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‎Ioannis Meursii Theophrastus. Sive de illius libris, qui injuria temporis interciderunt, liber singularis. Accedit Theophrastarum lectionum libellus. ‎

‎Leiden (Lugduni Batavorum), Ex officina Elseviriana, 1640. ‎

‎12mo. 111,(5 index),10,(3),(3 blank) p. Modern boards. 13.5 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 061216267; Willems 504; Rahir 499; Berghman 1285; Hoffmann 537/38) (Details: Elsevier's woodcut printer's mark on the title, depicting an old man standing in the shade of a vine-entwined elmtree, symbolising the symbiotic relationship between scholar and publisher. The motto is: 'Non solus'. After the index at the end we find: 'Adolphi Vorstii Epistola de obitu V.Cl. Ioannis Meursii ad filium ejus Joannem, iuvenem praestantissimum', followed by a short 'epitaphium' for Meursius by his friend A. Buchellius, and an elegiac couplet of Nicolaus Heinsius) (Condition: Title page soiled, and a small piece removed from the tip of its right lower corner. Small stamp on the title. 3rd leaf slightly soiled) (Note: The Greek scholar Theophrastus, ca. 370-287? B.C., was a pupil, collaborator and successor of Aristotle. He was a scientific researcher rather than a speculative philosophers. Only a small part of Theophrastus' output has been preserved, or as Meursius observes at the beginning of this 'liber singularis' of 1640: 'paucis conservatis, pleraque interciderunt', 'few works have been saved, most have perished'. (p. 5) The importance of classification runs through all his extant works, including even the brochure known as the Characters' (Charaktêres). This collection of 30 descriptive sketches of types of people exhibiting deviations from proper norms of behaviour is nowadays his most famous and most imitated work. This title of 1640 is the only edition of the last work of the Dutch classicist and historian Johannes Meursius (Johannes van Meurs), 1579-1639. It consists of 2 parts, the first of which (p. 1/82) is on the lost works of Theophrastus. Meursius list here 234 works, with sources and testimonia. The second part (p. 83/111) contains notes and emendations by Meursius on a number of Theophrastus' extant works, 'Ioannis Meursii Lectiones Theophrasteae, in quibus eorum librorum, qui supersunt loca aliquot emendantur'. Meursius was professor of History and Greek in the university of Leiden from 1610 till 1620. He studied under the genius J.J. Scaliger, and is best known for the 'editiones principes' of a number of Byzantine authors that he produced. Meursius' indefatigable labours concerned also the history of ancient Greece, and especially Eleusis, and the antiquities of Athens and Attica. Meursius laid with his works the foundations of much later learning) (Provenance: The stamp on the title is a crown with 7 pearls (of a Dutch/German/Austrian baron?) Beneath the crown 2 intertwined initials 'C.C'. or 'C.D') (Collation: A-E12, F6 (leaf F5 verso and F6 blank)) (Photographs on request) ‎