Boodt, Anselmus de | First edition of Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, an important seventeenth-century work on minerals and gems

Boodt, Anselmus de

Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia. Hanau: typis Wechelianis, Claude Marne & the heirs of Jean Aubry, 1609

4to (222 x 164 mm). Numerous woodcut illustrations in text, woodcut ornaments and initials, woodcut printer’s device on the title and final verso, and with two typographic folding tables; light even browning, occasional small spots. Contemporary vellum with double fillets in blind, yapp edges, early manuscript spine title in ink, all edges stained blue; light soiling, slits in the boards for leather ties at outer edges, some warping to the vellum at the edges, the binding has been cleaned and conserved, with the hinges reinforced. In a modern, archival paper folding case.

First edition of this fundamental work on mineralogy and gemology, one of the most important mineralogical works of the seventeenth-century. The author, Anselmus de Boodt (circa 1550-1632), was Flemish humanist, naturalist, and draughtsman, as well as an avid collector of minerals and gems. He was also Rudolf II ‘s court physician, to whom this work is dedicated.

"In his Gemmarum et lapidum historia Boodt made the first attempt at a systematic description of minerals, dividing the minerals into great and small, rare and common, hard and soft, combustible and incombustible, transparent and opaque... He enumerates about 600 minerals that he knows from personal observation, and describes their properties, values, imitations, and medical applications. There are also tables of value sof diamonds according to their size and short description of the polishing of precious stones. Boodt cites nineteen authors and, besides the minerals known to him, gives a list of 233 minerals whose names he knows from Pliny and Bartholomeus Anglcus, among others" (Dictionary Scientific Biography, II, p. 293). The woodcuts illustrate a variety of gemstones, fossils, crystals, and equipment used for polishing stones. Boodt’s work is “further distinguished by its intimate knowledge of the art of the lapidiary and must therefore be regarded as the first treatise to offer more than the briefest of views of gem cutting” (Sinkankas, Gemology, an Annotated Bibliography, I, p. 127).

REFERENCES

Sinkankas, I, 778. Schuh, Vol. 1, (2007 edition), 707; Partington 2, pp. 101-102; Ward & Carozzi, 251

PROVENANCE

Eighteenth-century ownership inscription on front pastedown — purchased from Julius Steiner (subsequently A. Asher & Co.) in 1993