[PINDER, Ulrich (d. c. 1539)]

This rare book is one of the earliest to be printed at a physician’s own private press. There are chapters on wine, on bathing and on playing. It also contains the first dietetic cook book. Another medical book from Pinder’s press is his Epiphanie medicorum (1506) on uroscopy. Ulrich Pinder apperas to have been born in the city of Nördlingen, where he practised as a doctor of medicine from 1484 to 1489. He was then appointed personal physician to the Elector Frederick of Saxony and in 1493 he occupied a similar position which he held until his death in the service of the city of Nuremberg. Pinder was a prominent member of the ’Sodalitas Celtica’, an association of friends of Conrad Celtis, the noted *German arch-humanist.” This association published about eleven books at the private press of Pinder, which was believed to have been located in his own house. He must have been an eminent connoisseur of art. As illustrators for his books he employed among others Lucas Cranach, Erhard Schön, Hans Schäufelein and Wolf Traut, the two latter also worked for Albrecht Dürer. Besides the medical books Pinder also published one of the most outstanding German illustrated books of the early sixteenth century, the Speculum Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, with 76 woodcuts by Hans Schäufelein and Hans Baldung Grien. It is said that this magnificent picture-book, in which Pinder created a new type of devotional book with illustrations equal to the text, caused Dürer to publish his three great woodcut series in book form. The woodcuts in the above work are ascribed to Wolf Traut who assisted Dürer in the preparation of the woodcuts for emperor Maximilian’s “Triumphal Arch”. The fine portraits of Frederick of Saxony are attributed to Lucas Cranach.

Collation: Leaves: ff (6) index; Speculum: ff (1), I - LXXIX; Compendium: ff (1), I - XIX; Phleobothomye: ff (1-19r); Tractatus: ff (19v-48). The Registrum Speculum intellectuale in front of the volume with a large woodcut portrait of Frederick of Saxony, repeated in a smaller and somewhat different version at the versos of half-titles to Speculum and Tractatus, two full-page and five smaller woodcuts with figures and 12 diagrams in the text. Double columns, initial spaces with printed guide letters. Half-title leaf to Compendium cut down probably without loss of text. Sign.: (x)6, A-N6, O2; Aa - Cc6, D2; a-h6.

Binding: Contemporary brown calf over boards, floral decorated spine, panelled sides with two floral borders, inner panel with acorns. The binding is recently restored.

Provenance: Signature of Laurentius Matthiæ Myliander(?) 1544 and the price “10 Daler Kopparmynt” on the front title (Registrum). Old marginal notes in a fine humanist hand. Traces of a library marking at head of fore-edge and a library number “LA: No.1” written by an early owner inside front cover.

References: Durling, NLM, 3653; Hagelin, Rare and Important Medical Books, KIB, 18-19. Waller 7449