Rerum Belgicarum Libri Quatuor. In Quibus Ferdinandi Albani Sexennium, belli Belgici principium. Additur Quintus, seorsim antea excusus, in quo Induciarum Historia; & eiusdem belli finis.

Leiden:: Apud Ludovicum Elzevirium (Louis Elzevier), 1614., 1614. 2 works in 1 volume. Small quarto (approximately 8.25 x 6.25 inches; 208 x 160 mm.). [8], 319, [1, blank] (pages 212, 213, 216, and 217 mis-numbered 202, 203, 206, and 207); [10], [2, blank], 67, [1, blank] pp. Signatures: )(4, A-Z4, Aa-Rr4;

6, A-H4, I2. Errata. First work with title-page printed in red and black with woodcut device; decorative woodcut initials. Second work with typographic ornament on title; decorative woodcut tail-pieces and initial; historiated woodcut initial; printer's imprint at foot of page 67: "Matriti, Apud Joannem Flandrum, Anno M. DC. X." In the Del Rio, the Approbation by Spanish Jesuit Diego Daca, or Daza (1579-1623), once covered by paper in this copy, has been exposed revealing the text [apparently contemporary with imprint]. A small clipped manuscript leaf is mounted to the foot of the title: "De Meursii rarum belicarum historia, qua . . . Halens. Collect. Libr. Rarior . . . p. 33. Manuscript leaf on mourning stationery paper laid in (relating to this volume), with an additional 2-line manuscript written on the ffep facing the title. / Contemporary yapp vellum over boards, spine lettered in early black ink, edges stained dark green; rubbed, some scuffing at lower at extremity, covers mildly darkened and soiled. Short closed tear in the text on Q4 (pages 127/128) in the Meursius. With the book label of the Bibliotheca Reuvensiana. A very good copy. [Bound with:] [Martin Antonio Del Rio]. Rolandi Mirtei Onatini Commentarius Rerum in Belgio gestarum a Petro Henriquez de Azevedo Comite de Fuentes, &. Ad Jonnem Fernandium Velasquium, magnum Castella Comestabilem, &c. Madrid: Ex Typographia Regia, 1610. / FIRST EDITION OF MEURSIUS; FIRST EDITION IN LATIN OF DEL RIO (first published in Spanish in 1601). The text includes a biography of Alba and information relating to the history of Belgium and the Netherlands, including especially the eighty years' war that lasted 1568-1648. This edition was printed under the guidance of Louis Elzevir. / Skovgaard-Petersen offers a treatment of Johannes Meurius: born in 1579 near the Hague, at the age of 12 he entered the University of Leiden in 1591. He soon became an editor of classical texts and managed to familiarize himself with the "courts and libraries of the greatest princes in the Christian world," busy collecting material for his scholarly editions. He took a PhD in law from Orleans in 1608. From 1610-24, including the period this book was published, he was professor at Leiden. His production was considerable, "his achievement was so significant, that while he may have had equals among his colleagues, surely no one surpassed him . . . [it should be] regarded . . . that he alone, . . . has edited more Greek authors, previously unpublished, than all the other professors [at the University of Leiden]. . ." "It was followed by Rerum Belgicarum liim quatuor (1614), on the regime of the duke of Alba 1567-73, to which was attached a fifth book containing a revised version of the Rerum Belgicarum . . ." He died in 1639. See: Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian IV (1588-1648): . . . pages 61-63. / "The learned antiquarian, Joannes Meursius (1579-1639), edited Lycophron (1597) and Caro De agri cultura (1598), and became professor of History and of Greek at Leyden in 1610. During the fourteen years of his professorial activity, he produced a standard edition of Hesychius of Miletus (1613), and the editio princeps of the Elementa Harmonica of Aristoxenus (1616); he also edited the Timaus of Plato with the commentary and translation of Chalcidius (1617). He wrote much on the Antiquities of Athens and Attica, and the vast amount of rather confused learning that he has thus collected has been largely utilised by later writers on the same subject. He commemorated the first jubilee of Leyden by producing, under the name of Athenae Batavae, a small quarto volume in two books, (1) a history of the Town and University, and (2) a series of biographies of principal professors (1625). In [1625] he accepted the professorship of History at the Danish university of Soroe, where he passed the last fourteen years of his life. His Opera omnia were published in 12 folio volumes at Florence in 1741-63." -- Sir John Edwin Sandys, A short history of classical scholarship from the sixth century . . . Cambridge, 1915, p. 243. / Fernando Alvarez de Toledo duque de Alba, lived 1507-1582. He was known as the finest general of his time, and maybe one of the best ever. "Alba especially distinguished himself in the conquest of Tunis (1535) during the Ottoman-Habsburg wars when Carlos I defeated Hayreddin Barbarossa and returned the Spanish Monarchy to predominance over the western Mediterranean Sea. He also distinguished himself in the battle of Muhlberg (1547), where the army of Emperor Charles defeated the German Protestant princes. He is best known for his actions against the revolt of the Netherlands, where he instituted the Council of Troubles, and repeatedly defeated the troops of William of Orange and Louis of Nassau in the battle of Jemmingen (1568) during the first stages of the Eighty Years' War. He is also known for the brutalities during the capture of Mechelen, Zutphen, Naarden and Haarlem. In spite of these military successes, the Dutch revolt was not broken and Alba was recalled to Spain. His last military successes were in the Portuguese succession crisis of 1580, winning the Battle of Alcantara and conquering that kingdom for Philip II. Spain unified all the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula and consequently expanded its overseas territories." -- Wikipedia. PROVENANCE: The Bibliotheca Reuvensiana is the personal library of Caspar Reuvens, or in Latin = Casparus Jacobus Christianus Reuvensius (1793-1835). See: Conardus Leemans, Bibliotheca Reuvensiana, Lugduni Batavorum, Luchtmans, 1838. Item 686 (p. 156). Reuvens was educated in Paris and Amsterdam. He took his doctorate in 1813, becoming a full professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Harderwijk. He is considered the founder of classical archeology in the Netherlands and was the founding director of the Museum Antiquarum in Leiden, the later Rijksmuseum van Oudheden. He is also a pioneer in the field of papyrology. He passed away of a heart attack at just 42 years of age. REFERENCES: Palau 167204; Sandys, p. 243; Simoni M107; Willems 92.