[BINDING]. Exercitatio academica ex antiquitatibus Germanicis et Francicis de Butigulariis, praecipue iis qui Norimbergae olim floruerunt quam sub praesidio Christiani Gotlib. Schwarzii com. palat. caes. et prof. publ. a.d. viii decembr a.r.s. mdccxxiii in academico disputantium circulo as disquirendum proponit a. et r. Iohannes Hieronymus Braun. Norimbergensis.

Altorfii Noricorum (Nürnberg), Iod. G. Kohlesius, 1723. Small 4to (19.0 x 16.2 cm). Title page, [ii], 100 pp.; one engraved map of the Nürenberg area and one peculiar engraving showing a crossbowman on a beehive with two coats-of-arms: one of Crenan, Leidlarius, Eschanson and Butigul, and one engraved initial letter. Wonderful medieval-style contemporary parchment binding decorated with blind-tooled roller stamp decoration of hunting scenes including deer, birds and lions. Edges red. A most curious and probably rare book, being a thesis on apiculture and forestry containing 24 chapters and appendices written in Latin. These are followed by a "Mantissa documentorum quae ad historiam Butigulariorum item et Zeidelariorum atque Forestariorum Norimbergensium, magis illustrandam, facere possunt" - a series of documents numbered I-XVIIII [SIC] being letters in Latin and, later, High German, with Latin comments. These deal mainly with legal matters on forestry and the use of woods (known as "Wald-Ordnung"), and apiculture rights (so-called "Hönig-Geld", or "honey money") in the area around Nürnberg in southern Germany. Christian Gottlieb Schwarz (1675-1751) was a philosophy and history professor in Altdorf; Johann Hieronymus Braun was one of his students. The binding is highly unusual, and a work of art in itself. A very good, clean copy.