Dedication copy

Bucelin, Gabriel. Rutiliae, longe vetustissimae et illustrissimae inter romane urbis principes familiae [...].

Feldkirch, J. Hübschlin, 1677.

4to. (4), 143, (1) SS. With engraved frontispiece and engraved portrait of Nautius Rutilius, both in splendid hand-colour, as well as an additional hand-painted portrait of Johann Joachim von Aichen on vellum. 18th century green satin binding over wooden boards with marbled endpapers (some damage to pastedowns); traces of clasps. All edges gilt.

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The rarest work of the Swiss scholar Bucelin: a genealogical study of the gens Rutilia, a Roman plebeian family to which the Italian Roverella family and the German von Aichen family trace themselves. Bucelin dedicated the work to the Austrian civil servant Peter von Aichen, who was ennobled in Lower Austria in 1666. It must have had a very limited press-run, and only six copies are known in libraries worldwide: in the Austrian National Library (the copy of the Imperial civil servant Joachim Windhaag) and in the University of Vienna (the Vienna Jesuits' copy), in the Lower Austrian Library in St. Pölten and in the State Library of Württemberg in Stuttgart (the latter institutions holding two copies each). The present seventh known copy is that of the Aichen family itself and contains a splendid portrait of the Lieutenant Governor or Lower Austria, Johann Joachim von Aichen (1664-1729), painted on vellum and decorated with drapery, architectural elements, allegorical figures, the family arms, and an inscription (overpainted in red and poorly legible), monogrammed and dated at lower right "JMP 1707".

The Benedictine monk Gabriel Bucelinus (1599-1681) from Diessenhofen in Thurgau, one of the most prolific scholars of the 17th century, taught as professor at the Weingarten monastery and served as provost of Feldkirch in Vorarlberg, where the book was printed.

Satin binding a little stained. A few areas of Aichen's portrait are rubbed or chipped in the paint; the marbled endpaper has been crudely peeled from the pastedowns. In all a very finely preserved specimen, a unique survival from the family of the dedicatee. No copy recorded in the trade.

References

OCLC 311312169. Not in VD 17.

Stock Code: BN#56208