Olaus Magnus - Historia delle genti... settentrionali. - 1565

Secrets, Monsters, and Wonders of the North: Among Witchcraft, Storms, and Forgotten Peoples
First Edition
Large full-page engraved map of Scandinavia and neighboring countries, with 467 woodcut vignettes.
The 1565 Venetian edition of the Historia delle genti et della natura delle cose settentrionali represents the first major attempt to visually translate Nordic sagas in Renaissance Europe. Resulting from the Roman exile of the great Swedish humanist Olaus Magnus, the volume gathers history, geography, folklore, superstitions, military arts, popular customs, and natural wonders of the Scandinavian peoples, creating a visionary encyclopedism that anticipates the birth of modern ethnography. The famous woodcuts, many derived from the Latin edition of 1555 but here presented in the first true illustrated Italian edition, transform the book into a symbolic treasure chest where myth and reality intertwine, from the sea infested with monsters to the arts of the Lapps, and even survival techniques in extreme lands. The work, reflecting the author's nostalgia for his lost homeland, remains one of the most powerful testimonies of European Renaissance on the cultural construction of otherness.
Market value
For sale online at EUR 10,311.68
Complete and well-preserved copies of the 1565 Venetian edition are very rare on the market. Recent prices for complete copies in good condition with well-printed woodcuts generally range between 6,000 and 12,000 euros, with higher prices for copies in contemporary binding or of significant provenance.

Physical description and condition
Next binding in parchment, rebacked in leather, signs of wear at the corners. Copy with the famous illustrative woodcut content: numerous images in the text depicting costumes, animals, sea monsters, instruments, ritual practices, and ethnographic scenes. Collation: 1 leaf; 25 numbered pages. Folio (322 x 235 mm), some reinforcements along the inner margin away from the incision, beautiful calligraphic writing with the title at the top edge.
Full-page engraved map of Scandinavia and neighboring countries, including 467 woodcut vignettes with repetitions, the printer's mark on the frontispiece and on the back of the last sheet, large woodcut initials.
Ex libris, the frontispiece, and the colophon repaired without loss of engraving. Stains and smudges on the last pages.
Sharp print, fresh papers, a good copy.

Full title and author
History of the peoples and the nature of northern things.
At the colophon: Venice, in the printing house of Domenico Nicolini, at the expense of the heirs of Luc'antonio Giunti, 1565.
Olaus Magnus (Olof Månsson, 1490-1557).

Context and Significance
This extraordinary work is conceived as a literary continuation of the monumental Carta Marina of 1539, the first modern map of Scandinavia created by a Scandinavian author for a European audience. In the Historia, originally published in 1555 in Latin, Olaus Magnus combines humanist erudition, personal memory, and popular traditions into a compendium that transcends disciplinary boundaries: it is simultaneously a geographical treatise, a folklore manual, a climatological study, a treatise on fantastic zoology, and an anthology of Nordic customs and superstitions.
The 1565 edition, the first true illustrated Italian edition, amplifies the symbolic impact of the work through woodcuts that transform the narration into a visual journey across magnetic storms, battles between monsters, shamanic rites, survival arts, and the daily life of northern peoples. Nature itself becomes a protagonist: hostile seas, endless forests, eternal ice, mythical animals, and invisible forces shaping human existence.
The work represents a crucial turning point in the history of the cultural perception of the North in Europe, anticipating the birth of modern ethnography and contributing to the spread of a Nordic imaginary that influenced literature, iconography, and humanistic studies up to the Romantic age.

Biography of the Author
Olaus Magnus (1490-1557), born in Östergötland, was a humanist, diplomat, and the last Catholic archbishop of Sweden. Together with his brother Johannes, bishop of Uppsala, he is one of the central figures of Swedish humanism. Due to the advancing Lutheran Reformation, he was forced into exile, first to Danzig, then to Venice and Rome. In Venice, he oversaw the creation of the monumental Carta Marina (1539). His literary activity culminated in the Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555), one of the richest and most evocative sources on Scandinavian culture in the 16th century.

Printing history and circulation
First Latin edition: Rome, 1555. The Venetian edition of 1565 represents the first attempt to combine the text with an organic iconographic apparatus, making it the first illustrated Italian edition. The work's popularity was significant: numerous reprints, translations, and summaries circulated in Europe until the 17th century, contributing to the formation of the mythical-scientific imagery of the North. Italian woodcuts played an essential role in spreading the most famous scenes, including the fishing of the sea monster, the Lapps traveling with reindeer, and naval battles in icy waters.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Brunet III 1302; Schwerdt II 4; cf. Mortimer Italian 270.
Olaus Magnus, History of the Northern Peoples, Rome: M. Tramezzino, 1555.
Brunet, Jacques-Charles, Manuel of the bookseller and book lover, vol. III, Paris 1861, p. 1302.
Schwerdt, C.F.G.R., Hunting, Hawking and Falconry, vol. II, London 1928, p. 4.
Mortimer, Ruth, Italian Sixteenth-Century Books, Cambridge (MA), Harvard College Library, 1974, no. 270.