TRACT ON TRIREMES
FROM THE LIBRARY OF PIERRE-DANIEL HUET
SCHEFFER, Johannes Gerhard.
Constantini Opelii de fabrica triremium Meibomiana epistola perbrevis ad amicum.
‘Eleuteropoli’ [Freistadt?], 1672.
4to, pp. [2], 34; woodcut initial, head-piece; browned; otherwise good in contemporary calf over thick boards, rebacked with new lettering-piece, board edges gilt, red edges; a little marked and worn; gilt arms of Pierre-Daniel Huet to covers, shelfmark labels to front pastedown, printed slip pasted at foot of title-page ‘Ne extra hanc Bibliothecam efferatur. Ex obedentia.’, ink inscriptions to front endpapers (including ‘D. de S. 607’) and at head of title, nineteenth-century bookplate of ‘Henri Lambert avocat Versailles’.
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Constantini Opelii de fabrica triremium Meibomiana epistola perbrevis ad amicum.
First edition of this treatise on the ancient oar-driven warships known as triremes by the noted German philologist and archaeologist Johannes Scheffer (1621–1679), written as a critical response to the De fabrica triremium liber of Marcus Meibom, which had appeared in Amsterdam the previous year.
The trireme was the standard warship of the classical world for much of the time from the fifth century BC to the fourth century AD, its principal weapon being a bronze ram. The Athenians, whose ships could accommodate a crew of two hundred, were the finest practitioners of trireme warfare. The exact arrangement of the oarsmen has long been a subject of controversy and is dealt with here.
Scheffer had a longstanding interest in ancient ships, one of his earliest works being his Dissertatio de varietate navium of c. 1650. He had moved to Sweden in 1648, attracting the favour of Queen Christina, who appointed him professor of eloquence and politics at Uppsala University, where he also served as librarian.
Provenance: from the library of the distinguished French savant and bishop Pierre-Daniel Huet (1630–1721), famous as the originator of the Delphin Classics, for his influential attacks on Descartes, and for his support of fideism. He amassed a library of some 8000 books, many now preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. His label appears at the foot of the title with the instruction ‘not to be removed from this library’.