This elegiac title page introduces 8 leaves of engravings and 2 pages of printed text, reveals a poignant personal story and is the occasion for another blog on the theme of Enduring Classics. Lucernae veterum was was published, presumably in Nuremberg, on 9 February 1653 and records the death in Lyons on 13 January 1653 of Wolfgang Ambrosius Fabricius. The pamphlet was published by his father, the prominent Nuremberg physician Johann Georg Fabricius, who relates that his son had been studying in Italy and France and gathering examples for his University of Basel dissertation on ancient oil lamps. The plates illustrate lamps used by ancient Romans, Egyptians Hebrews and early Christians from known published sources and from unpublished sources, including the cabinet of curiosities belonging to the Nuremberg collector Sigismund Schulius. The grieving father hoped that this material would advance the scholarly research his son was just beginning to study and also serve as a fitting memorial to him.
This pamphlet was acquired from John O’Mara Fine Books in Northborough, MA, with the George S. Mumford, Class of 1887, Fund.
[This post was contributed by William P. Stoneman, Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts]