Catalogus rarissimorum & praestantissimorum librorum qui in thesauris romano, graeco, italico & siculo continentur, secundum nomina auctorum per alphabeti ordinem digestus.

Leiden (Leidae), Apud Petrum vander Aa, Typographum Academiae, 1725. 8vo. (VIII),88 p. Vellum 20.5 cm (Details: Woodcut printer's mark on the title, it depicts Athena and Hermes, the motto is: 'Hac itur ad astra', borrowed from Seneca's 73th letter. The words that complete this saying are often forgotten: 'hac secundum frugalitatem, hac secundum temperantiam, hac secundum fortitudinem') (Condition: Vellum age-tanned. Some small wormholes in the gutter of the blank upper corner, sometimes nibbling at a letter. Pinpoint wormhole in the blank right margin) (Note: The Dutch classical scholar Pieter Burman, latinized as Petrus Burmannus, 1668-1741, was professor of History and Eloquence (Latin) at the University of Utrecht from 1696, and was transferred to Leiden in 1715. As an editor he confined himself to the Latin classics, such as Phaedrus, Horace, Ovid and Lucan. 'His numerous editorial and critical works spread his fame as a scholar throughout Europe, and engaged him in many of the stormy disputes which were then so common among men of letters. Burman was rather a compiler of editions than a critic; his commentaries show immense learning and accuracy, but are wanting in taste and judgement.' (Wikipedia 'Pieter Burman the Elder') The great powers of endurance of this manufacturer of 'Variorum editions' of classical authors, and his laborious patience have led to his being described as the 'beast of burden' of classical learning. (Sandys, vol. 2, p. 445) § This catalogue of 1725 is a proof of Burmannus' great powers of endurance and laborious patience. It is a bibliography, offering a list of the authors and works that are mentioned in Jacobus Gronovius' (1645-1716) huge thirteen volume 'Thesaurus Antiquitatum Graecarum' (1697-1702), and Johannes Georgius Graevius' (1632-1703) equally huge twelve volume 'Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum' (1694/99), and Graevius' huge 45 volume 'Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Historiarum Italiae, Neapolis, Siciliae, Sardiniae, Corsicae etc.', (1704-1725) which was continued by Burmannus after the death of Graevius. Burmannus produced the catalogue, he tells in the preface (Lectoribus s.d. Petrus Burmannus), because he felt the need, having completed the last volume of this third series to which he contributed, to produce a supplementary volume, which was to create order in the multitude of names and the farrago of titles, and to make these huge enterprises accessible. (p. *2 recto) § At the end of the preface has been printed a small advertisement of the printer/bookseller P. van der Aa, offering a complete set of the third Thesaurus for 580 guilders. The pages 84/88 are filled with another advertisement of Van der Aa: 'Catalogue de quelques livres nouveaux & autres, que Pierre Vander Aa à Leide a imprimé ou reçu de divers endroits, & qui se trouvent dans sa boutique') (Collation: *4, A-E-8, F4) (Photographs on request)