MAGNUS Olaus Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus.

Voet, 1811 ; Sorgeloos, 343 ; Adams, M-143.

First edition of this abridgement – the original was published in Rome in in-4 format in 1555 with a slightly different title – of the famous publication by Olaus Magnus on the history of the northern countries, compiled by the Flemish humanist and philologist Corneille de Schryver, known as Grapheus d'Alost (1482-1588).

First edition of the illustration, which includes 135 charming woodcut vignettes by Anton Sylvius, alias Bosche, which are said to be reduced copies of those in the original edition. The figures mainly depict scenes of manners and daily life. Some sixty of them relate to hunting and fishing and depict the wild animals of these lands: men harpooning salmon and seals, netting eels, angling under the ice, monstrous fish, bears, wolves, reindeer, lynx, martens, beavers and more. This series of engravings is an important iconographic contribution to the history of hunting and fishing practices in Scandinavia.

This work by the Swede Olaus Magnus (1490-1557), Archbishop of Uppsala who lived in exile between Venice and Rome, is a precious document on the customs of the inhabitants of the North. In it, the author describes in minute detail the life of these peoples, their clothing, superstitions, legends, trade, the climate of these regions, and so on. Adams mistakenly catalogues Bellegarde's Antwerp edition as 1557 – we now know that it was published in 1562. It is therefore later than Plantin's edition.

Small stains at beginning and end, title with erasures and ink stains and with small restorations in margins; endpapers renewed.