Lot 527
Eschuid, Joannes
Rare Books, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: Rare Books, Manuscripts & Photographss | 10 May 2007
Description
Summa astrologiæ iudicialis de accidentibus mundi quæ anglicana uulgo nuncupatur Ioannis Eshcuidi niri [sic] anglici peritissimi scietiæ astrologiæ foelici sidere inchoat. Imprint: Venice: Ioannis Lucilii Sanctiter ... : Impensis ... Fracisci Bolani ..., 1489 nonis Iulii. Folio, ff. [ii], 306=219 (numerous mispaginations), signature n lacking n6 as usual, text in two columns, woodcut map of the world on f.44, other woodcut diagrams, woodcut initials, others left bank with guide letters, later polished calf, rebacked, endpapers renewed, first two leaves supplied in facsimile, corners of first signature repaired, affecting some letters of text, worming at upper inner margin from signatures g to m (extending to some letters of text), some instances of marginal water staining, damp staining of last signature, slight damage to verso of 112 and facing leaf (affecting some letters of text)
Footnote
Note: Goff E-0109; GW 9329; Hain*6685 (with 222 leaves); Thorndike III chapter XXXI
The first and only 15th century edition of this famous treatise on astrological prediction by the 14th century English astrologer John of Eschenden or John Estwood (fl. 1350). The work is of interest not only for the insight it provides into the world of mediaeval astrology, but also for astronomical, cosmographical and meteorological as well as medical information it contains. Having survived the Plague - which he predicted - he provides one of the earliest surviving accounts of the epidemic and remedies against it.
The woodcut diagrams include a woodcut map of the world and a full page diagram of the world in which the globe is divided into sections each of which is particularly subject to the influence of a certain planet. The numerous woodcut initials are partly printed from blocks first used by Ratdolt.