A handsome copy in an unrestored, contemporary binding, of this most curious of emblem books, in which the Jesuit author takes the egg as inspiration for meditations on Easter and the Eucharist. This is the first edition to contain the minute, added scenes around the egg-shaped emblems, the second in all; both are rare.
This copy is from the library of Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Paris Graf von Lodron (1586-1653), with his arms.
The unknown artist, with extraordinary ingenuity and skill, uses egg-shaped emblems to explore the meaning of the egg within a Catholic theological perspective. In this edition the artist produces further minute scenes around the egg, while the first edition of 1634 only had the egg emblem and not the surrounding extra scenes. The emblems show life on the land, animal scenes, biblical scenes, astronomy, mythological scenes, and those relating to foreign lands, such as the Americas.
'There are two specific chapters relating directly to Native Americans, as well as four more emblems where Native Americans serve as an inspiration for the illustration. The well-read Jesuit author has closely examined Heinrich Salmuth's commentary on Panciroli's Rerum memorabilium sive deperditarum. When Salmuth first published the work in an unauthorized edition of 1599-1602, it was condemned and prohibited by the Inquisition for its unorthodox remarks. However, Stengel appears to be unconcerned about commenting further upon Salmuth. In emblem 42, Stengel relates a story Salmuth told about Native Americans feeding chickens. At the border of the emblem are shown the options of eternal hellfire or heavenly rest, and appreciation of all nature. Elsewhere, Stengel reports Salmuth's claim that Native Americans abstain from eating eggs (citing book 2 of Panciroli's Nova reperta). The text goes on to explain, with many citations, how safe and healthy eggs in fact are' (John Carter Brown Library, Neue Welt, Germans and the Americas 1493-1830, online).
Emblem 11 is said to be the inspiration for Swift's scene of the bitter quarrel between Lilliputian factions over the manner of breaking an egg in his Gulliver's Travels.
Provenance: 1. Inscription 'ad Monasterium Sancti Petri' on front free endpaper and title page, that is St Peter's Abbey, in Salzburg, one of the longest running Benedictine monasteries in German-speaking territories (founded in the late seventh century), which was closely connected to the Benedictine University of Salzburg established almost ten centuries later, in 1622, by 2. Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg Paris Graf von Lodron (1586-1653), his arms deeply impressed on the binding. 3. Ink stamp 'Collegi. Borrom.' on second free endpaper, the Collegio Borromeo, now a private secondary school, once the educational arm of a boys' seminary in Salzburg, named for Carlo Borromeo (1538-84). The seminary was forced to shrink and move after Anschluss in 1938; presumably the library was subsumed into that of the university library at that time. 4. This volume, certainly by the twentieth century was part of Salzburg University library. Founded by Lodron in 1622, closed in 1810, the university was reestablished in 1962, and in this intervening near-150-year period the library was known as the 'Salzburg Study Library'; this book was deaccessioned in that period as per the stamp on the second free endpaper, 'Studien bibliothek Salzburg ausgescheiden'. During the Second World War, books from that library from or about Salzburg, or by Salzburg writers, were moved successively to the castles of Anif and Lichtenberg by the library's then-director to protect them, while medieval manuscripts and other treasures were taken to a fortress in Thalgau. It is unclear if this volume was among them.
Early paper repair to lower blank corner of G4, not touching text, occasional foxing and staining, but an attractive copy.
VD17 23:305388Q. Praz p. 504. Landwehr, German 554. De Backer-Sommervogel VII, col 1554,no. 62. 7 copies in US: Getty, Folger, Huntington, Newberry, Brown, Stanford and University of Illinois; not in COPAC (locates only the first edition at Bodley).
