BOXEL, Johan.
Exercitie memorie van de compagnie guardes van de Ed: Groot Mog: Heeren Staten van Holland en West-Vrieslandt. Bestaende in 't exerceren van 't musquet, spies, ende de generale exercitie.
The Hague, Nicolaes van Coevenhoven, [privilege dated 18 February 1669]. 2 parts in 1 volume. 4to. With a letterpress general title page printed in red and black, 2 engraved divisional titles pages, and 82 full-page engraved plates. Contemporary gold-tooled mottled calf. [24], [2 blank]; [16], [24] pp.
€ 12,500
Rare first issue of the first edition of a Dutch manual of military exercises of the guards of the States of Holland and West-Friesland, with 82 large plates, and wide margins. The work is divided in two parts. The plates in the first part show a soldier demonstrating the use of the musket and pike in various stances. The plates in the second part depict an officer drilling 16 soldiers holding pikes and muskets, showing various formations and movements. The uniforms and weapons are depicted in great detail. The work is quite rare, as we have only been able to find three other copies in sales records, and only five in institutions, some of them lacking the engraved title page.
Johan Boxel (dates unknown), a Captain-Lieutenant in the Dutch army, considered drilling to be the best way to prepare soldiers for battle, as he writes in the dedication. The present first edition was reissued with new preliminaries in 1670 as Vertoogh van de kryghs-oeffeninge, and was enlarged with a third part and 16 additional plates. A second edition appeared in 1673. and a German translation followed in 1675. Van Coevenhoven (or Kouwenhoven) appears to have had a short career in printing as he only published the present issue of Boxels manual, though his name was not removed from the engraved title page of part 2 in both the 1670 reissue and the 1673 edition.
With annotations of an early owner on the first and last flyleaf ("Gierard Maas, Anno 1686"), together with a drawing of a swan, and another annotation in the same hand ("Cahier van exersitie uijtgeven ende int ligt gebraght gebracht [sic] door Willem Bocksel"). The boards are somewhat warped, the leather on the boards is somewhat cracked, but has been professionally restored. The work is somewhat foxed throughout, quire E has been missigned as a second quire D. Otherwise in good condition. STCN 851158668 (2 copies, only 1 complete); WorldCat 1154579209 (5 copies); cf. Sloos, Warfare, 05014 and 05016 (later eds.).
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