GOLTZIUS, Hubert.

by Hubert Goltzius

£5,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

Rare first edition in German of the painter Hubert Goltzius s lives of the ancient and modern Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Charles V and Ferdinand II, beautifully illustrated with over one hundred chiaroscuro woodcuts derived from portraits on coins, published in the same year as editions in Latin and Italian. Chiaroscuro printing involves one or more coloured woodblocks, relief being achieved through the use of the natural white of the paper to provide highlights. Goltzius was the first artist from any country to adapt the chiaroscuro print successfully to the requirement of full-scale book illustration (Bialler, p. 30). This was his earliest published work of numismatics, and was, in its size and scale ‚Äö without precedent in the field of numismatics (ibid., p. 31). Goltzius's catalogue inhabits a common trope employed by countless humanists and antiquarians of the period: adjoining the Habsburg dynasty of Holy Roman Emperors to an historical account of the ancient Roman emperors. Goltzius, however, added the element of basing portraits of the emperors on their portrayals on coins, his putative numismatic evidence (which cannot have always been strictly accurate) lending credence to the idea of a continuous Roman imperatorial lineage. Initially the series was to include 148 medallions, but a number remained uncompleted for the first three editions. In the Latin edition, presumably the earliest, Goltzius employed an etched line block to provide the outlines, and on

• Binding: Hardcover

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