Monday, February 04, 2008

Mystery: Solved!

In less than a day, the bibliographic conundrum I posted yesterday has been resolved. Behold, the power of the Internet! Credit goes to commenter Björn and to German bookseller Tobias Rinnelt for providing the key bibliographic data.

The book is Orbis terrarvm in nuce, sive, Compendium historiae civilis chronologicum in sculptura memoriali = Die Welt in einer Nuss, oder, Kurtzer Begriff der merckwurdigsten Welt-Geschichte in einer Gedächtnüs-hülfflichen Bilder-Lust / ausgefertiget durch Christoph Weigeln, Kupfferstechern und Kunsthändlern in Nürnberg, der Kais. Reichs-Post über wohnhafft. [Nuremberg : Christoph Weigel], anno 1722.

WorldCat shows copies at Yale, Princeton and the University of Illinois. Yale's collation of the book is "19, [1] p., [48] leaves of plates : ill. ; 21 cm. (4to)" (which means that our copy is missing the front matter and possibly four leaves of plates).

Christoph Weigel (1654-1726) was a German engraver, publisher and cartographer. Also see his German Wikipedia page (translated here).

Thanks again to Björn and Tobias Rinnelt for their kind assistance. I declare this case closed.