Bernardo Cesi (Cæsius) and his Mineralogĭa: an addendum

Abstract

A careful survey of the main libraries in Italy and in other western countries suggests that the 1637 edition claimed as C by both Sinkankas (Gemology. An annotated bibliography (2 vols.). Scarecrow, Metuchen, London, p 1179, 1993) and Schuh (Mineralogy & crystallography: an annotated biobibliography of books published 1469 through 1919 (fifth PDF edition CD and e-book). The Mineralogical Record, Tucson, 2007) exists, although being indeed very rare. It is, possibly, the unique copy in the De Golyer collection of the University of Oklahoma at Norman (USA), which bears comments by an Italian owner of 1672. In addition, another 1637 copy turned out in the stacks of Biblioteca Civica Bertoliana of Vicenza (Italy). The title page of both copies shows the 1637 date printed with the same characters and bearing the same decoration figure as the 1636 edition, which splits into two A and B emissions. Thus, the same publishing company Jacob and Pierre Prost in Lyon is likely to have printed C within its own premises. Jacob Probst signed the dedication pages to Charles de Neufville, marquis of Villeroy, as he had done in the 1636 edition B emission, and neglected the dedication to Francesco I of Este, duke of Modena and Reggio, to whom the actual sponsor, the Jesuit order, had dedicated emission A. The De Golyer copy has the Approbationes by the religious and civil authorities and the Summa Privilegii as emission B had, together with six pages of the first index. By contrast, the Bertoliana copy mixes two dedications and lacks all the index pages. In both books, the 626 pages long Latin text that follows, as well as the second index, are identical to the 1636 A and B emissions. It appears that the first pages in the Bertoliana copy are a forgery made by mixing pages from other copies. Notably, the Bertoliana copy has the ex-libris of Dominic Barnabé Turgot de Saint-Clair bishop of Séez, a well-known bibliophile and book collector. This ex-libris, which is dated 1736, is likely to be a gross fake too, because the bishop died in 1727.