BOR, Pieter Christiaenszoon.
Nederlandsche oorloghen, beroerten, ende borgerlijcke oneenicheyden ...
Leiden, Govert Basson, Amsterdam, Michiel Colijn, 1621-1634. 5 parts in 6 volumes. Folio (33.5 x 22 cm). With 5 engraved allegorical title pages, 39 double-page engraved plates, 41 full-page engraved portraits, a full-page map of the Seventeen Province, 158 half-page illustrations, 13 half-page portraits, 10 smaller portraits, and a woodcut illustration. An additional 19th-century portrait of the author is mounted on the final flyleaf. Uniform 17th-century (ca. 1680) vellum, a blind tooled centre-piece on each side, gold-tooled spines with two black leather title labels lettered in gold, red edges, green closing ties. [6], 350, 193; 126, 230, 48, 48, 60; [12], 73, 91, 120, 102; [6], 103, 118, 63, 63, 1, 33, [59]; [11], 56, 48, [2], 78, 90, [4], 126; [12], 100, 83, 69, 66, 69, [18] ll.
€ 4,750
First complete edition of perhaps the most important contemporary standard work on the crucial years till 1600 of the Dutch revolt against Spain, known as the Eighty Years War by Pieter Bor Christiaenszoon (1559-1635), published just before his death in 1635. Bor was the son of an Utrecht pharmacist who moved to Haarlem in 1578 and to Leiden in 1591. In both cities he was a public notary. In 1582 he received an annuity from the States General for his researches. Through his work he had access to archives in the places he stayed, including The Hague, during the 25 years he devoted to compile his very detailed, precise and reliable history. As a result, he could publish many original documents, many of which have since been lost, making his work an important resource for the history of the Dutch revolt during the second half of the 16th century. His historical work was acknowledged by the States of Utrecht and Holland who also supported him financially.
The work has a complicated publication history. The 37 books covering the years 1555-1600 were published and reprinted in instalments at various times, with separate issues of registers and additions. The first parts were printed in 1595 (Oorspronc, begin ende aenvang der Nederlandscher oorlogen) and 1601 (Van de Nederlantsche oorloghen, beroerten ...).
Between 1679 and 1684 an edition was published with new registers and a continuation on the years after 1600: Oorsprongk, begin en vervolgh der Nederlandsche oorlogen, beroerten .... (in 4 on large, or 9 folio vols. on smaller paper: Amsterdam, by the widow of Joh. Van Someren, Abraham Wolfgangh and Hendrik & Dirck Boom). The 39 double-page plates and 41 full-page portraits illustrating this 1679-1684 edition are also bound in this 1621-1634 edition. Most of them also used, mostly in their 2nd or 3rd state, for the 1681 editions of Hugo Grotius Nederlandtsche Jaerboeken en Historien, printed by the same publishers and later for P.C. Hoofts Nederlandsche Historien (ed. 1703), and for Le Clercs Geschiedenisens der Vereenigde Nederlanden (1723-28).
The 158 half-page illustrations with captions in Latin, which are printed in the text of our edition are from the numbered plates used earlier in Guillaume Baudarts Les Guerres de Nassau ..., published in Amsterdam by Michiel Colijn who also published the present edition of Bor. The plates of sieges and battles which occurred during the war are numbered in Baudarts book from 1 to 248 (to 1600; so 90 of the Baudart plates are not included in this Bor-edition). Some of the images are made after plates by Frans Hogenberg.
The binding of volume 5 shows some spotting and staining, some minor staining throughout. Otherwise in very good condition. Haitsma Mulier/van der Lem 75c; Klaversma/Hannema (1999), nos. 271-274 (ed. 1679-1684); NNBW, VI, cols. 160-163; STCN 26558258X, 265770815; USTC 1020977, 1020999; Van Eeeghen/Van der Kellen (1905), no. 9, pp. 7-15; cf. A.E.M. Jansssen, A "trias historica" on the revolt of the Netherlands: Emanuel van Meteren, Pieter Bor and Everhard Reyd as exponents of contemporary historiography, in: A.C. Duke & C.A. Tamse eds., Clios mirror. Historiography in Britain and the Netherlands (1985), pp. 9-30; J.A.L. Lancée, Pieter Bor: volksopvoeder en "Rijksgeschiedschrijver", in: Maatstaf, 28 (1980), pp. 95-104.
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