ACHILLE DE HARLAY'S COPY
De sabbaticorum annorum periodis chronologica a mundi exordio ad nostra usque secula et porro digesto. Per Robertum Pontanum, Caledonium Britannum.
[London].
Excusum per Gulielmum Jones, 1619.
First Latin edition.
Quarto.
[16], 203pp, [1]. With an elaborate printer's device featuring an operational printing press in a print shop. Contemporary gilt-tooled speckled calf, with the gilt armorial supralibros to both boards and monograms to spine compartments of Achille III de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont (1639-1712). Wear to spine and corners, chipping at head and foot of spine, cracking to joints (boards nevertheless firmly attached). M3-4 with old staining to lower fore corners.
'Nam ad septimae buccinae complementum a septuagesimo primo Christ anno supputanda Jubilaea erunt 35, hoc est, Sabbata annorum 245, aut anni simplices 1715, qui extendendi sunt ad annum Chriſti 1785, circa quod tempus mundum sinem habiturum probabilis fieri potest conjectura.'
An appealing copy of the first Latin edition of a distinctly Protestant chronology by Robert Pont (1529-1606), Church of Scotland minister, jurist, poet and reformer, Provost of Trinity College. Extended to almost twice the length of his English treatment of the same topics - A Newe treatise of the right reckoning of years (Edinburgh, 1599) - De sabbaticorum annorum is a calculation of historical time and Jubilees through reference to astrology, the astronomy of celestial cycles and, naturally, biblical chronology. Pont incorporates prognostications, prophecies and signs, confidently predicting the coming apocalypse, as detailed in the above quote, to 1785.
Pont's religion was decidedly of the reforming variety, and his influence in the Church of Scotland in that regard was significant; representing St. Andrew's he was present at the first meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (a body which he went on to moderate several times), revised the Book of Discipline, excommunicated Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, for marrying Mary Queen of Scots to the Earl of Bothwell, revised the metrical psalms and published a Latin treatise on the Union, De Unione Britanniæ (Edinburgh, 1604). As evidence of his prophetic abilities, it was reported by Robert Wodrow that Pont had predicted the date of Queen Elizabeth I's death, to her successor, King James VI, on the very day she died.
This work is perhaps best known not for its content, but for the woodcut of an English early modern printing office used by the Puritan printer and propagandist William Jones on the title page, which was reproduced in Sydney Lee's Life of William Shakespeare (London, 1899) as representation of an 'Elizabethan Printing Office'.
Provenance: from the library of Achille III de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont (1639-1712), French politician and jurist, and great-grandson of the First President of the Parlement of France Achille de Harlay, with his armorial device and monograms to the binding.
Decidedly uncommon outside of the British Isles; ESTC locates just three copies (Gottingen, Michigan and Union Theological Seminary).
An appealing copy of the first Latin edition of a distinctly Protestant chronology by Robert Pont (1529-1606), Church of Scotland minister, jurist, poet and reformer, Provost of Trinity College. Extended to almost twice the length of his English treatment of the same topics - A Newe treatise of the right reckoning of years (Edinburgh, 1599) - De sabbaticorum annorum is a calculation of historical time and Jubilees through reference to astrology, the astronomy of celestial cycles and, naturally, biblical chronology. Pont incorporates prognostications, prophecies and signs, confidently predicting the coming apocalypse, as detailed in the above quote, to 1785.
Pont's religion was decidedly of the reforming variety, and his influence in the Church of Scotland in that regard was significant; representing St. Andrew's he was present at the first meeting of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (a body which he went on to moderate several times), revised the Book of Discipline, excommunicated Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, for marrying Mary Queen of Scots to the Earl of Bothwell, revised the metrical psalms and published a Latin treatise on the Union, De Unione Britanniæ (Edinburgh, 1604). As evidence of his prophetic abilities, it was reported by Robert Wodrow that Pont had predicted the date of Queen Elizabeth I's death, to her successor, King James VI, on the very day she died.
This work is perhaps best known not for its content, but for the woodcut of an English early modern printing office used by the Puritan printer and propagandist William Jones on the title page, which was reproduced in Sydney Lee's Life of William Shakespeare (London, 1899) as representation of an 'Elizabethan Printing Office'.
Provenance: from the library of Achille III de Harlay, Comte de Beaumont (1639-1712), French politician and jurist, and great-grandson of the First President of the Parlement of France Achille de Harlay, with his armorial device and monograms to the binding.
Decidedly uncommon outside of the British Isles; ESTC locates just three copies (Gottingen, Michigan and Union Theological Seminary).
ESTC S106000. STC 20101.
£ 2,000.00
Antiquates Ref: 33289
