JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
It is a very uncommon sight to see a book illustrated with the self-portrait of its engraver standing next to the unbound sheets of his own (and unrelated) travel book. But so it goes, and it goes in Jean-Jacque's great 1601 Baroque illustrated work on the occult arts, Tractatus posthumus Jani Jacobi Boissardi ... De divinatione & magicis praestigiis. The book was published by Johann/Jean Theodore de Bry, who also engraved the images after Boissard's designs, who had died 14 years earlier.
De Bry--who with his brother had earlier helped his father (Theodor de Bry) with his massive work on the American Indian and travel in general--completed some 30 volumes of illustrated travel, which was a monumental achievement, even if some heaping part of his work was based on very little reality. So Johann is standing there with the family coat of arms (on the right) and the family epigram (on the left). Theodor de Bry's self portrait also makes use of the same epigram, "Nul sans soucy", or "None without worry".
[Image source: wikipedia.]
Another, earlier edition of this work is seen here, at Rara, and was formerly the copy of Carl Jung.
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