HUTTICH Johannes Imperatorum et Caesarum vitae, cum imaginibus ad vivam effigiem expressis. Libellus auctus cum elencho & iconiis consulum ab authore. [Relié à la suite]: Consulum Romanorum Elenchus.

VD-16, H-6474 (for both titles) ; Fairfax-Murray, 219.

First complete edition, uniting both titles Imperatorum and Elenchus.

A very fine edition, with a large woodcut frame on each title page. The numerous portrait vignettes of the emperors – 268 for Imperatorum and 84 for Elenchus – are mostly by Hans Weiditz.

The Strasbourg printer W. Kopfel or Wolfius Cephalus (active between 1522 and 1554) was the nephew of the famous reformer Wolfgang Capiton. Most of Kopfel’s typographical translations are devoted to the writings of the Reformers, a cause he embraced early on. Johannes Huttich (c. 1480-1544), humanist and antiquarian, originally from Mainz, later settled in Strasbourg, where he acquired the right of citizenship in 1525. He succeeded Materne Faber to the canonry of Saint-Thomas in this city; in 1530 he was appointed to the royal prebend until the end of his life.

“First edition with the Elenchus and first with this title. Part II, probably not issued with all copies. The title-borders and the majority of the cuts are by Hans Weiditz, more by him being in this edition than in the former ones. Several of the cuts are by two other hands. The medallions of Emperors are 268 in number (including some blanks in centres), commencing with Julius Caesar and ending with Frederick III, Maximilian I, his son Philip the Fair (1478-1506), Charles V, and Ferdinand I” (Fairfax-Murray).

Fairfax Murray notes that some illustrations of this edition are inspired by the one by Fulvius, published in Rome in 1517.

Beautiful copy with broad margins, well preserved in its contemporary portfolio binding.