BUDE (Guillaume)
De asse, et partibus eius, libri V. Lyon, Sébastien Gryphe, 1550. Large volume in-8, brown calf, framed with filets and roulette, fleuron in the centre, traces of binding, author's name and title handwritten on the side edge (Binding of the time).
Baudrier, t. VIII, p. 242.
The most famous book of the philologist and humanist Guillaume Budé (1468-1540), originally published in 1514, dealing with ancient coins and weights and measures.
Printed in italic type, typographical mark of Gryphe on the title and on the verso of the last leaf
A precious copy bearing the autograph signature of Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598), the famous Flemish cartographer, on the title.
The cosmographer, best known for his Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570) - considered to be the first modern atlas -, was also a very active collector and antiquarian in his time. Ortelius' fame is not only based on the Theatrum orbis terrarum. It was also his activities as a collector and antiquarian that made him known to his contemporaries. He passed on, received, exchanged, sold and bought the most diverse objects, and not only maps and globes. His correspondence is full of requests and offers concerning medals, antiques, stones, fossils, books, catalogues, manuscripts, drawings, inscriptions, autograph letters, information. [...] Introduced to numismatics by Hubert Goltzius, Ortelius assembled a collection of Greek and Roman coins considered to be one of the most important of the time, and even a model to be emulated. In 1573, he published a study (Deorum Dearumque capita ex vetustis numismatibus in gratiam antiquitatis studiosorum effigiata et edita), illustrated by Philippe Galle, devoted to his rarest coins. His collection brought him into contact with several leading scholars, such as Le Pois, Orsini and Sambucus. But above all, it is exploited in historical cartography: Ortelius often inserts, in the texts placed on the reverse side of the maps, reproductions of coins from his collection, which come to attest by the image, so to speak, the truth of his story (Jean-Marc Besse, "Historiae oculus geographia: cartography and history in the Parergon of Ortelius" in Écrire l'histoire, 4, 2009, pp. 137-146).
It does not seem insignificant, therefore, that Ortelius possessed the most important and erudite of Budé's books, which were a great success among Renaissance scholars and literati.
It is estimated that his library contained no less than 3,500 books and nearly 6,000 maps, making it one of the most important of the sixteenth century (cf. Marcel van den Broecke, "Abraham Ortelius's Library reconstructed" in Imago Mundi, vol. 66, 2014).
Missing the last leaf bearing the mark. Binding roughly restored.
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