(THOU, Jacques Auguste de)

Catalogus Bibliothecae Thuanae

      a...Petro & Jacobo Puteanis ordine Alphabetico primum distributus; tum a...Ismaele Bullialdo Secundum Scientias & artes digestus, Denique editus a Josepho Quesnell...Parisiis, impensis Directionis...nunc Vero Hamburgi, apud Christian. Liebezeit, Bibliopol. Engraved frontis. Title printed in red & black. 52 (incl. frontis.), [4], 510 pp.; 632 pp. Small thick 8vo, cont. speckled sheep (foot of spine a little chipped, some browning), spine richly gilt. Hamburg: C. Liebezeit, 1704.pSecond edition (1st ed.: Paris: 1679) of "the most celebrated and frequently consulted seventeenth-century private library catalogue. The library was largely formed by Jacques Auguste De Thou (1553-1617), the eminent French historian and statesman. Although the purpose of its publication was the sale of the De Thou library, which took place in 1681, its continued usefulness called for a reprint in 1704 [the present edition]...Most of the descriptions are in fact not by the brothers Dupuy but by the well-known scientist Ismael Boulliau (1605-1694), who arranged them according to a bibliographical system which, with slight variations by Prosper Marchand (1676-1756), and Gabriel Martin (1679-1761), was the one most frequently adopted in France and became known as the 'Systeme des Libraires de Paris'."!Grolier Club, Bibliography, 76!(1st ed.). The "reprintings of catalogues of private libraries like those of the Thuana and the Aprosiana...are good evidence of the use of these catalogues as reference works. The books in all these collections have been scattered, and the reprinted catalogues could serve only bibliographers and scholars."!Taylor, Book Catalogues, p. 110!(who also notes on page 265 that Schelhorn preferred the 1704 edition). Very nice copy and rare. Bookplate of A. de St. Ferriol and D. Henry. Pollard & Ehrman, pp. 208-09 & 211-12.. First Edition. Hard cover.