Special Collections: Recent Acquisitions

Eine Predigt vom verloren Schaf. : Luce xv / D. Mart. Luth. zu Wittemberg fur dem Churfursten zu Sachsen, Herzog Johans Fridrich [et]c. gepredigt. -- Gedruckt zu Wittemberg : Durch Hans Lufft, M.D. XXXIII [1533] -- [48] pages ; 20 cm (4to).

[A sermon on the lost sheep : Luke 15 / preached by Dr. Martin Luther in Wittenberg for the Elector of Saxony, Duke Johan Frederick, etc.]

Rare Books: BR 332 .S4 1533 

This is the published version of a sermon that Martin Luther (1483-1546) delivered before Johann Friedrich, Elector of Saxony, at the castle in Wittenberg on August 23, 1532. The date is significant, as it was a mere week after the death of Johann Friedrich’s father, Elector Johann. This may have been the first occasion on which Luther addressed the young elector in his new status.

The title page features an unusually elegant woodcut border, depicting Jesus carrying a sheep on his shoulders, along with five crests representing Wittenberg’s principal theologians. They are, clockwise from the top left: Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, Johann Bugenhagen, Conrad Cruciger, and Justas Jonas.

Lufft probably commissioned the woodcut for this publication, but in the following years it would appear on a number of Lufft’s title pages, and also on some works printed by Klug and Weiss. Including all five monograms may have been a strategy to make the image useful for more publications by different authors, but it certainly emphasizes the sense of cohesion within Luther’s inner circle.

De rebus Turcicis commentarii duo accuratissimi / Joachimi Camerarii Pabepergensis ; a filiis nunc primùm collecti ac editi ; accessere & alia nonnulla lectu admodum digna & vtilia …. -- Francofurti : Apud heredes Andreae Wecheli, Claudium Marnium, & Ioan. Aubrium, M.D. XCVIII. [1598] -- 143, [1] pages ; 36 cm (fol.).

[Two most carefully studied commentaries on matters relating to the Turks / by Joachim Camerarius of Bamberg : now collected and published for the first time by his sons ; and adjoined to some other fully suitable and useful readings.]

Rare Folio: DR 439 .C36 1598

Joachim Camerarius the Elder (1500-1574) was a classics scholar who studied in Wittenberg and later assisted Melanchthon in drafting the Augsburg Confession. He worked as a faculty member and as an administrator at the universities of Tübingen and Leipzig, and was a widely respected public intellectual. His opinions about the Ottoman Empire apparently still carried some weight even two decades after his death.

Notwithstanding its refined appearance and scholarly tone, the book is essentially propaganda in favor of taking military action against the Turks. The “other fully suitable and useful readings” in the volume include a chronicle of Islam from the sixth century to the sixteenth, by Francisco Sansovino (1521-1583); a Disputatio de bello Turcico by the French Huguenot captain, François de La Noue (1531-1591); Oratio protreptica, by the Austrian humanist, scientist, diplomat, and historian Johannes Cuspinianus (1473-1529); and an oration by Alfonso V, King of Aragon (1396-1458). All argue in favor of war.

Epistolae S. BonifacI Martyris, primi Moguntini Archiepiscopi, Germanorum apostoli, pluriumq[ue] pontificum, regum, et aliorum / nunc primùm è Caesare[ae] Maiestatis Viennensi bibliothecâ luce notisque donatae per Nicolaum Serarium, Societatis Iesu presbyterum, ss. theol. doct. -- Moguntiae [Mainz]: E Typographeo Balthasaris Lippij, Anno M. DCV. [1605] -- [8], 351, [1] pages ; 23 cm (4to).

[The letters of St. Boniface the Martyr, first Archbishop of Mainz, apostle of the Germans, and also of popes, kings and others / from the library of His Imperial Majesty in Vienna, now brought to light for the first time by Nikolaus Serarius, priest of the Society of Jesus and Doctor of Sacred Theology.]

Rare Books: BX 4700 .B7 A39 1605

This first edition of the letters of St. Boniface also includes Boniface’s Life of St. Levinus, and Willibald’s biography of St. Boniface.

St. Boniface, Archbishop of Mainz (ca. 675-754), known as “The Apostle of the Germans,” was a key figure in the spread of Christianity in the middle ages. Born and educated in England, Boniface spent most of his career preaching and organizing religious institutions among the Germanic peoples of central Europe. In addition to the huge number of converts for which he was directly or indirectly responsible, Boniface worked to establish a coherent administrative structure for the regional church under the authority of Rome. As Archbishop of Mainz, Boniface anointed Pepin the Short as King of the Franks in 752, thus establishing a precedent that would guide the Holy Roman Empire until the nineteenth century.

This edition of Boniface’s letters was edited by Nikolaus Serarius (1558-1609), a Jesuit theologian and church historian in Mainz. Serarius’s work is unusually conscientious for the time. He specifies his sources (manuscripts at the Imperial Court Library of Vienna); and he uses marginal annotations to identify variant readings and editorial emendations. Such a collection of Boniface’s writings would have been a point of pride for German Catholics, and especially for the city of Mainz.

The engraved title-page border depicts 12 vignettes from the life of St. Boniface. Numbered clockwise from the top left, they are as follows:

1. Winfrid (not yet called Boniface, but already sporting a halo) arriving in Frisia to start his missionary work
2. converting the masses
3. teaching
4. visiting Pope Gregory II in Rome with a letter of commendation from Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, and receiving a commission as bishop (and receiving the name “Boniface”)
5. anointing Pepin as King (the first such ceremony in the West)
6. overseeing the construction of a new church
7. now as archbishop, consecrating bishops to oversee the new dioceses in Germany
8. striking down a graven image, thereby restoring a local congregation to orthodoxy
9. establishing a new monastery
10. retiring from his duties as archbishop and returning to his original mission in Frisia
11. attacked by hostile non-believers, continuing to read serenely, and finally being martyred
12. per his wishes, Boniface’s remains taken to Fulda for interment at the abbey he founded

Epitome Romanorum Pontificum, à sanctissimo Petro, vsque ad Paulum eius nominis Tertium / per Georg Vicelium. -- Coloniae : Ex officina Joannis Quentel, anno M.D.XLIX [1549] -- 79, [1] pages ; 17 cm (8vo).

[Summary of the Roman Pontiffs, from the most holy Peter up to (the Pope) of the name Paul the Third / by Georg Witzel.]

Rare Books: BX 953 .W58 1549

The career of Georg Witzel (1501-1573) cut a jagged path across the rocky landscape of the sixteenth-century Reformation. On one hand, Witzel became convinced as a young priest that the Catholic Church needed significant reform, and he even got married in 1523. On the other hand, he never fully embraced the new theology emanating from Wittenberg. As a result of this tension, Witzel found his work repeatedly disrupted as he fell out with each side in turn. In his later years he finally settled into the role of religious advisor to Charles V and Ferdinand I, but he always held out hope for a reconciliation within a reformed Catholic Church.

This Epitome, written as Witzel was shoring up his allegiance to his Catholic benefactors, appears to be a kind of conciliatory gesture, tracing the papacy from St. Peter to the present with a brief note on each pope. But even so, Witzel cannot resist inserting candid opinions—and even frank condemnation—as he sees fit. For example, his entry number 212, on Gregory XII (who was pope 1406-1415), lapses into editorializing and completely neglects its ostensible subject:

It causes shame to recall the number and nature of the Cardinals’ conflicts in the election of popes: when some have already decided upon this one, and others on that one, this leads to a corrupt state of mind and not to a benevolent spirit. Because of these and similar ills God let loose heresies to chasten the Church.

Mataeologia haereticorum, siue, Summa haereticarum fabularum : in qua breui quodam veluti compendio continentur nongenti ferè vanissimi errores, de ducentis propè religionis Catholicae capitibus … : Babylonia, siue, Confusio haeresum, quae à Christo nato in hunc vsq[ue] diem extortae, nunc verò in locos communes ... digestae ... / per D. Georgium Ederum ... -- Ingolstadij : Apud Dauidem Sartorium, anno MDLXXXI [1581] -- [48], 296, [6] pages ; 17 cm (8vo).

[The blather of heretics, or, Summary of heretics’ tales : in which are contained in brief summary some nine hundred of the most baseless errors, nearly two hundred of which are from the minds of religious Catholics … : Babylon, or, A muddle of heresies, which have arisen from the birth of Christ to the present day, now accurately organized into general arguments ….]

Rare Books: BT 1313 .E347 1581

Although Georg Eder (1523-1586) was a jurist by training, he is best known for publishing works concerned with the regulation of religious orthodoxy. By doing so, he made himself a major figure in the Counter Reformation in Austria and Bavaria, a staunch opponent to all Protestant denominations, most especially Lutherans. His Evangelische Inquisition (1573) and Malleus haereticorum (“Hammer of the heretics,” 1580) were widely read in their day.

This book serves as a companion to the previous year’s Malleus haereticorum. While Eder’s earlier work aims at a systematic exposition of erroneous beliefs, along with citations from the Church Fathers to refute them, this book provides brief summaries organized alphabetically—a kind of heretics’ dictionary.

This copy is especially noteworthy for its binding and overall condition. It is bound in contemporary limp vellum with overlapping edges, tooled in gold leaf with a double-fillet frame, arabesque stamps front and back, and stylized floral stamps at the corners and spine. The pages are gilt on three edges and beautifully gauffered (decorated with patterns pressed into the edges). The original ties, of braided thread and gold wire, are also intact.