[Rarebooks] Offering: The first notable work on Egyptology, 1669.

[Michael John Thompson]

Offering:

PIGNORIA, Lorenzo.

MENSA ISIACA, Qua Sacrorum apud Ægyptios ratio & simulacra subjectis 
tabulis æneis simul exhibentur & explicantur. Accessit ejusdem authoris de 
Magna Deum Matre discursus, & sigillorum, gemmarum, amuletorum aliquot 
figuræ & earundem ex Kirchero Chifletioque interpretatio. Nec non Jacobi 
Philippi Tomasini Manus ænea, & de vita rebusque Pignorii dissertatio.

Amsterdam: Andreas Fries. 1669.

Third (and best) edition. Small quarto. Contemporary full calf, the spine 
with raised bands and decorated gilt in compartment, gilt titles. Extra 
engraved title page, [10], 96 pp., [1 plate + 11], [7 +1 plate], 96 pp. 
With three engraved title pages [as well as the preliminary extra engraved 
title leaf], plus 9 full-page engraved plates, title vignettes, initials, 
tail-pieces, and numerous intaglio illustrations in the text. Considered to 
be the first notable work on Egyptology. "Mensa Isiaca", the Bembine Tablet 
of Isis, discovered during the sacking of Rome in 1527, sold to Cardinal 
Bembo, a celebrated antiquary of the Republic of Venice. One of the most 
celebrated of Egyptian antiquities, the Bembine Tablet resides today in the 
museum in Turin. It has long been considered a key to the mysteries, 
occultists as great as Eliphas Levi have attempted to decipher it. Levi 
considered it to be a key to the Tarot. It is thought by many to be some 
sort of initiation altar. This is the best and most complete edition of the 
first work on the Bembine tablet, initially issued in 1605 under the title 
VETUSTISSIMAE AENEAE SACRIS AEGYPTORUM. The author, Pignoria, examened the 
Tablet while it was in the possession of Cardinal Bembo, and he believed it 
to be a representation of sacrificial ceremonies according to Ancient 
Egyptian rites. The MENSA ISIACA is here bound with Pignorio's MAGNAE DEUM, 
an essay on the Goddess or great mother of the Gods(first published 1623) 
and Jacobo Philippo Tomasino's MANUS AENEAE CECROPII VOTUM,  which is 
paginated along with the MAGNAE DEUM but has a separate engraved title page 
(as does the MAGNAE DEUM).  This copy is apparently lacking the folding 
plates, various auction records call for up to eleven folding plates; there 
are no folding plates in this copy. The plates which are present, however, 
are beautiful specimens, executed in the best style by Enea Vico. Head of 
spine slightly cracked, and with light wear to the edges of the binding but 
altogether a solid very good copy, quite clean and attractive.

$450.00 US.

Terms: as usual.


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Michael John Thompson
Member, ABAC / ILAB
5275 Jerow Road
Hornby Island, BC
Canada V0R 1Z0
250-335-1182

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