Varia bibliographica

A CLUSIUS VARIANT

The works of Charles de 1'Ecluse, or, to give him his Latin name, Carolus Clusius, are well and at length described in the Bibliotheca Belgica (Brussels 1964-1975, vol. 3, pp. 759-784, L89-L98), and by Stephan Aumiiller in his 'Bibliographie und Ikonographie' in the Fest- schrift anläss/ich der -100 idhrigen Wiederkehr der wissenschaftlichen Tàtigkeit von Caro- lus Clusius im pannorzischcn Raum (Eisenstadt 1973, 'Burgenidndische Forschungen' Sonderheft v, pp. 9-92). Both provide lists of libraries in which copies of individual works are known to exist, and with books of such fame and splendour it can safely be assumed that other copies are to be found in many other collections. I have recently been looking at the British Library's holdings of works by Clusius pub- lished in the between 1601 and 1621, among them three copies of his Rariorum plantarum historia published by Joannes Moretus at the Officina Plantiniana, , 1601. The British Library's General Catalogue of Printed Books describes them as being equal to each other, i.e. the second and third are each called simply 'another copy' of the first. But, as is so often the case, this is not strictly true, and I wonder how many other copies scattered throughout the libraries of the world, not to mention private collec- tions, would show the same or other variations if properly examined. For this work copies are mentioned by the Bibliotheca Belgica at Amsterdam University Library, the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, University Library and the Bibliotheca Thysiana Leiden, Gouda Municipal Library, the Museum Plantin-Moretus at Antwerp, Ghent University Library, The Royal Library Brussels, Utrecht University Library, the Bibliotheca Teyleriana and the Municipal Library Haarlem, Liege University Library and Louvain University Library (which last copy was no doubt destroyed in 1914); by Aumuller at the Austrian National Library and the Botanical Institute of the University , Graz University Library and the Landesbibliothek 'Joanneum' also at Graz. Were they all inspected and found alike? The description numbered L93 of this book in the Bibliotheca Belgica may be taken as the standard form of the edition. All three copies of the British Library agree with it for the main body of the work, and this is probably also the case with all complete copies anywhere. It also contains all the preliminary and no additional matter. Such is the British Library's copy at 441.i.8.(1.) which appears from an inscription on the title-page to have been a presentation copy given by Clusius to a relative: 'Ex libris Jacobi Clusij ... ex dono auct. patricij sui Caroli Clusij an. MDCXV ... Lutetiae Parisiorum'. The recipient after Jacobus Clusius is not named which is a pity since it seems from the handwriting that part of the copious manuscript notes in this copy are probably his. It was later the property of Joseph Banks the naturalist and President of the Royal Society whose library came to the British Museum by bequest. The copy at 449.k.5.(1.), also from the library of Joseph Banks, corresponds again with the Bibliotheca Belgica's L93, but contains the 'Altera appendix ad Rariorum Plantarum Historiam' and the 'Auctarium appendicis alterius'. These, though their individual prefa- tory notes are no more dated than that of the first 'Appendix' on pp. ccliii-cclx of the book, were in fact only published in 1605 and included in the edition that year of the Exoticorum libri decem on leaves signed *6 **4 ***4(cf. Bibliotheca Belgica L94). In the case of this copy of the Rariorum plantarum historia these leaves were no doubt transferred by an owner of both works from their fortuitous to their logical place. But the General Catalogue fails to 68

mention their presence and a reader could easily be misled into thinking them last minute additions to the 1601 volume. More interesting is the difference shown by the British Library's copy at 35.g.8. which is part of the library of King George III. The Bibliotheca Belgica's standard copy ends the preliminary gathering with leaf .6 verso bearing two poems relating to Jacques de Geyn's portrait of Clusius on the plate inserted between the preliminaries and the text itself (No. 8 in Aumuller's iconography). The first poem, 'In effigiem nobilis doctissimique viri Caroli Clusii', is by Bonaventura Vulcanius; the second, 'In eandem', by Joannes ab Hoghelande. But the copy at 35.g.8. has only one of these poems on this page, and that the one by Jan van Hoghelande. It now has the title 'In Caroli Clusii A. [=Atrebatis] effigiem'. There is most likely quite a straightforward explanation for this difference. Jan van Hoghelande's poem had come in first and with it printing of the preliminaries could go ahead. After part of the run had been completed with just this poem to accompany the portrait, the other one by Vulcanius arrived at Antwerp and the page was reset to accommodate it. Both authors were then at Leiden, as was Clusius, and both were his personal friends - according to the information on Jan van Hoghelande collected by O. F. Guglia and printed on p. 7 of the 1973 Festschrift, he had met Clusius at Malines in the 1560s, long before he settled at Leiden in 1580 where in 1593 he helped to arrange the University's invitation to Clusius with whom he shared an interest in gardens. Of Vulcanius it is known that he inherited the correspondence left by Clusius which is now preserved in Library. But why should the second poem be given first place? It should hardly be seen as a value judgment on the part of the publisher who had no reason to insult the poet who had been on time. Rather should we see an aesthetic decision in the new arrangement, made to prevent the direct sequence of two poems by the same author, for on pp. *5 verso and *6 recto preceding the poem or poems relating to the portrait, there is printed a laudatory poem of 75 hendecasyllables on Clusius the man and scholar by the same Joannes ab Hoghelande. By following this with the piece by Vulcanius something like a hiatus could be eliminated. The 1973 Festschrift reprints Jan van Hoghelande's first poem on pp. 5, 6 in a very reduced photographic reproduction which is unfortunately hardly legible any more, and no refer- ence at all is made there to the same author's second contribution to the preliminaries, nor to Vulcanius and his poem. At what stage in the printing process the change from the page with one poem to the page with two poems was made is hard to determine unless one knows the size of the edition and then collates all surviving copies. I have been able to check just a few other copies. Those at the libraries of the Royal Horticultural Society and the British Museum (Natural History) in London proved to be both of the variant with the Jan van Hoghelande poem only and in both of them the portrait itself is missing. Of the three copies belonging to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, one is of the standard issue, the other two, described in the Bodleian catalogue as 'a variant, without the portrait', both have only the poem by Jan van Hoghe- lande on page *6 verso. The absence of the portrait in four out of five copies of this variant issue which I have seen is beginning to look intentional, i.e. as if the portrait had never been supplied to all copies of this issue, rather than that it should have been removed by a keen portrait collector. Again, we need far more evidence before reaching conclusions. Small as it may be, this difference nevertheless proves that printing even of a volume as carefully assembled as this one was which, as the correspondence between Clusius and Moretus published in Het Boek, 10 (1921), pp. 102-14, reveals, had been some ten or more years in the making, was not a purely mechanical exercise, but allowed alterations right until the final leaf of the preliminaries, traditionally always the last to go under the press. And the bibliographer unexpectedly finding such an as yet unobserved occurrence whether in an obscure or, as here, in a well-known book, will be tempted to repeat what Clusius says