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Justus Lipsius is mentioned in "Antiek Boek" on the page, Antiek Boek.
See a larger image of this portrait.
Copyright © 2010, by David Quentin Dauthier
The title of the book here presented is C. CORNELII TACITI. OPERA QUAE EXTANT. Justus Lipsius postremium recensuit. Additi Commentarii aucti emendatique ab ultima manu. Accessit C. Velleius Paterculus cum eiusdem Lipsi auctoribus Notis. A rough translation would be The Works of Gaius Cornelius Tacitus which are Known to Exist, Examined Thoroughly by Justus Lipsius with Notes, Abundant and Perfect to the last Detail. Additionally, the [works of] Valleius Paterculus [also with] Mr. Lipsius’ Authoritative Notes. Snappy title, huh? Well, let’s just say marketing has changed a tad in the last 383 years.
The first edition of this book was published in 1574 in Antwerp at the Officina Plantiniana by Christoph Plantijn, a close personal friend of Mr. Lipsius. The volume on display here is a 1627 printing of the 4th edition text of 1605, the last and most perfected version, produced by Mr. Lipsius just before his death in 1606. Mr. Lipsius played no small part in the heady days of the early renaissance and is certainly worthy of further study. I humbly suggest the following biographical notes on Justus Lipsius: New Advent and WikiPedia.
The sheer dimensions of this book are overwhelming: 10.5” W by 15.5” L by 2” D. The material is dense, so it weighs nearly 7 pounds. It’s definitely not, nor was it ever, a traveling edition. In fact, this particular book, I believe, was used for teaching purposes by Jesuit Priests in Namur, Belgium, at the Jesuit College there (See St. Loup Church). There are several pieces of evidence to support this link in the book’s provenance: a small book plate inside the front cover and copious notes written in the margins of the book.
This a detailed shot of the book’s spine. The gold leaf is in excellent condition for such an old book. The writing on the spine is not the title of the book but merely an indication of the contents: Tacitus and Paterculus.
In addition to the extant works of Tacitus, the book contains the, then, recently discovered manuscripts of Valleus Paterculus. The work of Paterculus is very important for learning about the annihilation of Varus and his three legions at the hands of Arminius in Teutoburg Forrest (For an excellent account, see The Battle that Stopped Rome by Peter S. Wells).
It should be noted that, in the early renaissance, binding was a separate process from printing. Generally, one would buy a book in an unbound form and then go to a bookbinder. There, one would choose the type of binding materials that suited one’s tastes and purse. The cheapest and most basic binding was simply a sheet of white vellum. The binding shown here of mottled calf skin with gold leaf would have been considered an upper-end choice.
This is a detail of Christoph Plantijn’s printer’s mark. In its day, it was the very symbol of quality printing on the continent — I’m unaware of any press in Elizabethan England that could have even approached the quality of the work done at the Officina Plantiniana. Indeed, it is a shame. If Shakespeare’s works had been published by Plantijn, it is almost certain that the number and quality of the surviving editions would be much higher than they are.
Now, the symbolic imagery we see in the mark is quite rich: the very Hand of God reaching from on high to turn the compass: the stationary leg representing constancy and the one in motion, labor. The words emblazoned on the banner weaving through the legs of the compass are the motto of the press: Labore et Constantia: By Labor and Constancy.
Each end of the banner is held by a personification of each word. To the left a laborer with his spade, and to the right the goddess Constantia herself holding the Cross of Christ. The symbols at the center and to the right of the image are divine; to the left, mortal. All else (the elements in the circular enclosure) are vertically symmetrical with the exception of the two faces at the bottom of each pedestal: the left face is male; the right, female: sacred feminine? Perhaps.
Throughout the book, there are wonderful head letters, which in and of themselves are fascinating.
The “H” comes with a pet theory of mine. The “H” appears early on in the introductory materials of the book and at several other locations in smaller form. In this case, it is used to spell the word Historia. If I am correct, this letter may hold an interesting secret.
The key is the date under the diabolical image at center: 1568. This date marks the beginning of the Eighty Years’ War (The Dutch War of Independence). The Netherlands at the time included Belgium, where Christoph Plantijn had his press. Both it and a large swath of Belgium were destroyed when Spanish troops “let slip the dogs of war” in the name of Spain's King Philip II.
In the head letter, the demonic central figure is unveiling the dark year 1568 with either the help of or in opposition to the human figures at the lower left and right, depending your interpretation; nevertheless, both do point at him with looks of apprehension clearly etched in their faces.
The florals that wreath the "H" my well symbolize the wealth of the Netherlands — particularly since they look somewhat like stalks of wheat at the tips. This could indicate the fact that the Eighty Years’ War kicked off, as many wars of independence tend to, over heavy and unreasonable taxes imposed by a distant monarch: King Philip.
The satanic figure could be interpreted as a symbol of those evil days, but I suspect it stands for King Philip himself. The clue is that these images are all linked to the letter H: “H” being the first letter of the word Spain in Latin: Hispania.
If my theory is correct (and I haven’t had time to research it thoroughly), this head letter is a daring bit of graphic design. Why? Well, despite being based in the Protestant Netherlands where such symbolism would have been perfectly acceptable, the Plantijn Press made a great deal of money by having a near monopoly on the printing of liturgical materials for the Roman Catholic Church.
In fact, the Wikipedia entry for the Familia Caritatis, a 16th century mystical religious sect of which Plantijn was an enthusiastic member, has this to say, “Plantin worked by day as Philip II of Spain’s printer of Catholic documents for the Counter Reformation, and otherwise surreptitiously printed Familist [Familia Caritatis] literature.”
Plantijn and his decedents spent their careers as fence-straddlers. This little head letter seems to indicate that someone in their shop was being uncharacteristically judgmental of the Spanish king--IF my interpretation is correct, of course.
The “G” is not all that remarkable, other than the fact that is appears as the first letter of Tacitus' unprecedented ethnographic sketch of the German people: Germania. I just thought it was appropriate to include as we are interested in Ghazals, which also happens to start with G.
The watermarking of the paper in the book is a simplified version of the Greater Coat of Arms of the Netherlands (Groot Rijkswapen): two lions flanking a shield, on top of which is a crown, typical of Dutch paper at the time. An 18th century wax version in the illustration is much clearer than the watermark version, which lacks detail.
The watermark appears throughout the pages of the book, but it is only clearly visible in the end papers. Normally in smaller books, the watermark is either incomplete or nonexistent because the paper is made in large sheets, folded and cut to fit the book being printed. In the case of this edition, it is a full-folio, meaning that on each full sheet only four pages are printed. Therefore, the watermark occurs somewhere on every other page throughout the book.
