Theatrum Terrae Sanctae is famous for its engraved maps, but the work is justly sought for its descriptions of Palestine and the antiquities of Jerusalem. Additionally the work contains a chronology from Adam to 1585, the year of the author's death.

The work begins with an engraved allegorical title-page, has woodcut initials and tailpieces, and bears12 folding or double-page engraved maps. The text is printed in roman type in double-column format.

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only five U.S. holdings.

Provenance:  Ownership “label” of George Williams (1814–78), who served as Vice-Provost of King's College (Cambridge) from 1854 to 1857.

•  Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped red leather title-label. Title-page with small affixed slip bearing ownership inscription as above. Occasional edge nicks and short tears, and a number of leaves with old creases or the odd smudge; last leaf with old, small repairs to margins, and one other leaf with very good repair from blank reverse to an interior tear (no text lost or even affected). (25368)

•  VD17 12:128413B. Contemporary vellum with yapp edges, spine with early inked title; some light discoloration, with cut to vellum across spine. Pastedowns loose from inside covers, with bits of old manuscript used in the binding structure, showing; 19th-century bookplate attached to exposed paste board and endpapers creased. Shadow of old shelf number on verso of title-page. One leaf with small stain and hole affecting about four letters. Foxing ranging from mild to moderate.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  VD17 12:131988L.   19th-century marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; paper rubbed with spine paper chipped, cracked, and shelving number inked at bottom. Pastedowns with institutional bookplates, free endpapers and lower (closed) edges institutionally rubber-stamped, title-page with early inked numeral in upper portion. First third of work with early inked annotations and underlining (some marginalia shaved), this tapering off in frequency with close of volume untouched. Two leaves with small portions of outer margins excised. Occasional small stains, pages mostly clean.  (25818)

In Latin printed in roman and italic, the text also has passages inHebrew, Greek, Arabic, and German, with sidenotes and footnotes to aid the reader. The text is sparsely but elegantly decorated with floriated woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, and one letterpress diagram. The title-page is printed in red and black with a small engraved emblematic vignette, and there are separate section titles to each part and to the extensive indices that follow at the end, compiled by Heinrich Engelbert Schwarz. (His letter to the reader is found in the middle of the final quire.)

•  Contemporary sheepskin, spine with raised bands and gilt stamp in compartments, gilt lettering piece, covers ruled in blind, red edges; boards very rubbed, leather chipped at spine revealing bands, offsetting from leather onto endpapers. Evidence of paper labels sometime to spine; 19th-century seminary bookplate on front pastedown, faded old stamps to title-page and, almost imperceptibly, the facing portrait. Scattered spots from foxing and chemical reactions in the paper, but sturdy and clean.  (30333)

•  ESTC R16460; Wing (rev. ed.) C1225; Vancil 46; Lowndes 386; Dibdin, I, 31–35. On Castell, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   18th-century speckled calf, covers bordered with a darker calf band blind-rolled and then framed with single gilt fillet; spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, darker-leather raised bands gilt-stamped/blind-tooled, and compartments gilt- and blind-tooled enclosing gilt-stamped floral decorations. Binding rubbed, with leather significantly lost in top compartment and and lost also at foot. All edges marbled. Front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription as above dated 1837; title-page with old institutional pressure-stamp. Frontispiece with outer margin reinforced some time ago. One leaf slightly oversized and creased, intermittent soiling in many upper margins, one leaf with text affected but not obscured, small sections with light waterstaining to outer or upper margins; over all, a book both impressive and pleasant. Columns erratically numbered, text complete.  (25792)

Provenance:  Library stamp on title-page of a Jesuit residence in Mallorca.

•  Publisher's acid-stained sheep, abrasions to front cover; gilt spine. Library stamp as above; front free endpaper and half-title with old stains, otherwise expectable age-toning only.  (28722)

Uncommon: OCLC and NUC Pre-1956 locate only two U.S. holdings of this edition, one since deaccessioned.

This volume is also of interest typographically; some of the Greek, Syriac, and Arabic types subsequently used in productions by Hendrik Wetstein and others make their first appearances here. The text is predominantly in Latin, with quotations in Hebrew and the above languages. The title-page is printed in black and red.

Provenance:  Front pastedown with inked inscriptions of the Rev. A.W. Miller of Charlotte, N.C., dated 1871, and of H. Ader of Assumption Hills, dated [18]92; front free endpaper with early inked inscription of Henry Joseph Thomas Drury. Drury was a master at Harrow School (where he taught Byron), and an original member of the Roxburghe Club. His inscription notes the book's passage from the Bibliotheca Heathiana “thro' Dr. Raine's hands, and Cuthell's to mine”; Drury's mother was Louisa Heath, daughter of the great collector Benjamin Heath, but most of Heath's library had originally gone either to his two sons or to auction following the death of his wife.

•  Rosenthal, Bibliotheca magica et pneumatica, 1614. Not in Caillet, Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou occultes; not in Coumont, Demonology & Witchcraft.   Contemporary speckled calf framed and panelled in blind with blind-tooled corner fleurons, inner edges of covers ruled in gilt double fillets, neatly rebacked; spine with gilt-stamped title, gilt-stamped raised bands, and blind-tooled compartment decorations; original leather with edges abraded, corners repaired. Hinges (inside) reinforced some time ago. Lower (closed) edges institutionally blind-stamped. Front pastedown and free endpaper with inscriptions as above, title-page with small ownership inscription in upper portion. Pages age-toned with small amounts of light foxing. Nice margins, all edges (once) saffron.  (25848)

•  Brooks, Compendiosa Bibliografia di Edizioni Bodoniane, 279; Steinschneider, Catalogus hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, 2152.   Binding on vols. I–IV: Contemporary calf, covers framed and panelled in blind rolls with original leather cracked, chipping, and darkened (III–IV especially severely); rebacked, spines with gilt-stamped title, gilt-dotted raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Binding on the Scholia:  Recent, full period-style calf framed and panelled in blind rolls; spine with gilt-stamped title, gilt-dotted raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. All title-pages with very old institutional rubber-stamps; early portions of vol. I with lightly pencilled annotations and bracketing, and vol. II with small pencilled marks of emphasis. Old soft corner creases or mild cockling variously throughout to vols. I–IV and, where these things (or a natural paper flaw) are most notable, a grey soil has entered at the loose or open places to mark the margins at their edges.  Otherwise, scattered light foxing, golden, not brown; and the occasional old spill (e.g., I Samuel) or smudge only.   Not “fresh” — but substantial, impressive, and with its lovely typography still lovely.  (25513)

Languages charted in these tables include “Tartares Mouantcheoux,” Tamoul, Telongou, Persian (ancient and modern), Armenian, Russian (ancient and modern), Coptic, Hebrew, etc., with the engraving done by master artisan Robert Bénard (fl. 1750–85).

•  Half green calf with green marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; slight wear to corners and spine extremities. Lacking one plate (#25); another with a small hole outside image and a circlet of darkening around that, from a cigarette ash (#6). Light soiling and spots, a corner or two a little chipped or bent; a handsome gathering.  (24823)

Contents are “Academia primera, segunda, tercera, y cuarta”; “A lo que obliga el honor”; “Hombre honrado, entre Pacor y Albano”; “Prudente Abigail”; “Contra el amor no hay engaños; Amor con vista y cordura.”

The title-page offers an ornamental border and a modest vignette/medallion incorporating the Jesuit device(!); there are head- and tailpieces and woodcut initials. This is printed partially in double columns in a variety of point sizes of roman type.

Interesting that despite this author's having been burned in effigy his works continued to be printed and read in Spain.

A later edition — the first of the 18th century — this Barcelona imprint is still uncommon: WorldCat locates NO copies of it in U.S. libraries and the earlier editions are either also not held in the U.S. or are held in three or fewer copies.

•  Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 285, frames 107–73; Palau 79832.   Late 18th- or early 19th-century full dark, acid-stained sheep with modest gilt tooling on spine and covers; ornamental title-page border (but little else) just touched by binder's knife. Age-toned variously as usual with 18th-century Spanish imprints; light waterstaining to first several leaves in from edges, and three leaves torn and repaired. Overall a good++ copy of a scarce edition of an important work of the Spanish Golden Age. (29047)

• Brunet, II, 1291 (for an 1810 ed. only, not citing this ed.); Graesse, 596 (for an 1810 ed. only, not citing this ed). Contemporary speckled calf, rebacked in calf preserving original gilt-stamped leather title-label, spine with gilt-dotted raised bands and gilt-stamped date; corners bumped, edges rubbed and with a few small dents, old leather abraded with some old cracking. Front pastedown with private collector's bookplate; front pastedown and free endpaper with institutional rubber-stamp (no other markings). Pages faintly age-toned, else clean.

•  Steineschneider, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum, 5085. Contemporary paste paper–covered boards, spine with hand-inked title label; binding rubbed and abraded, spine with stamped shelving number. All edges stained red. Front pastedown with 19th-century private collector’s bookplate.

•  ESTC S121254; STC (2nd ed.) 11465; Allibone 643; Wither to Prior 387 (for the first edition, 1639).   Period-style dark calf, covers framed and panelled in gilt and blind rolls with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-ruled raised bands, and gilt-stamped compartment decorations. Title inked on outer (closed) edges in an early hand. “Declaration of the Frontispiece” mounted; added engraved title-page with upper margin repaired, lower area trimmed just into the imprint area and with one pinhole. Otherwise browning, mild spotting and light waterstaining variously, last leaves dust-soiled; light cockling and volume a tad sprung; a few leaves with short edge tears, not extending into text; map with ragged portion of lower inner edge, tear along one fold, and small hole at intersection of two folds. One blank page with early pencilled doodles.  (27562)

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 10485. Contemporary speckled sheep, worn and abraded; back cover with slices to leather, title label on spine almost entirely rubbed away. One leaf torn; pages age-toned throughout, with staining/spotting. Back pastedown with calligraphy practice inked in an early hand.

•  Exercitationes: VD17 12:122022C; Dissertatio: VD17 23:620709H. Not in Brunet.   Recent speckled paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Some very faint waterstaining and light spotting, mostly confined to margins; in fact, nice and clean.  (28908)

The text is in Latin printed in roman and italic, with passages inHebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Syriac, and an index at the end of each volume to the exotic words. Fresh-looking woodcut initials, head-, and tailpieces decorate the thick, bright leaves, which areuncut, in a very original state, with deckle preserved. Surviving opposite the title-page in vol. II isan advertisement for books available from the printer, Schoonhoven & Socios, including the accompanying first volume (1749) and other titles in Latin and Dutch on various subjects ancient, religious, grammatical, and literary.

•  On Iken, see: Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek.   Bound uniformly in quarter red sheepskin and marbled paper paste boards, framed title gilt in second spine compartment and volume number in third; rubbed/faded with loss to leather and paper, spine on vol. I more rubbed with marbled paper on vol. II more faded, and parts torn away revealing boards front and back. Old library markings on front pastedowns and title-page versos, seminary pressure-stamp to each title-page. As noted above, an uncut set in remarkably good original condition, displaying but a few short tears, small holes associated with natural paper flaws, virtually NO foxing, and deckle edges dust-soiled as in their wont with ALL else clean and bright.  (30340)

One plate, “The Joyous Procession of the Law,” has an additional Hebrew title carefully inked in by hand.

Provenance: The front free endpaper bears a neatly inked ownership inscription dated 1860 (J.C.W. Kempe) and an additional inked “sold to” inscription dated 1871 (Aden Mc Bowman); Bowman also signed another blank, and the presentation leaf is made out to Kempe as “P.G.J.C.W. Kempe.”

Binding:  Publisher's deep blue/black diced sheep in imitation of morocco, covers with gilt-stamped vignette of Friendship, Love, and Truth personified within an architectural frame; spine gilt extra with column motif. All edges gilt.

•  BAL 6877; Faxon 609.   Binding as above, joints and extremities rubbed, spine gilt slightly dimmed. Inscriptions and presentation leaf as above. Poetry clippings, fabric swatch, and lock of hair laid in. Scattered staining, generally light, throughout; chromo very bright and nice.  (27041)