TSCHUDI, Aegidius (1505-1572). De prisca ac vera Alpina Rhaetia, cum caetero Alpinarum gentium tractu, nobilis ac erudita ex optimis quibusque ac probatissimis autoribus descriptio. Basel, Michael Isengrin, 1538.

4° (219x136 mm), [8], 134 pp. [1] blank leaf. With printer's device on title, diagram on p. 20 and 42 woodcut initials. Contemporary limp vellum with two library labels on the spine. Somewhat dampstained throughout, title slightly stained and with old inscription in ink and two stamps.

First Latin translation of one of the most important Swiss geographical works and among the earliest printed documents on alpinism.

Tschudi's only text published in his lifetime – printed almost simultaneously in German (Die uralt varhafftig Alpisch Rhetia) by Isengrin's father in law Johannes Bebel – marks a turning point in the history of experienced geography. It is the first authoritative and reliable source book on the topography and culture of a single region and stands at the beginning of this type of literature. Aegidius Tschudi who is considered the 'father of Swiss historiography' had handed over the original German manuscript (kept now in the Stiftsbibliothek in St. Gall) to his compatriot the humanist Heinrich Glareanus in Freiburg im Breisgau, who together with the Alsatian humanist Beatus Rhenanus should oversee the text. For unknown reasons Rhenanus refused to translate it into Latin and Glarean passed the manuscript to the Hebraist Sebastian Münster (1489-1552) in Basel. He "took the MS to pieces, set a number of scribes on, day and night, to copy it, and then bound it up again, presumably to return it. Not content with that, Munster translated the text into Latin and promptly published a German and a Latin edition" (De Beer).

In the first days of April 1538 the German translation appeared at the press of Johannes Bebel, father-in-law to Michael Isingrin. While Bebel's name as printer of the German version has been transmitted only by a covering note of Sebastian Münster, the name of Isingrin is printed on the title of the present Latin edition. The book – of which Münster announced publication in a letter of 8 April to the author – remained the only one published during the author's lifetime. It offers the first description of the practically unknown alpine regions which Tschudi had walked from the Grisons to the Valais, its history and topography. The book was a success and in 1560 the widow of Michael Isingrin reissued both text versions.

The 1538 edition was apparently issued together with a map of which only one copy of the 1560 edition has survived which is kept today at the University Library of Basel.

Bound together with:

MELA, Pomponius. Tres Geographiae libri multo castigatius, atque ante hac, excusi. Hermolai Barbari in eundem, integrae castigationes. Index in pomponio contentorum copiosissimus ... (Leipzig, Melchior Lotter, 1521). [10], XL ff. Title within woodcut border.

Very rare edition prepared by Johannes Camers (Giovanni Ricucci Vellini, 1447-1546), teacher of Vadian and one of Vienna's most eminent humanist scholars. – USTC 684781; VD16 M 2313.

Provenance: Wenzeslaus Hegemüller von Dubenweiler, Baron of Albrechtsberg, Court Chamberlain, Hereditary State Kitchen Master (+ 1667), ms. entry on title. Hegemüller's library was acquired by Franz Ferdinand Ponz von Engelshofen (1692-176) in 1768/70 and then incorporated into the Thun-Hohenstein library in Decín (Tetschen) hence the stamps on title and bookplate of Franz Anton von Thun und Hohenstein (1847-1916). The library was scattered in the trade in 1933.

References: Perret II, 508. Möller 1199. VD 16, T-2155; STC, (German), 872; Wyss 196f.; Dreyer 394; Burmeister 116 and 174; Hantzsch 68, II, 1; Hieronymus, Oberrheinische Buchillustration II, p. 551; Roubik, Summae alpes, in: Der Geschichtsfreund, vol.154 (2001), pp. 5 ff.

Price: CHF 8 500