Beautiful work on the history of the counts of Holland and Zeeland, the first edition with fine woodcut portraits by the famous Swiss-German artist and book illustrator Jost Amman (1539-1591). The work contains biographies of each count in chronological order, starting with count Dirk I (ca. 875-ca. 923) and ending with emperor Charles V. It also includes a biography of Charles the Bold (1433-1477). Each entry is preceded by one of Amman's portraits.
"With his Principes Hollandiae, Barlandus presented a kind of national historiography in a fresh, humanist style" (Karl Enenkel). The work was intended to be easily accessible, which is why the biographies are fairly short: "the information on each count was required to be succinct, pithy and taken in at a glance. This historiographical aim determined Barlanduss methodology: what he dug up in the rambling sentences of prolix chronicles, he produced as short, carefully-worded and highly-polished humanist Latin, in a style meeting the demanding requirements of classical Roman historiography" (Enenkel). The work was quite successful, as multiple editions of it were published. The first appeared in Antwerp in 1519 by Jeran Thibauld, as De Hollandiæ principibus, the second augmented edition was printed in 1520 by Michiel Hillen van Hoochstraten. The work was expanded for the 3th and 4th edition of 1584 (Plantin, Leiden) and 1585 (our copy), and combined with Barlandus' "Catalogus" of the Utrecht bishops, which is also present here.
Hadrianus Cornelius Barlandus (1486-1538) was a champion of early Humanism in the Low Countries, a friend of Erasmus, and a professor of philosophy and teacher at the Collegium trilinguae at Louvain. He was born in the village of Baarland on the island Zuid Beveland (Zeeland), from which he took his name. Besides a number of philological works and dialogues in the style of Erasmus (Dialogi XLII ad profligandam e scholis barbariem utilissimi (1524)), Barlandus wrote a number of historical works, especially about the various provinces and counts of the Low Countries. Along with Dorpius, he became one of the most ardent supporters of Erasmus and the new learning at the famous University of Louvain, and was happy to see his merits recorded in Erasmus's Ciceronianus (1528).
With a Nazi library stamp from the Lektorat für Deutsche Volkskunde in Heidelberg on the first free flyleaf, and two contemporary ownership annotations on the title page ("Collegi. Pivion. (?) Soc. Jesu catalogo inscriptus", and "B. Fuemyol U.C.J."). The vellum is somewhat browned and creased, lacking the closing ties. The work is lightly browned and foxed throughout. Otherwise in good condition. Adams B-212; Bibl. Belgica B-258; USTC 661468; VD16 B 375; cf. Enenkel, K. "From Chivalric Family Tree to "National" Gallery: The Portrait Series of the Counts of Holland, ca. 1490-1650", in: The Quest for an Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and Architecture, vol. 60 (2018, pp. 233-301; Ward, J.P., "Hadrianus Barlandus and a Catalogue of the Counts and Countesses of Holland Published at Amsterdam by Doen Pietersz," in: Humanistica Lovaniensia 55 (2006), pp. 71-110; on Barlandus: Contemp. of Erasmus I, pp. 95-6; Meertens, Letterk. leven in Zeeland (1943), pp. 40-1; NNBW III, cols. 51-5.