500 YEARS OF NUMISMATIC LITERATURE

At my request David also provided the text of the lot description from the last time Kolbe & Fanning sold a copy of the first edition of the first numismatic book. Thanks. Here's an excerpt. -Editor

Budé, Guillaume. DE ASSE ET PARTIBUS EIUS LIBRI QUINQ[UE] GUILLIELMI BUDEI PARISIENSIS SECRETARII REGII. VENUNDANTUR IN EDIBUS ASCENSIANIS. (Paris, March 1514). Colophon: Finis libri quinti & ultimi de Asse & partibus eius: Guillielmi Budei Parisien. a secretis regiis: In chalcographia ascensiana ad Idus Martias. MDXIIII. [358 pages] (7), CLXXII printed leaves [2 leaves numbered LXXIII, no LXXIIII, as issued; 2 leaves numbered CXVI, no CXV, as issued; leaf CLXV numbered CLXIIIII]; title printed in gothic letter within a superb woodcut border, with a large woodcut of Badius Ascensius’s printer’s device of a printing shop in the center; woodcut initials.

Ex John Drury Catalogue XXXII, 1978, item 28: “The rare first edition of this classic numismatic treatise which may be regarded as the first printed numismatic book.” Nearly two decades have elapsed since we have been privileged to offer a first edition of this landmark foundational work. “De Asse eiusque partibus (1514), based on the careful research of nine years, became the definitive text book for the study of Roman coinage and metrology” (Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 1300–1850, page 101). “After the publication of De Asse, Budé was celebrated as the principal French humanist, equal to Erasmus, or indeed superior” (Contemporaries of Erasmus, 1985, Volume I, pages 214–215). “[T]he greatest work on numismatics prior to [the] volume of Fulvio is the De Asse of Guillaume Budé, published in Paris in 1514.

To read the complete article, see: Bude, Guillaume (Budaeus), (1467 - 1540) De Asse et partibus euis. Paris: Jose Bade, 1516? (numismatics.org/Library/Bude)

Wayne Homren, Editor

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