Hugo Grotius/Joan Blaeu - Historiae - 1658

GROTIUS, HUGO. — Annales et Historiae de Rebus Belgicis (Amsterdam, Joan Blaeu, 1658). Amsterdam: Joan Blaeu, 1658. In-12. Full contemporary calf, spine with gilt raised bands. A precious edition of the 17th century printed by the famous Amsterdam cartographer Joan Blaeu. Written in a Latin prose of great elegant humanist style, this text treats the political, military and religious history of the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries. Grotius, regarded as the father of international public law and of the law of the sea (Mare Liberum), analyzes the legal and political foundations of the sovereignty of the United Provinces in the face of the Spanish Empire. The work constitutes a monument of Dutch historiography, published posthumously by Grotius’ sons under the master of Dutch cartography, Joan Blaeu. Exemplar preserved in its 17th-century full brown morocco binding. The spine with raised bands still shows beautiful gilding in the compartments. However, the binding presents significant wear and pronounced leather losses at the head and tail of the spine (upper cap torn, leaving the head block and the head edge exposed, split/leather tear on the lower cap and along the upper joint). Boards solid in structure. Interior very healthy and clean on period Dutch wove paper, title page well preserved with the large typographic device of Joan Blaeu (Indefessus agendo). Joan Blaeu was not a mere printer: he was the official geographer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the author of the legendary Atlas Maior. Associating the legal genius of Hugo Grotius with Blaeu’s printing press makes this work a true emblem of the Dutch Golden Age. The title vignette with the armillary sphere surrounded by the motto "Indefessus agendo" ("Indefatigable in action") is the signature of the finest Dutch impressions of the 17th century. Despite the leather losses to be repaired on the spine capitals, it is a fundamental text of European law and history.

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