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First and only edition of the classic book on the early history of the Netherlands

JUNIUS, Hadrianus.
Batavia. In qua praeter gentis & insulae antiquitatem, originem, decora, mores, alique ad eam historiam pertinentia, declaratur quae fuerit vetus Batavia, quae Plinio, Tacito, & Ptolemaeo cognita; quae item genuina inclytae Francorum nationis fuerit sedes.

Withy woodcut printer's device of the Officina Plantiniana on title and ca. 20 woodcut illustrations in text, woodcut decorated initials.

Leiden, Ex officina Plantiniana, Franciscus Raphelengius, 1588. 4to. Later calf with gilt double filet lines on both covers, sm. gilt corner pieces, gilt spine with title lettered in gold, sprinkled edges.
Withy woodcut printer's device of the Officina Plantiniana on title and ca. 20 woodcut illustrations in text, woodcut decorated initials. (20), 411 pp.

First and only 16th-century edition of this legendary work on the early history of the Northern Netherlands by Hadrianus Junius from Hoorn (1511-1575), also known as Adriaen de Jonghe, a Dutch physician, botanist, humanist and author. A second edition appeared in Dordrecht in 1652. The work was posthumously published and edited by Petrus Junius and Janus Douza Jr., including a dedication to the States of Holland and an introduction on the usefulness and necessity of history, both dated 1575.
Junius was considered by Lipsius as the most learned scholar of the Netherlands next to Erasmus. He studied and worked in Italy, France, and England, and bought a house in Haarlem in 1550 to practise medicine and become a rector there in the Latin school, where he wrote his books. His book Emblemata was published in 1565 by Christophe Plantin in Antwerp.
In the same year he was appointed official historiographer of Holland by William of Orange whose physician Junius was. The result was this book, Batavia, published in1588, in fact as a kind of introduction to a larger work which never has appeared. He is considered the creator of the Laurens Janszoon Coster legend as told by him in this book. His story was echoed by his friend Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert who started a printing business in Haarlem in 1560. It is one of the first books in which Roman artefacts and monuments found in the Netherlands were illustrated, including inscriptions, tiles, statues, coins, and a plan of the castle at Katwijk, the so-called 'Brittenburg'.
Provenance:
(1) Contemporary ownership's entry on title: 'F Ramp (? or F. Kamp?) with the motto 'Audace(s) fortuna Juvat'.
(2) With the armorial bookplate of 'Thomas Foley of Great Witley Court in the County of Worcester Esq.': or Thomas Foley (1588-1657), a prominent Midlands ironmaster who took over his father's business and made great profits from it in the 1650s and 1660s, which he used to buy estates and to built Witley Court; or, more likely his son Thomas Foley (c. 1641-1701) his eldest son who succeeded his father to the Great Witley estate, including Witley Court, in 1677. He served as a member of Parliament for Worcestershire from 1679 to 1685; again from 1689 to 1698.
(3) Library stamp of F. Fasting, Rio de Janeiro.

Good copy with some contemporary underlining.- (Title loose and pasted to the recto of a later flyleaf, sm. tear in second leaf (repaired)).

Typ. Bat. 2727; Adams J-442; NNBW VII, cols. 692-4; Bigmore et Wyman, I, p. 379.

Related Subjects: 16th Century History Netherlands

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