Ἱερογλυφικά — Paris 1548

Ὦρου Ἀπόλλωνος Νειλώου ἱερογλυφικά. Ori Apollonis Niliaci, De sacris notis & sculpturis libri duo … — Parisiis, Excudebat Christianus Wechelus, sub Pegaso, In vico Bellovacensi, Anno Salutis M. D. XLVIII.

Paris, Chrétien Wechel, 1548

4to (235 x 155 mm). A-F⁴: 47, (1) p. One wormhole throughout. Ample margins. Recent old style soft boards (cartonato rustico).

BP16 113212. The Latin edition, mentioned on the title-page, appeared the same year and is often found bound with the Greek edition. The BP16 number for the Latin ed. is 113211 (BP16: La traduction latine annoncée au titre est publiée séparément la même année).

The editor is Jean Mercier (1525?-1570). He followed François Vatable at the College Royal, and published a collection of Greek Γνῶμαι, translated Greek Epigrammata, published Tabulæ in Chaldæam grammaticen, and parts of the Old Testament Chaldæa translatio Abdiæ et Jonæ prophetarum, Latino sermone recèns donata. 

In his Epistola nuncupatoria to the Bishop of Uzès, Jean de Saint-Gelais, Mercier writes that he came across the text of the Horapollo by chance after his return from Toulouse and Avignon to Paris, and continues: „My God, what hidden knowledge I have discovered in it, what an open window to the knowledge of many secrets, what secrets of philosophy (hitherto hidden from him). While reading it, I realised why Plato, Pythagoras and others had immersed themselves in the wisdom of Egypt …“

This is the second separate edition of the Greek text.