Sammelband with 3 rare religious treatises containing 35 allegoric engravings, 1597 – 1600

JOACHIM, OF FIORE: VATICINIA, / SIVE / PROPHETIAE / ABBATIS / IOACHIMI, & ANSELMI EPISCOPI / MARSICANI,... Vaticinii, overo / Profetie / dell'Abbate Gioachino, & di Anselmo Vescovo di Marsico,... AND: Andreas ANGELUS: Kurtzer jedoch gewisser und gründlicher Bericht von Johan Hilten und seinen Weissagungen. AND: Giovanni Bernardino BONIFACIO. Miscellanea / hymnorvm, / epigrammatvm, et / paradoxorvm... 3 vol in 1. (1) With engraved title and 34 full-paged engravings, (2) ornamental woodcut title , as well as (3) pictorial woodcut title and 2 full-paged woodcut portraits. (1) Venice: Giovanni Battista Bertoni 1600. (2) Frankfurt/Oder: Johan Hartmann 1597. (3) Danzig: Jacob Rhode 1599.

Crown 8vo (18,5:14 cm). Signatures: a-d4, A-O4; A-J4; A-N4 [3 nn. leaves (title r, 1st woodcut portrait v, 2 dedication leaves)], p. 1-94, [2 nn. leaves (2nd woodcut portrait, index, errata)]. Half leather binding on three raised bands over marbled cardboards with blind tooling.

Sammelband with 3 rare religious treatises, contains a series of prophecies attributed to Joachim of Fiore (12th ct.), as well as apocalyptic visions of the Franciscan friar Johann Hilten (15th ct.) in a protestant pamphlet by Andreas Engel, and finally a collection of songs and rhetorical figures by the protestant humanist Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio (16th ct.)

Content: Present Sammelband starts with the Bertoni bilingual (Latin, Italian) edition of the »Vaticinia«, that assembles 34 elaborate full-paged engravings depicting portraits of popes in the middle of allegoric, seemingly bizarre scenes showing (pseudo-)prophecies related to them. The engraving title page shows a portrait of Fiore in the centre. The 2nd volume contains a tendentious comment of Brandenburg clergyman and historian Andreas Engel (named Angelus) of apocalyptic visions by Franciscan friar Johann Hilten, who was claimed by the protestants to have been their predecessor in the 15th ct. Engel also quotes prophecies about the fall of Papacy and of the Otoman Empire. Finally the 3rd volume contains a collection of religious songs and rhetorical figures (epigrams, paradoxa) by the protestant Italian humanist Giovanni Bernardino Bonifacio (16th ct.), founder of the Danzig city library, edited shortly after Bonifacio's dead by Andreas Welsius.

Condition: Spine professionally restored at joints. Title page of »Vaticinia« (1) enforced at margin, inside in parts slightly finger and time-stained as well as minimally foxy, one engraving with annotatios made with ink. Bookblock cut uniformly by the binder, 3rd part with tight cut and therefore minimal loss of pagination at two leaves.

Holdings, Rarity: VD16 quotes 4 copies in Germany for »Miscellanea hymnorum« (Dresden (SLUB), Halle (ULB ), Göttingen (SUB), Wolfenbüttel (HAB), WorldCat/OCLC another additional two copies worldwide (BnF, BL); the same for »Weissagungen«: 5 copies in Germany (Dresden (SLUB), ULB (Halle), Göttingen (SUB), Weimar (HAAB), Wolfenbüttel (HAB) and one copy in Solothurn according to VD16 and WorldCat/OCLC.

References: (1) VD16 O 899; Adams J214; Hohenemser 178. (2) VD16 ZV 5013; Hohenemser 174; Volz, Hans: "Hilten, Johann". In: Neue Deutsche Biographie 9 (1972), S. 164 f. (Hilten). (3) Index Aurelianus 121.965.