Praetorius, Johannes - Philologemata Abstrusa de Pollice [...] vom Diebes-Daume - Aberglauben / Okkultismus - EA - top rara - 1677

Author: Praetorius, Johannes.

Title: Philologemata abstrusa de pollice: in quibus singularia animadversa vom Diebes-Daume [...]

Publisher: Leipzig, J. Ockel (in Sagan) for E. Fiebig,

Year: 1677

Collation: 8°, with 1 title and 1 woodcut, 216 pp., parchment binding of the period

Language: German / Latin

Details:

The work, printed in 1677 in Leipzig and Sagan, “Philologemata abstrusa de pollice”, is a fascinating document of baroque polyhistorism, written by the German writer, historian, and astrologer Johannes Praetorius (1630–1680). Praetorius, known for his meticulous collections of folk beliefs, legends, and occult phenomena [e.g., Daemonologia Rubinzalii Silesii (1662) or Blockes-Berges Verrichtung (1668)], dedicates this Latin, partly German, treatise primarily to the thumb (in particular the notorious “thief’s thumb” – the folk belief that the severed thumb of a hanged thief brings luck), yet expands the investigation to a broad spectrum of contemporary magical practices (divining rods, etc.). He analyzes and refutes, from a Protestant-orthodox perspective, but deeply convinced by the reality of the devil, the superstitions surrounding gallows bones, divining rods, mandrakes, and magical cheese consumption.

The work possesses today outstanding cultural-historical significance, as it serves modern researchers as a precise ethnological archive for the mentalities of the 17th century, criminal magic, and everyday popularism.
Due to the small print run in Silesian Sagan and the destruction of many copies over the centuries, the book is extre mely rare in antiquarian trade and is considered a highly valued rarity of baroque curiosities literature, worldwide only preserved in a few research libraries in its original form.

References and condition:

VD 17 23:741244G; Dünnhaupt 3182, 58; Faber du Faur 764; Caillet 8951; Klinckowstroem 47; Sabbatini 445.

- First edition. Mixed form of the two variants: imprint not yet pasted over, custodian on p. 10 reads “sulun-”, but p. 216 without errata (cf. VD 17 3:009744R).

Spine hardly noticeably professionally renewed. Paper slightly browned, occasional minor foxing, a few pencil annotations of old hand, the printed marginalia slightly trimmed on the outside.

Good, complete copy of the very rare and sought-after title.

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Keywords: occultism, magic, fairy tales, legends, superstition, demonology, witches, devil, sorcery, Occult, Occulta