Provenances: 16th C (starting with Aldrovandi)

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage. The 16th C naturalist Ulissi Aldrovandi (1522-1605), from Bologna, can be linked to item LC 379 (in our first catalogue Labore et Constantia).

This is a work devoted to archeology and Roman artefacts: Stephanus Winandus Pighius, Themis Dea, sev de lege divina. Antverpiae, Ex officina Christophori Plantini, 1568. 8°. With several woodcuts, among them of a Roman vase found in the city of Arras, linked to Cardinal Granvelle.

Aldrovandi's name can be found first on the title page. Three further entries, a few lines each, can be found on pages K3 r°( p.149), [O3] r° (wrong pagination) and P4 v°. The last two are given here (cf supra, cf infra). There's a date: 21 June 1593.Bart Op de Beeck of the Rare Books Department of the Royal Library of Belgium recently has held in his hands 24,000 copies pertaining to Jesuit collections and Louvain. The results of this study will be presented in his PhD thesis (forthcoming).

Our scope is much more modest, but soon we'll know how many of our printed books and manuscripts sport early provenances.
Here is another provenance marking (vdb, pastedown) in the same Pighius.