Malleus Maleficarum 1580

5 WS Malleus Maleficarum, tres divisus partes in quibus concurrentia ad maleficia; Sprenger, Jakob. Octavo (152x110mm) [24] 755 [42] [3 blank] pp. First Frankfurt edition, 1580

Notes:

First Frankfurt edition of the Malleus Maleficarum, also known as the hammer of witches or hexenhammer. This is the most well-known and valuable work about witchcraft ever written and a harrowing endorsement of the brutal prosecution of witches, first published in 1486. Here it appears together with four other treatises about witchcraft, by the Spanish theologian Bernardo Basin (1445-1510), legal scholar Ulrich Molitor (ca. 1442-ca. 1507), theologian and chancellor of the University of Paris Jean de Gerson (1363-1429) and German satirist and poet Thomas Murner (1475-ca. 1537). Even after others published notable works inspired by and based on the Malleus maleficarum, it remained a revered authority on the subject at and even beyond the end of the 16th century. It bears a large part of the blame for the wide-spread witch hunts and trials, lasting well into the 17th century. The present 1580 edition includes a 1729 owner’s inscription on the title-page, difficult to make out and some notes in brown/black ink: Residentio Sanctu jesu Epintio 1727 [?]; and two bookplates, one of Dr. J.B. Holzinger, a Steiermark jurist and naturalist who published a book about witches, collected books on the subject and owned the present book in 1878 (library sold at Leipzig 1912-1913) and the other of Max Dutilh (1886-1933), a Rotterdam flax merchant who bought a large part of the Holzinger library. Speculations brought Dutilh deep into debt and he committed suicide in 1933. His widow sold his library later that year.

Description:

Brown contemporary calfskin leather. Five raised bands with gilt designs and lettering on the spine. 10x50mm chip along the lower spine, bumping to the corners, creasing along the spine. Water stain on the title page and very slight browning, some foxing to the edges, still in good condition. Woodcut design on the colophon page (Dd7r), and woodcut decorated initials and tailpieces. Housed in protective illustrated clamshell.