Ioannis Basilidis magni Moscoviae Ducis vita [...] LM-52
Author: Oderborn Paul, 1556 - 1604
Title: I. Ioannis Basilidis magni Moscoviae Ducis vita, a Paullo [sic] Oderbornio tribus libris conscripta. Ad Henricum Iulium episcopum Halberstadensem.
Title in English: Life of the Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan Vasilyevich, Described in Three Books by Paullo [sic] Oderbornio. For the Bishop of Halberstadt Henry Julius.
Bound with Abdias, Praetorius (1524-1573): II. De phrasibus ebraeis commentariolus./Notes on Hebraic Phrases. / Wittenberg, Written by Heirs to John Cratonis, 1585.
Published: I. Wittenberg, excudebant Haeredes Ioannis Cratonis, 1585; II. Wittenberg, excudebat lohannes Lufft, 1561.
Format: two works in one 8 volume; 176 ll., woodcut portrait of the Tzar on title-page - 1 l., 71 ll.
Binding: contemporary limp overlapping vellum, spine painted with gilt decoration on black (painted label without the title).
First edition extremely rare of the earliest biography of Ivan the Terrible (Moscow, 25th August 1530-18th March 1584).
This biography of Tzar Ivan IV Vasilyevich was written by a contemporary author and was published one year after his death. Ivan's reign saw the great enlargement of Russian boundaries and the transformation of Russia into a multiethnic empire, with a deep affirmation of monarchy, a reduction of the influence exerted by Boiardi and a strong alliance with orthodox Church so that it was possible to look at Moscow as at the third Rome. The third part describes the Russian army's defeats in Livonia. The second work, second edition of the "De phrasibus ebraeis commentariolus", is a collection of sentences in Latin from Bible by Abdias Praetorius, theologian and professor of Hebrew at Frankfurt, friend of Melanchthon.
Lutheran pastor Paul Orderborn (~1555–1604) was a preacher in the Lutheran community of Vilnius from 1578, participated in the battles of the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Stephen Bathory, and later became a priest in Kaunas. It was there that he wrote the biography of Ivan IV the Terrible, Life of the Grand Duke of Muscovy Ivan Vasilyevich. The book is considered to be the first biographical novel in the literary history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Orderborn based it on his own impressions and the testimony of participants in the Livonian war, envoys to Moscow from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and others. The book became popular and was republished in Latin in 1594 and 1600 as well as translated into German. This is a very rare first edition. The book is bound with Notes on Hebraic Phrases (De phrasibus ebraeis commentariolus) by German Reformat theologian Abdias Praetorius (1524–1573), published in 1561 in Wittenberg.
Reference: "The Collection of Lawyer Jaunius Gumbis: the Past Preserved in Books". Museum and Collector - 7. Vilnius: National Museum of Lithuania, 2018, p. 239.
Published: "The Collection of Lawyer Jaunius Gumbis: the Past Preserved in Books". Museum and Collector - 7. Vilnius: National Museum of Lithuania, 2018, p. 238-241.
Exhibitions: "The Collection of Lawyer
Jaunius Gumbis: the Past Preserved in Books", September 3, 2018 – October
21, 2018.