‎SLEIDAN ELZEVIER‎
‎I. SLEIDANI DE QUATUOR SUMMIS IMPERIIS LIBRI TRES: postrema editione hac accurate recogniti.‎

‎I. Sleidani De quatuor summis imperiis libri tres; Postrema editione hac accurate recogniti. ‎

‎Amsterdam (Amsterodami), Apud Ioannem Ianssonium, n.d. (between 1631 and 1664) ‎

‎8vo. 309,(24),(1 blank) p. 12mo. Vellum 12 cm (Details: Back with 4 raised bands. Two thongs laced through the joints. Engraved title, depicting some mythological figures, and a small portrait of Alexander the Great) (Condition: Vellum age-toned. Front flyleaf gone. Three pinpoint holes on the rear joint. A small tear in lower margin of title, which is thumbed. Paper foxed, and with some brown stains. One old ink annotation) (Note: The German humanist, diplomat and historian Johannes Sleidanus (Sledanus, Sleidan), was born between 1506 and 1508 in Schleiden, (hence his name), a city South of Cologne. He is best known for his 'De statu religionis et reipublicae Carolo Quinto Caesare Commentarii', published in 1555, which made him the historian of the Reformation. It was so impartial that it pleased no one. The book was placed by the pope on the Index, and the Lutherans were not pleased either. Still it remains the most valuable contemporary history of the times of the Reformation, and it contains the largest collection of important documents. Less controversial is Sleidanus world history 'De quatuor summis imperiis, babylonico, persico, graeco et romano', published in the year of his death, 1556. (NDB 24, 499/500) The idea of four empires is an old one. In the Old Testament an angel tells Daniel, who was in slavery in Babylon, how to interpret a dream he had. Daniel had dreamed of a winged lion, a ferocious bear, a panther with four wings and four heads, and an unnamed alien monster with iron teeth that devoured everything. The angel: 'These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth'. On the day of judgement the last of the four kings will lose his power and will vanish, and the kingdom will be given to the saints. Late medieval exegesis explained the fours beasts as follows, the lion was the Babylonian kingdom, the bear was identified as the dominion of Persia, and the winged panther was the reign of Alexander and his diadochi. The beast with the iron teeth was the Roman empire. All these kingdoms stood on feet of clay. As the divine vision of Daniel provided only for four kingdoms, the Holy Roman Empire of Sleidanus' days had to be a continuation of the Roman Empire of the past. The German emperors, with the divine legitimation of the Bible, continuated merely the Roman empire. Sleidanus' historical chronicle is based on the order as revealed in Daniel's vision. 'His concern is the historical legitimation of the German imperial reign through its continuity with the Roman empire'. He thus gave biblical dignity to the German imperial constitution, and thus legitimated the protestant Reformation. (W. Schmidt-Biggemann, 'Philosophia perennis: Historical Outlines of Western Spirituality in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought', Dordrecht 2004, p. 399-400) This world history of Sleidanus was immensely influential. In the next 150 years more than 60 editions were published. Sleidanus succeeded in creating with both his historical works a common historic identity for the protestants in a hitherto Catholic world. History had at the beginning of the Reformation to be repossessed and rewritten to underline the Protestant claim for legitimacy and authority. His History of the four Empires contained enough condemnations of the popes to suit the taste of his public. This undated Janssonius edition is probably a pirate edition of an Elzevier production, published between 1631 and 1664, the year Janssonius died. (Willems no. 358, dated 1631, no. 763, dated 1655, & no. 1179 , dated 1654). All three Elzeviers editions have the same number of pages as this one of Janssonius) (Collation: A-X8 (leaf X8 verso blank) (Photographs on request) ‎