Explicatio Apocalypsis Iohannis Perspicua & brevis

£4,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd

A later edition of Lutheran theologian David Chytraeus’ (1530-1600) marvellously illustrated commentary on the Apocalypse, along with Georg Aemilius’ (1517-69) Imaginum in Apocalypsis Johannis. Both works are illustrated from the same series of blocks, accomplished copies of H. S. Beham’s Apocalypse series, first printed in 1539 by Egenolph (Typi apocalypsi Ioannis depicti ), and accompanied by Aemilius’ commentary*.*This is the third edition of Chytraeus’ work, after those also printed by Kraft in 1564 and 1571 and illustrated using the same wood blocks. While the book of Revelation occupied an uncertain and much-debated place in the minds of the early Reformers, for David Chytraeus (1530-1600), student - and sometime houseguest - of Melanchthon and professor of theology at Rostock, the Apocalypse was ‘an illustration of Christ’s predictions in Matthew 24 and elsewhere in Scripture of the evils that would befall the church after His Ascension. It is both apostolic and especially important as being the sole book devoted to these evils. […] His commentary consists of the preface (dedicatory epistle), the argumentum (which includes the standard division of the book into seven visions), a list of the loci communes, a glossary, and the commentary proper’ (Backus, p.113-116). Drawn from the notes of his lectures at Rostock, where he was a lecturer in theology, Chytraeus offered the present work as ‘a way of congratulating the Swedish king on the peace of his kingdom, and on the ex

• Year: 1575

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