Comitis de Flisco decas De Fato, Annisque Fatalibus tam Hominibus quam Regnis Mundi.
Francofurti: Joann. Baptistam Schonwetter, 1665. First Edition. Hardcover. Small quarto. (x) + 259 pp (+ 1pp). [supplementary pages 249 - 251 pasted in at rear] Contemporary full vellum binding, with author and title ("Flisco De Fato") handwritten in red ink at top of spine. Engraved portrait frontispiece, title page with large vignette, various woodcut natal charts throughout. An unusual astrological work that includes the horoscopes of some forty renaissance royals, political, religious and military leaders, and scholars, from France, Germany, Italy and Spain. It also explores mundane astrology - charting the effects of the stars on the fortune of nations, states, etc. mostly in terms of disasters such as famines, plagues, and political upheavals. Thorndike describes it thus: "The work which count Mauritius de Flisco published in 1665 on fate and fatal years of men and kingdoms, was classed by Morhof under superstitious astrology. In its preface the author tells of his other youthful astrological writings. Numerous genitures which are given include those of Giovanni Maria Visconti, born in 1388, Savonarola, Stoeffler, Pico della Mirandola, Cocles, Henries III and IV of France, and Gustavus Adolphus. A dozen pages or so are devoted to physiognomy, metoposcopy, and chiromancy, and as many more to prodigies and portents. Other topics considered are critical days and climacteric years, comets, and eclipses, fate in numbers and cubes of numbers, fate in kingdoms and the fall of Rome." [Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, Vol. VIII, pp. 325-326] Caillet 4019, Gardner 411. Clearly there was a problem with the text as printed, on pages 249 - 251, and this copy, as some others seen, has a replacement signature, with the correct text, tipped onto the rear pastedown. Neat contemporary marginal notes in Latin, at the appropriate place within the volume, direct the reader to the corrected text at the rear, and advise where the revised passages begin and end. Spine & boards darkened & lightly worn, endpapers tone and there is a small hole (a little smaller than a finger-nail) through the front free endpaper. Some darkening to the pages throughout, small hole in page 130/131 (with minor loss of text). Some old faded ink annotations to title page, lengthy contemporary annotation on dedication page, occasional neat early ink annotations in margins. The additional (secondary) text pages at the rear have several small holes torn in the leaf of pp. 249/250 slightly affecting text. Previous owner's pencil annotations on rear free endpaper. Still a solid, complete about VG copy of a scarce book. Item #42244
Price: $1,350.00