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A very interesting early history of ancient books and manuscripts

SCHWARZ, Christian Gottlieb.
De ornamentis librorum et varia rei librariae veterum supellectile dissertationum antiquariarum hexas. Primum collegit et recensuit atque praefatione indicibusque necessariis instruxit Johann. Christian. Leuschnerus.

Title with woodcut vignette, 5 folded engraved plates and 5 woodcuts in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and ornamented in intials. Parts of text in Greek and Hebrew type.

Title with woodcut vignette, 5 folded engraved plates and 5 woodcuts in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and ornamented in intials. Parts of text in Greek and Hebrew type.

Title with woodcut vignette, 5 folded engraved plates and 5 woodcuts in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and ornamented in intials. Parts of text in Greek and Hebrew type.

Title with woodcut vignette, 5 folded engraved plates and 5 woodcuts in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and ornamented in intials. Parts of text in Greek and Hebrew type.

Title with woodcut vignette, 5 folded engraved plates and 5 woodcuts in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and ornamented in intials. Parts of text in Greek and Hebrew type.



Leipzig, Langenheim, 1756. 4to. Contemporary marbled boards. Title with woodcut vignette, 5 folded engraved plates and 5 woodcuts in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and ornamented in intials. Parts of text in Greek and Hebrew type. 234, (6) pp. A-Z4, Aa-Gg4.

New, enlarged and most important edition of this collection of six dissertations on the history of the ancient book and manuscripts, with contributions on book ornaments, scripts, writing utensils, ancient bindings, papyrus roles, ancient libraries etc. The book is nicely illustrated with several writers portraits, cupboards with books or rolls, bindings etc.
The first editions of the first three dissertations were published at Altdorf between 1705 (1706)-11, reprinted in 1716 (ed. Lod. Guilielmus Kohlesius) and 1733 together with two other dissertations, all defended under the same supervisor, Christian Gottlieb Schwar(t)z (1675-1751) and finally gathered together with similar texts in the present De ornamentis librorum, which appeared in 1756 with Johann Chrristian Leuschner as the editor.
The text deals with all possible aspects of book manufacture in antiquity and during Middle Ages, with emphasis on the different forms of the manuscripts (rolls or especially square manuscripts), on the different materials on which codices were written (a. o. papyrus, different sorts of paper, vellum, silk, wood, ivory and even metal), on their bindings, their title pages and their scripts, whether written in one or more columns, the folding of leaves and the different bindings used. The book is closed with a section on the origins of codex production, proposing the manufacture of the first codices at the court of Pergamon (about 2nd century BC) and, typically, on vellum (the old name for vellum, i. e. parchment, is a transparent derivation from the word Pergamon). Among the authorities cited in the book many Byzantine authors figure alongside the modern authors Isaac Vossius, Panciroli, Du Fresne and Montfaucon. The illustrations depict a library of the late Roman empire together with a bound and an unbound codex, a bookshelf containing rolls and a scribe (taken from Dioscorides of Samos).

Christian Gottlieb Schwarz was librarian and professor at the Uiversity of Altorf. He was member of the prestigious Berliner Akademie. His works deal with various subjects: philology, the satires of Sulpicius, Cicero, Plinius as well as book history.
The editor, Johann Christian Leuschner (1719-1792) dated his preface in Hirschberg, 1 July 1755. He was first conrector, later prorector of the Lysceum at Hirschberg, Schlesien. He worked in Hirschberg during 15 years, till he was appointed rector of the Magdalen Gymnasium and 'custos' of the library at Breslau.

Important for the history of the awakening study of ancient book history.

Good copy.- (Insign. waterstain in lower margins, spine and corners of binding damaged).
Graesse VI, 322; Gesamtverz. deutschspr. Schrifttums 132, p.108; Bursian, Gesch. d. klass. Philologie, p. 371; Bonacini, Bibliogr. delle arti scrittorie 1665GV 66, 57; DBA 584, 9-13 (for Schwarz); otherwise not in the printing bibliographies, Bonacini recenses only the 1756 publication.

Related Subjects: Bindings  Book History  Libraries & Collections 

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