Trauerrede auf den hochwohlgebohrnen Herrn, Herrn Gerard Freyherrn van Swieten.
Vienna, J.T.E. von Trattner 1772.
8vo (205 x 121 mm.). Frontis., 85, [3 blank]p. ETCHED FRONTISPIECE BUST PORTRAIT of van Swieten (J.E. Mansfeld).
Contemporary gilt Viennese red morocco, a broad garlanded border formed of flowers, leaves, tendrils, grapes, shells and arabesques interspersed with small stars, roundels and dots, flat spine divided into eight compartments, in the second a green morocco lettering piece, the others gilt with leaves and flowers, purple and blue pastepaper endleaves, all edges gilt.
First Edition, printed on fine thick paper, of the funeral oration on the death of the eminent Dutch doctor Gerard von Swieten (1700-72), a pupil of Boerhaave and Maria Theresa’s personal physician, who reorganized Vienna University and opened the public reading room of the Hofbibliothek. He laid the foundations for the eminence of Austrian medicine by founding a new medical college, the first Austrian midwifery and veterinary colleges, as well as hospitals and orphanages. Breslauer’s identification of the shell tool on the binding with that in Mazal’s Europäische Einbandkunst (Taf. 233) cannot be sustained. In good condition (corners bumped, minor stains on the front panel).
¶Breslauer, Fine Books in Fine Bindings Catalogue 104 Pt. II (1982) 225 (this copy); Blake, A Short-Title Catalogue…National Library of Medicine 496; Catalogue of Printed Books in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library V: 474; Sommervogel-deBacker, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus VIII: 1251,49; VD18 15339386.
Price: $1,650.00