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5 book(s) with the same title
BRAHE, TYCHO (LUCIUS BARRETTUS -i.e. pseud. for ALBRECHT CURTZ edt.).
Reference : 60739
(1666)
Historia Coelestis. (on verso of title-page:) Ex libris commentariis manu-scriptis observationum vicennalium. 2 Parts. - [THE FIRST AND ONLY EDITION OF BRAHE'S OBSERVATIONS - THE BASIS FOR THE RUDOLPHINE TABLES]
(Augsburg, Simon Utzschneider, 1666). Folio. Both parts bound together in one contemporary full vellum binding with gilt leather title-label to spine. Green silk ties. A bit of discolouration to spine and title-label worn, but otherwise remarkably fine. Square corners, no bumping or tearing, and completely tight. Internally extraordinarily well kept, seemingly unread. The leaves are completely white, fresh, and crisp. Armorial book plate to inside of front board and the ownership signature of Otto Friedrich von Buchwald. 20th century machine-written bookseller's description lightly pasted in between front end-papers. Small armorial stamp to top of title-page. Two xylographic title-pages, engraved portrait of Brahe with his sextant, double-page engraved frontispiece depicting the four emperors with terrestrial and celestial globes, and one plate engraved plate depicting Brahe's observatory at Hven (after p. CVIII). (6) ff. + CXXIV pp. + pp (1)-544 + (2 ff., after the second xylographic title) + pp. 547-912 + (2 ff.) + pp. 913-977 + (1 p., i.e. colophon). Fully complete, though no blank at the end. With numerous magnificent woodcut figures and illustrations in the text, many of them large.
Exceedingly scarce first - and only complete - edition of Brahe's groundbreaking astronomical observations. These are the observations that formed the basis for Kepler's Rudolphine tables (1627) and the observations that lie at the heart of both Brahe's and Kepler's astronomical breakthroughs. On his deathbed (1601), Brahe had urged Kepler to publish the vast observations as soon as possible, but this seminal collection of immense importance to the future of astronomy remained unpublished, until the Jesuit Albert Curtz edited them and had them published, as they are here, in 1666. 68 pages of the observations were published later, in Paris ca 1680, but apart from that torso, this is the only edition of Brahe's vast observations to have been published. Brahe’s observations that are published here on their own for the first time and form the basis for the Rudolphine Tables constitute the first modern – and by far the most important – attempt at making a complete catalogue of astronomical observations. These observations were of fundamental importance to establishing the movement of the planets, including whether the sun or Earth is at the centre of the solar system. The observations presented in this extraordinary work go as far back as 721 and contain the incredibly vast observational data that Brahe and his assistants gathered with the aid of his seminal instruments. Brahe’s instruments were of monumental importance to the beginning of modern empirical science and crucial to the new astronomy, observing the stars and the planets with a hitherto impossible accuracy. “The instruments of Tycho Brahe represent a major achievement in astronomical science, because they provided much more accurate readings than previously possible, and on the basis of Tycho Brahe's observations Kepler determined the laws of planetary motions and from these laws Newton discovered the law of gravity. Not until the invention of the telescope some years after Tycho Brahe's death was it possible to get more accurate readings.” (From the Brahe exhibition at the Royal Library of Denmark). Although the idea of a “star catalogue” was by no means new, Brahe’s star accurate observations presented a completely novel basis for the understanding of the heavens. “The Rudolphine Tables”, named for Rudolf II, Holy Roman emperor and patron of Kepler and Tycho, published by Kepler in 1627 are based principally upon these observations by Brahe and is by far the best and most important of the pretelescopic catalogues. It is accurate to a few minutes of arc and contains positions for 1,005 stars (increased by Kepler from Tycho’s 777) and tables and directions for locating the planets. ”Hipparchus completed the first known catalog in 129 BCE, giving the celestial longitudes and latitudes of about 850 stars. This work was enlarged and improved by Ptolemy, the Alexandrian astronomer and mathematician, in his Almagest (c. 140 CE). At Samarkand (now in Uzbekistan), Ulugh Beg (1394–1499), grandson of Timur (Tamerlane), working in his own observatory in the years 1420–37, compiled a catalog that became known in Europe in the 1500s and was printed there in 1665. The last and finest catalog of the pretelescope era was made by the skilled Danish observer Tycho Brahe (1546–1601). It was included in expanded form in the Rudolphine Tables of the mathematical astronomer Johannes Kepler. Tycho’s catalog was the first in which Greek letters were assigned to stars to indicate their relative brightnesses within each constellation.” (Encycl. Britt.) In short, the importance of Brahe’s observations to astronomy and our knowledge of the heavens can hardly be exaggerated. “Copernicus had largely based his work on a body of existing observations of the heavens. Although he did some observational work, the bulk of his contribution was focused on re-evaluating existing data from a different perspective. However, Tycho Brahe had a different approach. Born in 1546, (three years after the publication of Copernicus' “De Revolutionibus”) Brahe became a famous astronomer, well known for his unprecedented collection of astronomical data. Brahe's contributions to astronomy had revolutionary impacts in their own right. In 1563, at age 16, he observed Jupiter overtaking Saturn as the planets moved past each other. Even with his simple observations he saw that existing tables for predicting this conjunction were off by a month, and even Copernicus's model was off by two days. In his work, he demonstrated that better data could help to create much more robust models. In November of 1572 Brahe observed a new star in the constellation of Cassiopeia. With a sextant and cross-staff he was able to measure the star's position and became convinced that it was in the realm of the supposed unmoving fixed stars. This observation was inconsistent with the longstanding belief that the celestial realm was a place of perfect and unchanging fixed stars. Alongside this development, the appearance of a comet in 1577 provided additional evidence that things did change and did move in the celestial sphere. Based on careful measurements, Brahe was able to identify that the comet was outside the sphere of the moon and he eventually suggested it was moving through the spheres of different planets. As a result of these observations, Brahe put forward a new model for the cosmos. In Brahe's model, all of the planets orbited the sun, and the sun and the moon orbited the Earth. Keeping with his observations of the new star and the comet, his model allowed the path of the planet Mars to cross through the path of the sun. Many scientists have been critical of Brahe's model as a backward step in the progress of science. However, it is critical to remember the value that Brahe's system offered. This system had the advantage of resolving the problem of stellar parallax. One of the persistent critiques of Copernicus's model (and even of Aristarchus model in ancient Greece) was that with a moving Earth one should expect to see parallax movement of the stars. As the Earth changes position in relationship to that of the stars, one would expect to see the stars change position relative to each other. Copernicus' answer was that the stars had to be so distant that it wasn't possible to detect parallax. Still, the distance required to make this work was so massive as to be a problem for the system. This was not a problem for Brahe's system because his model allowed for the circles in the heavens to intersect. Brahe's model was not a step backward but revolutionary in the sense that it was a competing way to make sense of the data the heavens provided. Johannes Kepler, born in 1571, made major contributions to astronomy as his work mixed sophisticated mathematics and astronomy with mystical ideas about astrology... Kepler worked for Tycho Brahe, publishing an extensive amount of Brahe's data in “Rudolphine Tables”. Although he used much of that data for his own publications Kepler's work would significantly depart from Brahe's. … Using Tycho Brahe's observational data, Kepler was able to fine tune the movements of the planets and demonstrate that the movement of Mars could be described as an ellipse. … Kepler's work foreshadowed the discovery of one of the fundamental forces of physics, the law of gravity.” (Library of Congress: Finding our Place in the Cosmos with Carl Sagan).
The Civil War in France. Address of the General Council of the International Working-Men's Association. - [MARX' SEMINAL DEFENSE OF THE PARIS COMMUNE]
High Holborn, for the Council by Edward Truelove, 1871. Small 8vo. Near contemporary quarter cloth with silver lettering to front board. Binding with signs of use, but overall good. One closed marginal tear and title-page with a few brownspots, otherwise very nice and clean. 35 pp.
Exceedingly rare first edition (with the names of Lucraft and Odger still present under ""The General Council"") of one of Marx' most important works, his seminal defense of the Paris Commune and exposition of the struggle of the Communards, written for all proletarians of the world. While living in London, Marx had joined the International Working Men's Association in 1864 - ""a society founded largely by members of Britain's growing trade unions and designed to foster international working class solidarity and mutual assistance. Marx accepted the International's invitation to represent Germany and became the most active member of its governing General Council, which met every Tuesday evening, first at 18 Greek Street in Soho and later in Holborn. In this role, Marx had his first sustained contact with the British working class and wrote some of his most memorable works, notably ""The Civil War in France"". A polemical response to the destruction of the Paris Commune by the French government in 1871, it brought Marx notoriety in London as 'the red terror doctor', a reputation that helped ensure the rejection of his application for British citizenship several years later. Despite his considerable influence within the International, it was never ideologically homogenous... (homas C. Jones: ""Karl Marx' London"").The work was highly controversial, but extremely influential. Even though most of the Council members of the International sanctioned the Address, it caused a rift internally, and some of the English members of the General Council were enraged to be seen to endorse it. Thus, for the second printing of the work, the names of Lucraft and Odger, who had now withdrawn from the Council, were removed from the list of members of ""The General Council"" at the end of the pamphlet. ""[Marx] defended the Commune in a bitterly eloquent pamphlet, ""The Civil War in France"", whose immediate effect was further to identify the International with the Commune, by then in such wide disrepute that some of the English members of the General Council refused to endorse it."" (Saul K. Padover, preface to Vol. II of the Karl Marx Library, pp. XLVII-XLVIII).""Written by Karl Marx as an address to the General Council of the International, with the aim of distributing to workers of all countries a clear understanding of the character and world-wide significance of the heroic struggle of the Communards and their historical experience to learn from. The book was widely circulated by 1872 it was translated into several languages and published throughout Europe and the United States."" (The Karl Marx Archive)Marx concluded ""The Civil War in France"" with these impassioned words, which were to resound with workers all over the world: ""Working men's Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart of the working class. Its exterminators history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priests will not avail to redeem them.""The address, which was delivered on May 30, 1871, two days after the defeat of the Paris Commune, was to have an astounding effect on working men all over the world and on the organization of power of the proletarians. It appeared in three editions in 1871, was almost immediately translated into numerous languages and is now considered one of the most important works that Marx ever wrote. "" ""The Civil War in France"", one of Marx's most important works, was written as an address by the General Council of the International to all Association members in Europe and the United States.From the earliest days of the Paris Commune Marx made a point of collecting and studying all available information about its activities. He made clippings from all available French, English and German newspapers of the time. Newspapers from Paris reached London with great difficulty. Marx had at his disposal only individual issues of Paris newspapers that supported the Commune. He had to use English and French bourgeois newspapers published in London, including ones of Bonapartist leanings, but succeeded in giving an objective picture of the developments in Paris. ...Marx also drew valuable information from the letters of active participants and prominent figures of the Paris Commune, such as Leo Frankel, Eugene Varlin, Auguste Serraillier, Yelisaveta Tornanovskaya, as well as from the letters of Paul Lafargue, Pyotr Lavrov and others.Originally he intended to write an address to the workers of Paris, as he declared at the meeting of the General Council on March 28, 1871. His motion was unanimously approved. The further developments in Paris led him, however, to the conclusion that an appeal should be addressed to proletarians of the world. At the General Council meeting on April 18, Marx suggested to issue ""an address to the International generally about the general tendency of the struggle."" Marx was entrusted with drafting the address. He started his work after April 18 and continued throughout May. Originally he wrote the First and Second drafts of ""The Civil War in France"" as preparatory variants for the work, and then set about making up the final text of the address.He did most of the work on the First and Second drafts and the final version roughly between May 6 and 30. On May 30, 1871, two days after the last barricade had fallen in Paris, the General Council unanimously approved the text of ""The Civil War in France"", which Marx had read out.""The Civil War in France"" was first published in London on about June 13, 1871 in English, as a pamphlet of 35 pages in 1,000 copies. Since the first edition quickly sold out, the second English edition of 2,000 copies was published at a lower price, for sale to workers. In this edition [i.e., MECW], Marx corrected some of the misprints occurring in the first edition, and the section ""Notes"" was supplemented with another document. Changes were made in the list of General Council members who signed the Address: the names of Lucraft and Odger were deleted, as they had expressed disagreement with the Address in the bourgeois press and had withdrawn from the General Council, and the names of the new members of the General Council were added. In August 1871, the third English edition of ""The Civil War in France"" came out, in which Marx eliminated the inaccuracies of the previous editions.In 1871-72, ""The Civil War"" in France was translated into French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, Serbo-Croat, Danish and Polish, and published in the periodical press and as separate pamphlets in various European countries and the USA. It was repeatedly published in subsequent years....In 1891, when preparing a jubilee German edition of ""The Civil War in France"" to mark the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune, Engels once again edited the text of his translation. He also wrote an introduction to this edition, emphasising the historical significance of the experience of the Paris Commune, and its theoretical generalisation by Marx in ""The Civil War in France"", and also giving additional information on the activities of the Communards from among the Blanquists and Proudhonists. Engels included in this edition the First and Second addresses of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian war, which were published in subsequent editions in different languages also together with ""The Civil War France"". (Notes on the Publication of ""The Civil War in France"" from MECW Volume 22). Only very few copies of the book from 1871 on OCLC are not explicitly stated to be 2nd or 3rd editions, and we have not been able to find a single copy for sale at auctions within the last 50 years.
De aureo Cornu. Dissertatio. - [THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT TREATISE ON THE GOLDEN HORN]
Hafniae (Copenhagen), Melchior Matzan, Joachim Moltke, 1641. Small folio. Bound in an newer absolutely exquisite full mottled calf pastiche-binding with five raised bands and gilt title-label to richly gilt spine. Gilt ornamental borders with gilt corner-pieces to boards, all edges of boards gilt, and inner gilt dentelles. Title-page restored at inner hinge, far from affecting print. Some leaves slighly dusty and some mostly light brownspotting. Overall very nice indeed. The folded plate neatly re-enforced at the foldings, from verso, and on stub. ""Dupl"" written in hand to upper right corner of title-page and with two stamps to verso: ""Museum Britannicum"" and ""British Museum Sale Duplicate 1787"". (8), 72 pp. + large folded engraved plate of the horn.
Exceedingly scarce first printing of one of the most important works in Scandinavian history. Worm’s monumental 1641-treatise is the first and single most important work on what is arguably the most famous Danish cultural artifact, namely the first Golden Horn, and constitutes our primary source of knowledge of that now lost treasure. For Danes, the Golden Horns, discovered on 1639 and 1734 respectively, with their amazing, complicated, and tragic story, constitute the Scandinavian equivalent to the Egyptian pyramids and have been the object of the same kind of fascination here in the North, causing a wealth of fantastical interpretations, both historical, literary, mystical, linguistic, and artistic. The two golden horns constitute the greatest National treasure that we have. They are both from abound 400 AD and are thought to have been a pair. A span of almost 100 years elapsed between the finding of the first horn and the finding of the second. Although the first was by far the most important, both findings are now a fundamental part of Danish cultural heritage. In 1802 the horns were stolen, and the story of this theft became the greatest Danish detective story of all times. The thief was eventually caught, but it turned out that he had melted both of the horns and used the gold for other purposes. Before the horns were stolen, a copy of the horns was made and shipped to the King of Italy, but the cast which was used to make this copy was destroyed, before news had reached the kingdom of Denmark that the copies made from the cast were lost on their way to Italy, in a shipwreck. Worm's work constitutes not only the earliest description of the seminal first horn, but also the most important source that we now have to the knowledge of the horn. It is on the basis of the description and depiction in the present work that the later copies of the first horn were made. Both horns were found in Gallehus near Møgeltønder, the first in 1639, by Kirsten Svendsdatter, the second in 1734, by Jerk (Erik) Lassen. Kirsten Svendsdatter made her discovery on a small path near her house, initially thinking that she had stumbled upon a root. When she returned to the same place the following week, she dug up the alleged root with a stick, and mistook it for an old hunting horn. She brought it back home and began polishing it. During the polishing of it, a small piece broke off, which she brought to a goldsmith in Tønder. It turned out that the horn was made of pure gold, and rumors of Kirsten's find quickly spread. The horn was eventually brought to the King, Christian IV, and Kirsten was given a reward corresponding to the gold value of the horn. The king gave the horn to his son, who had a lid made for it so that he could use it as a drinking horn. An excavation of the site where the horn was found was begun immediately after, but nothing more was found - that is until 95 years later when Jerk Larsen was digging clay on his grounds - merely 25 paces from where Kirsten had found the first horn. The year was now 1734. The horn that Larsen found was a bit smaller in size and was lacking the tip, but it still weighed 3,666 kg. After the horn had been authenticated, it was sent to King Christian VI, where it was placed in a glass case in the royal art chamber, together with the first horn. Before being placed here, a copy was made of both horns. These copies were the ones lost in the ship wreck, however, and as mentioned the casts had already been destroyed. In the fatal year of 1802, the gold smith and counterfeiter Niels Heldenreich broke in to the royal art chamber and stole the horns. By the time the culprit was discovered, the horns were irrevocably lost - Heldenreich had melted them and used the gold to make other things, such as jewellery. A pair of earrings that are still preserved are thought to have been made with gold from the horns, but this is all that we have now have of the original horns. New horns were produced on the basis of the descriptions and engraved illustrations that were made after the finding of the horns. The plate in the present work constitutes our main source of knowledge of the appearance of the first horn and is the single most important depiction of it, forming the basis of the reproductions. ""The longest of the golden horns was found in 1639 and described by Ole Worm in the book 'De Aureo Cornu', 1641 (a treatise which is also included in his greater ""Danicorum Monumentorum"" [1643]). The German professor at Soro Academy Hendrich Ernst, disagreed with Worm’s interpretation of the horn. Ernst believed that the horn came from Svantevits temple on Rügen, while Worm interpreted it as a war trumpet from the time of Frode Fredegods, decorated with pictures, calling for virtue and good morals. Worm immediately sent his book to Prince Christian and the scholars at home and abroad. You can see in his letters, that not only did the horn make an impression, but also the letter and the interpretation. In that same year there were such lively discussions on the horn among the scholars of Königsberg, now Kaliningrad! In 1643 Worm reiterated the description of the golden horn in his great work on Danish runic inscriptions, 'Monumenta Danica'. In 1644, his descriptions of the horn reached scholars and libraries in Schleswig, Königsberg, London, Rome, Venice and Padua. Several learned men wrote poems for him, and the golden horn was mentioned in an Italian manus. Map Cartoonist Johannes Meyer placed the finds on several of his map of South Jutland. When the Swedish commander Torstensson attacked Jutland in 1643, Peter Winstrup wrote a long poem in Latin addressed to the bishop of Scania (which at that time still belonged to Denmark), the poem was called 'Cornicen Danicus'. It was immediately translated into Danish, entitled 'The Danish Horn Blower'. He interpreted the horn and its images as a warning of war, and his interpretations were very hostile to the Swedish. Paul Egard and Enevold Nielssen Randulf were among some of the other scholars who interpreted the Golden Horn In the 1640s. They were both deans in Holstein, and had a more Christian interpretation of the horn. All these works were illustrated with copies of Worms depictions of the horn. The Golden Horn remained known throughout the 1600s, both in terms of interpretations of the horn and designs. The found of the short golden horn in 1734 renewed the interest of the meaning of the horns."" (National Museum of Denmark). This monument of Danish cultural history is incredibly scarce in the trade. We have never seen a copy before, and there is not a single auction record traceable.
Systeme de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physique & du Monde Moral. 2 vols. - [""MAN IS OF ALL BEINGS THE MOST NECESSARY TO MAN""]
London, 1774. 8vo. 2 volumes uniformly bound in contemporary half calf with gilt ornamentation to spine. Spines with wear of boards miscoloured. Internally fine and clean. (16) 397 pp."" (4), 500, (3) pp. Wanting the frontispiece.
Later edition, published four years after the original, comprising ""The System of Nature"" - one of the most important works of natural philosophy ever written and the work that is considered the main work of materialism - and ""The Social System"", being d'Holbach's seminal ""social"" and political continuation of that groundbreaking work. D'Holbach (1723-1789), who was raised by a wealthy uncle, whom he inherited, together with his title of Baron, in 1753, maintained one of the most famous salons in Paris. This salon became the social and intellectual centre for the Encyclopédie, which was edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, whom he became closely connected with. D'Holbach himself also contributed decisively to the Encyclopédie, with at least 400 signed contributions, and probably as many unsigned, between 1752 and 1765. The ""Côterie holbachique"" or ""the café of Europe"", as the salon was known, attracted the most brilliant scientists, philosophers, writers and artists of the time (e.g. Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, Voltaire, Hume, Sterne etc, etc.), and it became one of the most important gathering-places for the exchange of philosophical, scientific and political views under the ""ancient régime"". Apart from developing several foundational theories of seminal scientific and philosophical value, D'Holbach became known as one of the most skilled propagators and popularizers of scientific and philosophical ideas, promoting scientific progress and spreading philosophical ideas in a new and highly effective manner. As the theories of d'Holbach's two systematic works were at least as anticlerical and unaccepted as those of his smaller tracts, and on top of that so well presented and so convincing, it would have been dangerous for him to print any of them under his own name, and even under the name of the city or printer. Thus, ""Systême de la Nature"" appeared pseudonomously under the name of the secretary of the Académie Francaise, J.B. Mirabaud, who had died 10 years earlier, and under a fictive place of printing, namely London instead of Amsterdam. ""He could not publish safely under his own name, but had the ingenious idea of using the names of recently dead French authors. Thus, in 1770, his most famous book, ""The System of Nature"", appeared under the name Jean-Baptiste Mirabaud"" (PMM 215), and so the next ""System"" also appeared in the same manner three years later. D'Holbach was himself the most audacious philosophe of this circle. During the 1760's he caused numerous anticlerical tracts (written in large, but not entirely, by himself) to be clandestinely printed abroad and illegally circulated in France. His philosophical masterpiece, the ""Système de la nature, ou des lois du monde physique et du monde moral"", a methodological and intransigent affirmation of materialism and atheism, appeared anonymously in 1770"" (D.S.B. VI:468), as did the social and political follow-up of it, the famous ""Systême social"" in 1773. That is to say, Mirabeau whom he had used as the author on the ""System of Nature"" in 1770 is not mentioned in the ""Social System"", on the title-page of which is merely stated ""By the Author of ""Systême de la Nature"". In his main work, the monumental ""Système de la Nature"", d'Holbach presented that which was to become one of the most influential philosophical theories of the time, combined with and based on a complex of advanced scientific thought. He postulated materialism, and that on the basis of science and empiricism, on the basis of his elaborate picture of the universe as a self-created and self-creating entity that is constituted by material elements that each possess specific energies. He concludes, on the basis of empiricism and the positive truths that the science of his time had attained, that ideas such as God, immortality, creation etc. must be either contradictory or futile, and as such, his materialism naturally also propounded atheism"" his theory of the universe showed that nature is the product of matter (eternally in motion and arranged in accordance with mechanical laws), and that reality is nothing but nature. Thus, having in his ""Systême de la Nature"" presented philosophical materialism in an actual system for the first time and having created a work that dared unite the essence of all the essential material of the English and French Enlightenment and incorporate it into a closed materialistic system, d'Holbach had provided the modern world with a moral and ethic philosophy, the effects of which were tremendous. It is this materialism and atheism that he continues three years later in his next systematic work ""Systême social"", through which politics, morality, and sociology are also incorporated into his system and take the place of the Christianity that he had so fiercely attacked earlier on. In this great work he extends his ethical views to the state and continues the description of human interest from ""Systême de la Nature"" by developing a notion of the just state (by d'Holbach called ""ethocracy"") that is to secure general welfare. ""Système social (1773"" ""Social System"") placed morality and politics in a utilitarian framework wherein duty became prudent self-interest."" (Encyclopaedia Brittanica). ""Holbach's foundational view is that the most valuable thing a person seeking self-preservation can do is to unite with another person: ""Man is of all beings the most necessary to man"" (Sysème social, 76"" cf. Spinoza's Ethics IVP35C1, C2, and S). Society, when it is just, unites for the common purpose of preservation and the securing of welfare, and society contracts with government for this purpose."" (SEP). Both works had a sensational impact. For the first time, philosophical materialism is presented in an actual system, and with the second of them, this system also comprised politics and sociology, a fact which became essential to the influence and spreading of this atheistic scientific-philosophical strand. The effects of the works were tremendous, and the consequences of their success were immeasurable, thus, already in the years of publication, both works were confiscated. The ""Système de la Nature"" was condemned to burning by the Parisian parliament in the year of its publication"" the ""Système social"" was on the list of books to be confiscated already in 1773, and it was placed on the Index of the Church in August 1775. Both works are thus scarce. In spite of their condemnation, and in spite of the reluctance of contemporary writers to acknowledge the works as dangerous (as Goethe said in ""Dichtung und Wahrheit"": ""Wir begriffen nicht, wie ein solches Buch gefährlich sein könnte. Es kam uns so grau, so todtenhaft vor""), the ""Systems"" and d'Holbach's materialism continued its influence on philosophic, political and scientific thought. In fact, it was this materialism that for Marx became the social basis of communism. ""In the ""Système"" Holbach rejected the Cartesian mind-body dualism and attempted to explain all phenomena, physical and mental, in terms of matter in motion. He derived the moral and intellectual faculties from man's sensibility to impressions made by the external world, and saw human actions as entirely determined by pleasure and pain. He continued his direct attack on religion by attempting to show that it derived entirely from habit and custom. But the Systeme was not a negative or destructive book: Holbach rejected religion because he saw it as a wholly harmful influence, and he tried to supply a more desirable alternative. ""(Printing and the Mind of Man, 215). ""In keeping with such a naturalistic conception of tings, d'Holbach outlined an anticreationalist cosmology and a nondiluvian geology. He proposed a transformistic hypothesis regarding the origins of the animal species, including man, and described the successive changes, or new emergences, of organic beings as a function of ecology, that is, of the geological transformation of the earth itself and of its life-sustaining environment. While all this remained admittedly on the level of vague conjecture, the relative originality and long-term promise of such a hypothesis -which had previously been broached only by maillet, Maupertuis, and Diderot- were of genuine importance to the history of science. Furthermore, inasmuch as the principles of d'Holbach's mechanistic philosophy ruled out any fundamental distinction between living an nonliving aggregates of matter, his biology took basic issue with both the animism and the vitalism current among his contemporaries...This closely knit scheme of theories and hypotheses served not merely to liberate eighteenth-century science from various theological and metaphysical empediments, but it also anticipated several of the major directions in which more than one science was later to evolve. Notwithstanding suchprecursors as Hobbes, La Mttrie, and Diderot, d'Holbach was perhaps the first to argue unequivocally and uncompromisingly that the only philosophical attitude consistent with modern science must be at once naturalistic and antisupernatural."" (D.S.B. VI:469).
Den Danske Krønicke som Saxo Grammaticus screff, hallfierde hundrede Aar forleden: Nu først aff Latinen udsæt, flittelige offuerseet oc forbedret, Aff Anders Søffrinssøn Vedel. - [FIRST DANISH TRANSLATION OF THE NARRATIVE OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK]
Kiøbenhaffn, Hans Støckelman oc Andreas Gutterwitz, 1575. Folio. Bound in a very nice mid 19th century brown half calf with five raised bands and gilt ornamentations to spine. Title-page printed in red and black and with large woodcut, verso with full-page woodcut portrait of King Frederik II. Small repaired cut-out to top of title-page and an old owner's annotation. Neat marginal annotations to some leaves and early annotations to back fly-leaf. Occasional light brownspotting, but overall an unusually well kept and fresh copy, printed on good paper. (36), 547, (33) pp.
The very rare first translation into any language, being the seminal first Danish translation, of the first preserved full history of Denmark - to this day the most important of all Danish historical publications and a main work of European Medieval literature. This magnificent work furthermore contains the first known written narrative of the legend of Hamlet and served as the basis for Shakespeare's play. """"Hamlet"" is based on a Norse legend composed by Saxo Grammaticus in Latin around 1200 AD. The sixteen books that comprise Saxo Grammaticus' ""Gesta Danorum"", or ""History of the Danes"", tell of the rise and fall of the great rulers of Denmark, and the tale of Amleth, Saxo's Hamlet, is recounted in books three and four. In Saxo's version, King Rorik of the Danes places his trust in two brothers, Orvendil and Fengi. The brothers are appointed to rule over Jutland, and Orvendil weds the king's beautiful daughter, Geruth. They have a son, Amleth. But Fengi, lusting after Orvendil's new bride and longing to become the sole ruler of Jutland, kills his brother, marries Geruth, and declares himself king over the land. Amleth is desperately afraid, and feigns madness to keep from getting murdered. He plans revenge against his uncle and becomes the new and rightful king of Jutland."" (""Shakespeare's Sources for ""Hamlet"" "" - Shakespeare-on-line). The patriotic ""Danish Chronicle"" (i.e. Gesta Danorum) by Saxo Grammaticus is without comparison the most ambitious literary production of medieval Denmark and the most important source for the early history of the nation, also being one of the oldest known written documents about the history of Estonia and Latvia. Its sixteen books describe the history of Denmark and the Danes as well as Scandinavian history in general, from prehistory until Saxo's own time (12th century). It offers crucial reflections on European affairs of the High Middle Ages, from a unique Scandinavian perspective, and constitutes a significant supplement to other Western and Southern European sources. Saxo Grammaticus (ab. 1150-1220) was probably a secular clerk or secretary to Absalon, Archbishop of Lund, the great Danish churchman, statesman and warrior. Saxo is remembered today as the author of the first full history of Denmark, in which he modelled himself upon the classical authors (e.g. Virgil, Plato, Cicero) in order to glorify his fatherland. The work dates from the end of the 12th century and was first printed, in Latin, in Paris in 1514 with 16th century re-issues following in 1534 (Basel) and 1576 (Frankfurt). In 1575, the very first translation of the work appeared, that into Danish, which came to play a significant role in the history of both the legends presented in the work and in Danish language and culture. This groundbreaking first printed translation of Saxo's chronicle was prepared by the Danish historian and philologist Anders Sørensen Vedel (1542-1616). Vedel was also the tutor of Tycho Brahe and his companion on Brahe's grand tour of Europe, where the two formed a lasting bond of friendship. Previous attempts had been made at translating Saxo's magnificent work (one by Christiern Pedersen, one by Jon Tursen), but none of them were printed and the manuscripts have also not survived"" Vedel's translation is the only one that was finished and made it to print. Prompted by Absalon, Vedel began his translation in 1570, and it took him five years to finish the task of both translating and rewriting the original Latin text. While working on this grandiose production, he was given the income of a canon at Ribe Cathedral. Vedel's translation is one of tone of the most important Renaissance contributions to Danish literature and to the development of the Danish language. Vedel's work is not merely a translation, but a magnificent rewriting that should be considered a literary masterpiece in its own right. After Vedel's translation, Saxo remained the indispensable classic that overshadowed all other historical works, both as a source to the earliest history of Denmark and the Danes and as a source of the Nordic myths. Vedel's seminal translation predates the first English translation by more than 300 years and remained the only vernacular version of the text for centuries. The work consists of sixteen books that cover the time from the founders of the Danish people (Dan I of Denmark) till Saxo's own time, ending around 1185 (with the submission of Pomerania), when the last part is supposedly written. The work thus covers the entire history of Denmark until Saxo's own time, seen under a somewhat glorified perspective, from heathen times with tales of Odin and the gods of Valhalla to the times of Absalon, who probably directly influenced the sections on the history of his own time, working closely with Saxo himself. The work also contains the first known written narrative of the legend of Hamlet (Amleth, the son who took revenge for his murdered father). It is this narrative of Saxo's, which he based on an oral tale, that forms the basis for Shakespeare's ""Hamlet"", which takes place in Helsinore in Denmark. There is fairly certain evidence that Shakespeare knew Saxo's work on the History of Denmark and thus the legend of Amleth. ""This is the old, Norse folk-tale of Amleth, a literary ancestor of Shakespeare's ""Hamlet"". The Scandinavian legend was recorded in Latin around 1200 by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus and first printed in Paris in this beautiful 1514 edition. It is part of the collection of tales known as Gesta Danorum - a partly mythical history of the Danes. Saxo's Amleth story - a summaryKing Rørik of Denmark appoints two brothers, Horwendil and Fengo, as the rulers of Jutland. Horwendil slays the King of Norway, marries King Rørik's daughter Gerutha, and they have a son named Amleth. Consumed by envy of his brother, Fengo murders Horwendil and marries his wife Gerutha. Amleth then feigns madness, clothing himself in rags and spouting nonsense, to shield himself from his uncle's violence. In fact, the name 'Amleth' itself means 'stupid'.Yet Amleth's behaviour attracts suspicion, and the King attempts to trap him into admitting he has plans for revenge. First, a beautiful woman is used to lure him into betraying himself, but she proves loyal to Amleth. Then a spy is planted to eavesdrop on Amleth's conversation with his mother, in which she repents and he confesses his plans for revenge. Amleth detects the spy, kills him in a mad frenzy, throws his mutilated body in a sewer, and leaves it to be eaten by pigs. Fengo then deports Amleth to England with two escorts carrying a letter directing the King there to execute him. Amleth switches the letter with another one, which orders the death of the escorts and asks for the hand of the English Princess in marriage.Returning to Denmark, Amleth arrives disguised, in the midst of his own funeral, burns down the hall and hunts down his sleeping uncle. Because Amleth had wounded himself on his sword, attendants had made it harmless by nailing it to the scabbard (the sheath used to hold it). Amleth swaps this useless sword with Fengo's, succeeds in killing his uncle and next day is hailed as the King....Saxo's account has many of the defining features of Shakespeare's drama: a villain who kills his brother, takes over the throne and then marries his brother's wifea cunning young hero, the King's son, who pretends to be mad to shield himself from his unclethree plots used by the King to uncover the young man's secrets: a young woman, a spy planted in the Queen's bedroom (who is uncovered and killed), and two escorts who take the prince to England (also outwitted and killed)a hero who returns home during a funeral and finally achieves his revenge through an exchange of swords. There are equivalents for Shakespeare's central characters - old and young Hamlet, old and young Fortinbras, Claudius and Gertrude, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. But Saxo has no ghost demanding vengeance, and the identity of the murderous uncle is known from the start. There is no Osric, no gravediggers or play within a play. The legend lacks a Laertes character and the young woman does not go mad or kill herself. Perhaps most crucially, Amleth lacks Hamlet's melancholy disposition and long self-reflexive soliloquies, and he survives after becoming king."" (""Saxo's legend of Amleth in the Gesta Danorum"" - The British Library.mht). ""Saxo Grammaticus, (flourished 12th century-early 13th century), historian whose Gesta Danorum (""Story of the Danes"") is the first important work on the history of Denmark and the first Danish contribution to world literature.Little is known of Saxo's life except that he was a Zealander belonging to a family of warriors and was probably a clerk in the service of Absalon, archbishop of Lund from 1178 to 1201. Saxo is first mentioned in Svend Aggesen's Historia Regum Danicae compendiosa (1185"" ""Short History of the Danish Kings"") as writing the history of Svend Estridsen (d. 1076).The Gesta Danorum was written at the suggestion of Archbishop Absalon: its 16 volumes begin with the legendary King Dan and end with the conquest of Pomerania by Canute IV in 1185. The work is written in a brilliant, ornate Latin. It was his Latin eloquence that early in the 14th century caused Saxo to be called ""Grammaticus."" The first nine books of the Gesta Danorum give an account of about 60 legendary Danish kings. For this part Saxo depended on ancient lays, romantic sagas, and the accounts of Icelanders. His legend of Amleth is thought to be the source of William Shakespeare's Hamlet" his Toke, the archer, the prototype of William Tell. Saxo incorporated also myths of national gods whom tradition claimed as Danish kings, as well as myths of foreign heroes. Three heroic poems are especially noteworthy, translated by Saxo into Latin hexameters. These oldest-known Danish poems are Bjarkemaalet, a battle hymn designed to arouse warlike feelings Ingjaldskvadet, a poem stressing the corruptive danger of luxury upon the old Viking spirit" and Hagbard and Signe, a tragedy of love and family feuds. The last seven books contain Saxo's account of the historical period, but he achieves independent authority only when writing of events close to his own time. His work is noteworthy for its sense of patriotic purpose based on a belief in the unifying influence of the monarchy. By presenting a 2,000-year-long panorama of Danish history, he aimed to show his country's antiquity and traditions. Saxo's work became a source of inspiration to many of the 19th-century Danish Romantic poets."" (Encycl. Britt.) Laur.Nielsen 240. - Thesaurus 190.
