| Record ID | cp010962 |
| Voet reference number | 2175 |
| Museum Plantin-Moretus | |
| Author | Joannes SAMBUCUS (ZSAMBOKY) |
| Title page transcription | [Printed typographically in cut-out centre-piece of etched title-page:] ICONES VETERVM ‖ ALIQVOT, AC RECEN- ‖ TIVM MEDICORVM, ‖ PHILOSOPHORVMQVE ‖ ELEGIOLIS SVIS ‖ EDITÆ, OPERA ‖ I. SAMBVCI. ‖ ANTVERPIÆ, ‖ Ex officina Christophori Plantini. ‖ M.D.LXXIIII. |
| Collation | Folio: *, B-M⁶, N; folios [1-70] (only printed on recto-sides) |
| Fingerprint | |
| Number of sheets | |
| Pages | [1 recto]: Title [2 recto]: Ioan. Henricho Herwarto, patricio Augustano in primis magnifico viro, litteratorumque fautori, Samb. signed by (Vienna, 1 January 1574) [3 recto-69 recto]: Text [70 recto]: Blank |
| Edition information | |
| Illustrations | Engravings (probably executed after his own designs by P. van der Borcht: see Notes): 1) Title-page, 297 × 188 2) one illustration (cp011942), 200 × 195 3) 66 illustrations (nos. 2-67), c. 195 × 188 |
| Copies | KBR Royal Library of Belgium - VB 13.263 CRoyal Library of San Lorenzo de El EscorialGhent University Library. |
| Bibliographical references | Ruelens-de Backer, page 153 (1574, no. 36) Facsimile edition with an introduction in Dutch and French by M. Rooses (Publications of the 'Maatschappij der Antwerpsche Bibliophilen', no. 21, 1901) |
| Online bibliographical references | |
| Note 1 | Illustrated album with the etched portraits of physicians and scholars, old and new, printed on the recto sides of the folio-sheets, with, printed typographically, above: the name and the number in the series (e.g. Hygiaea. 1), and underneath: a four lines Latin poem. |
| Note 2 | The first illustration is a 'plain' one showing the goddess Hygiaea, surrounded by three women; the following, nos. 2-67, show the portraits in circular medallions within splendidly decorated and elaborate Renaissance borders. |
| Note 3 | However, four medallions have not been executed: nos. 49 (Argenterius), 52 (Gorop. Becanus), 57 (Montagnana), and 60 (Curtius). They have borders, but not portraits. These borders are reproduced elsewhere in the work: no. 49 is found in no. 39, no. 52 in no. 45, no. 57 in no. 35, no. 60 in no. 63. It looks as if having of the four scholars the names and the poems but not the portraits, Plantin at random took plates and had them printed, but taking care to cover the portraits so that they did not reproduce. |
| Note 4 | The list runs as follows: 1. Hygiaea; 2. Apollo; 3. Chiron; 4. Aesculapius; 5. Machaon; 6. Homerus; 7. Pythagoras; 8. Thales; 9. Hippocrates; 10. Socrates; 11. Aretaeus; 12. Plato; 13. Aristoteles; 14. Theophrastus; 15. Nicander; 16. Cratenas; 17. Niger; 18. Celsus; 19. Galenus; 20. Dioscorides; 21. Xenocrates; 22. Plinius; 23. Aegineta; 24. Ruffus; 25. Apollonius; 26. Heraclius Tarent[inus]; 27. Pamphilus; 28. Joan. B. Montanus; 29. Fernelius; 30. Trincanela; 31. Sylvius; 32. Vesalius; 33. Gesnerus; 34. Andernacus; 35. Brassavolus; 36. P. Iovius; 37. Fuxius; 38. G. Agricola; 39. Cornarius; 40. Matthiolus; 41. Hypol. Salvianus; 42. Rondeletius; 43. Iul. Alexandrinus; 44. Ioan. Crato; 45. NiColumn Biesius; 46. Altomarus; 47. NiColumn Massa; 48. Hadr. Iunius; 49. Argenterius; 50. Joan. Cuspinianus; 51. V. Cordus; 52. Gorop. Becanus; 53. Cardanus; 54. C. Scaliger; 55. B. Victorius; 56. P. Crassus; 57. Montagnana; 58. Savanorela; 59. W. Lazius; 60. Curtius; 61. Tragus; 62. Paracelsus; 63. Seneca; 64. Strabo; 65. P. Crescentius; 66. M. Ficinus; 67. 'De D. Ioan. Sambuco I.L.' (with a 8 lines Latin poem, probably not by Sambucus himself, but by one of his friends). |
| Note 5 | In the dedicatory to Herwartus, Sambucus explains that he had the portraits made from paintings, sculptures, medals, and old manuscripts. |
| Note 6 | Only few details about the publication are found in the Plantinian archives. On 27 April 1574 is noted to the credit of Mijnken Liefrinck, an Antwerp printer of copperplates, 'P[our] 26 folia doctorum de P. borcht', but the sum due is not filled in (Arch. 18, opening 82 right). It was very likely only a proof-impression of a number of plates. The entry shows anyway that the man who executed the engravings (after his own designs) was Pieter van der Borcht. On stylistical grounds too they can be ascribed to this master. Cf. Rooses's introduction in the 1901 facsimile-edition. |
| Note 7 | Rooses, in this introduction, notes the sale on 28 September 1574 of a copy, worth 3 florins Carolus guilders, to Redinger, through Hans Scheffer of Cologne, the presentation of a copy printed on 'grand papier' to Abraham Ortelius, and still in 1574 the sale of some other copies to Ortelius, and of a copy each to Gabriel de Çayas, Christophorus Calvete de Estrella, and Joachim Hopperus in Madrid, Hubertus Goltzius in Bruges, and Arias Montanus in Rome. |
| Note 8 | At the division of Plantin's inheritance the copperplates were ceded to Frans Raphelengius: 66 'figures taillees en cuivre…Icones Medicorum' and 3 copies of the publication itself are mentioned. Cf. Rooses's introduction. |
| Note 9 | Frans Raphelengius jr. had a new publication issued in 1603 (a copy in Museum Plantin-Moretus, A 1538): the same texts (including Sambucus's dedicatory to Herwartus) and illustrations (with one exception: 44. Ioan. Crato has been replaced by another portrait within another border; in the nos. 49, 52, 57, and 60, without portraits, other borders have replaced the ones used in 1574; the title-page has this time within the cut-out compartment no typographically printed text). Have been added: a typographically printed title and a 'Iconum huius libri brevis explicatio, vitam et scripta singulorum, quorum hic effigies, obiter complectens' (10 pages). The typographically printed texts on the sheets with the portraits are identical to the 1574-edition: when Frans Raphelengius jr. decided to issue the new edition, he could obtain from Jan Moretus the stock of already typographically printed sheets still available in Antwerp; they were sent to him before 25 January 1602 (cf. Rooses's introduction). He had then the copperplates reproduced on the sheets (but had to remake no. 44, of which the copperplate probably had been lost; this plate was very likely executed in Antwerp by P. van der Borcht). But there was a problem: the identification of the portraits. The three copies of the publication mentioned in Raphelengius's part of Plantin's inheritance must in the meantime have been sold or lost. In a letter of 14 April 1602 Frans jr. asks his Antwerp relative to mail him also a copy of the 1574-edition so as to be able to check the corresponding portraits and to avoid making annoying errors (as he puts it in his usual humoristic way: 'Item ick wilde wel hebben [al waer 'tmaer te leen] Icones medicorum, want in al onse blaederen kan ik niet bij alle vinden daer figuren bij gedrukt zijn. Soo dat sonder exempelen, wij licht Uylenspiegels tronie setten souden, daer Claes Narren staen mochte, et contra' [Item, I would like to have, if only to borrow, [a copy of] Icones medicorum, as among our sheets not in all of them I can find with the portraits printed. So that without examples we may easily reproduce the face of Ulenspieghel where has to be the one of the Jester, and vice versa] (Arch. 92, folio 139). Jan Moretus probably complied and sent perhaps the only copy left to him; anyway no copy of the 1574-edition has been preserved in Museum Plantin-Moretus. Cf. also L. Voet, 'Het Plantijnse huis te Leiden' in Verslag van de Algemene Vergadering van de leden van het Historisch Genootschap gehouden te Utrecht, 1960, page 28. |
| Note 10 | Listed in M 296, folio 9 verso (Icones veterum Medicorum, f⁰, f[euilles] 35, a⁰ [15]74, [price:] florins Carolus guilders 2 stuivers 10). |
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