begynnyng of Tragedies, Comedies, Satyres, and newe Comedies; 11. ‘Who founde Musyke’; 12. ‘Who found Musicall instruments’; 14. ‘Astrologie’; 15. ‘Who founde Geometrie, Artihmetike’; 16. ‘Physike’; 17. ‘The inventours of herbes medicinable’; 18. ‘The beginnyng of Magike’; 19. ‘Two kyndes of divination’. II. 1. ‘The originall of lawes’; 2. ‘Who ordeyned the first gouvernaunces’; 6. ‘Who set furth books fyrst, or made a library, Printyng, paper, parchement, arte of memory’ (which includes the observation: ’Truely the com[m]odite of liberaries is right profitable & necessary, but in co[m]parison of the crafte of printyng it is nothyng, both because one ma[n] may printe more in one day, then many men in many years could wryte: And also it preserveth both Greke & Latine auctours fro the dau[n]ger of corruption. It was found in Germany at Mogunce [Mainz] by one J. Cuthenbergus a knight, he found moreover the Inke by his devise that printers used).’ This printed reference to Gutenberg and the originator of this invention is quite likely the first in English — though William Caxton referred to the origins of ‘arte and crafte of pryntyng’ in at least one of his colophons, none mentioned Gutenberg himself.
Among other entries we find treatments of: war, Olympiades, plays, metals, coins, painting, ‘wyne, oyle, honye, chese, and strange trees broughte into Italy’, labyrinths, theatres, prostitution and brothels, and Christian and Moslem origins and customs.
Though printed in English three times in 1546, these first English editions are remarkably rare. Ours is dated 25 January 1546 and is listed first of the three by STC, but it was perhaps preceded by the editions dated 16 April 1546, given that a new year began on Lady Day (25 March) in old style dating, so the 15 January 1546, old style, actually fell in 1547, new style. In any case, the printing of this issue preceded the accession of Edward VI, and contains his woodcut badge as Prince of Wales. The printer, Richard Grafton, had endured a turbulent period in the early 1540s and was twice committed to prison — once for printing seditious texts by Melanchthon and once for printing the Great Bible. He evidently enjoyed the patronage of the young prince Edward, and, on his accession to the throne, was appointed King’s Printer, giving him the sole right to print all Acts and Statutes, among other privileges. His career as a printer ended on Edward’s death when he printed a proclamation for a hoped-for accession of Lady Jane Grey in which he signed himself ‘Printer to the Queen’. He was promptly imprisoned by Mary.
Provenance: Sotheby’s, June 14th, 1965, lot 231 (Traylen, £55); Blackwell, Centenary Catalogue, 1979, item 27, £450 (listed there as the first edition in English); private collection. STC 24654. STC lists two other printings of 1546: 24655 (also Grafton, dated 16 April) and 24656 (another issue of the same, portions reset, with both title and colophon dated 16 April). In an article of 1888, John Ferguson suggested that these 16 April editions/issues preceded the 25 January edition (though this was not adopted by the editors of STC); John Ferguson, ‘Bibliographical Notes on the English Translation of Polydore Vergil’s work, De Inventoribus Rerum’, 1888, pp. 17 et seq.