De rebus sacris … Analecta — London 1614 and 1622

De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI. [Ed. by R. Montagu]. — London, [Printed at Eliot’s Court Press] ex officina Nortonianae apud Ioan. Billium, 1614.

Montagu, Richard

Analecta Ecclesiasticarum exercitationum. — London, [Haviland, Islip], pro Societate Bibliopolarum, 1622.

Folio (282 x 182 mm). Two works in one volume.

Casaubon: (35) leaves, 773, (1) p., (11) leaves (without last blank). Woodcut title-border.

Montagu: (32), 390, (2) p. Without first blank. Woodcut title-border.

Ex-libris on paste-down. Faint marginal waterstaining to the first third of the Casaubon. Thin old underlinings in brown ink. Provenance: Purchase note on first title of a Godschalk Duvius, who bought the copy in Leyden in 1645; Duvius is the author of a Oratio de studio et cultura, pubished Leyden 1646.

In a famous chapter, pp. 70-87, Casaubon destroys the previous general opinion – especially of Renaissance philosophers from Ficino to Bruno, that by the Corpus Hermeticum we have access to a pre-Judaic and pre-Christian philosophy. By several arguments he dates the Corpus Hermeticum to the fourth post-Christian century. Following F. A. Yates (G. Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, pp. 398ff.) Casaubon’s book marks the end of the Renaissance.

ESTC 107197 & 115050. Wing 4745 & 18029.