Nobilitas politica vel civilis, printed by William Jaggard, with early ownership inscription from 1620

Item Details

London, William Jaggard, 1608

Early manuscript ownership inscription on the titlepage: "Ex Libris Vincentii Burlamachii Genevensis, Londini Anno 1620." Vincent was the nephew of Philip Burlamachi, a major financial intermediary of King Charles I, who is credited with inventing the concept of a central bank. The Burlamachis were Calvinists who moved to Geneva. Ole Peter Grell's Brethren in Christ: A Calvinist Network in Reformation Europe records that Vincent traveled to London in 1620.

Full titlepage: Personas scilicet distinguendi, et ab origine inter gentes, ex principum gratia nobilitandi forma. Praeter omnium antehac, de sola theologica, aut philosophica tantum nobilitate disceptantium (civiles interim praetereuntium) conclusiones. Quo tandem & apud Anglos, qui sint nobilium gradus, & quae ad nobilitatis fastigia euehendi ratio, ostenditur. (Editet, with many notes and additions, by Thomas Milles, from the unpublished manuscript of Robert Glover). London, William Jaggard (Typis Gulielmi Jaggard: in via Barbicanea), 1608.

STC 11922

Folio, First Edition. With woodcut printer's mark on title, 9 engravings and some partly figurative, partly grotesque woodcut initials. 3 leaves, 190 pages, simple modern binding with glassine or elephant skin cover. Endpapers renewed with brownish laid paper; partly foxed and somewhat browned; waterstains on last leaf and some other pages (occasionally also a little into the text as well as into the margins of 3 plates); 4 pages reinforced in the gutter with transparent Japanese paper strip; occasionally slightly stained and finger-stained; page 169 with small ink spot in the white margin; occasionally slightly altered (small marginal tears and marginal tears); partly small crease marks in the corners; last 5 leaves (including 1 plate) with tear in the upper corner;

Engravings possibly by Renold Elstracke (See Arthur Hind, Engraving in England). 7 of the plates (1 image repeated) show nobles in their official robes (barons, dukes, the Prince of Wales, etc.); 1 plate shows Queen Elizabeth I on her throne (slightly trimmed at the side); 1 plate shows Elizabeth I on her throne and the English Parliament (slightly trimmed at the foot).

Robert Glover (1544-1588) was a senior royal official in the reign of Elizabeth I who from 1571-1588 served as Somerset Herald of Arms in Ordinary. The editor Thomas Milles (1550- 1626?) was his nephew. The printer William Jaggard (1568-1623) is best known today as the publisher of the 1623 Shakespeare First Folio.

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Literature

Ole Peter Grell, Brethren in Christ: A Calvinist Network in Reformation Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 121-122.

Arthur Hind, Engraving in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge University Press, 1952-1964), volume 2, p. 201.

A. V. Judges, A. V. "Philip Burlamachi: A Financier of the Thirty Years' War". Economica 18 (1926): 285–300.