Louys du Thaoum. Le Tremble-Terre où sont contenus ses signes, causes, remedes, &.effets. Par Louys du Thoum Docteur és Droicts, & Advocat en la Cour. Bordeaux, Gilbert Vernoy, 1616. In-8°. [8]-250 pp., 2 blank leaves. Title printed in a rich framed decoration. Contemporary ivory vellum, title in ink on spine, visible seams, traces of laces.
The only edition of this unique work on the origin of earthquakes, one of the earliest on the subject. The author studies earthquakes since antiquity, their signs and omens: « Si après de grandes pluies arrive une grande sécheresse, il faut craindre un bien prochain tremblement » [If after great rains comes a great drought, we must fear a very imminent earthquake]. The table of chapters is self-explanatory: the etymology of earthquakes, their description, their causes in general, whether God is the first, whether the three highest planets, the earth, fire, water, wind, their species, signs, omens, supernatural remedies, natural remedies, the first question, the second question. The author, from Lantousque in the county of Nice, recounts a terrible earthquake in his native region in 1564, during which his mother Jeanne Fulconis « fut sauvée soubs la voute d’un degré ou escalier, avec un enfançon qu’elle tenoit en ses bras, quoy que toute la maison eust fondu sur elle, & eust accablé & tué tous ses domestiques : estant survenu ledit tremblement sur le coucher du Soleil environ l’an 1569 » [was saved under the arch of a staircase, with a child in her arms, even though the whole house had fallen on her, and had overwhelmed and killed all her servants: the said earthquake having occurred at sunset around the year 1569.] (p. 198).
Repeated red stamp of the Bibliothèque Impériale, with the black stamp of the Bibliothèque du Tribunat. (reference Ciii, n° 217), and the red cancellation stamp (double exchanged).
« The library of the Tribunat, deliberative assembly established by the Constitution of Year VIII (13 December 1799), was set up around 1800 by M. Symon, using volumes selected from the various Parisian literary repositories, therefore from revolutionary seizures. The library catalogue indicates that all areas of knowledge were covered, with an emphasis on politics, morality and legislation. When the Tribunat was abolished in 1807, the Imperial Library was authorised to take the books it lacked from its library, amounting to several thousand volumes. These volumes were integrated into the general collections; they can be identified by the presence on their title page of a stamp in the name of the Tribunat, often in bold black ink and poorly applied [which is the case here]. » (Source “Bibliothèque nationale de France”).
Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, VI, 4252 [at Du Thoum] ; Goldsmith, A Short Title Catalogue of French-Books, D1316 ; I. Beauregard, Catalogue d’une magnifique collection de livres, choisis, curieux et rares, La Haye, 1769, p. 177, n°864, « rare ».
A few stains, including on the upper white endpaper and on the title, minor worm damage (167 at the end), minor damage to the spine and upper head, and to the upper corner of the lower cover.
A good copy, however, in its original binding. Rare.
Sold