Author: GOORLE, Abraham van ( GOIRLE, GORLAEUS) - (1549 - 1609 ) :
Title: Abrahami Gorlaei Antverpiani Dactyliotheca seu annulorum sigillarium quorum apud Priscos tam Graecos quam romanos usus. A Ferro aere argento & auro promptuarium. Accesserunt variarum gemmarum quibus antiquitas in sigillando uti solita sculturae.
Description: .: S.d. (Antwerpen), s.d. (after 1600,) in-4°, 195 x 153 mm, engraved title page +16 pp + 137 full page engravings (98 leaves with each two numbered and illustrated rings with seals - nr. 1 -196).; 37 leaves each with 4 seals (numbered 1-148). (total of 137 plates). Bound in 19th c.half leather, with marbled end papers. Weak joint, (upper joint broken). Title page with a horizontal tear repaired ( no loss of paper). Some pages with the usual stains...All copies are rare of this early publication on a humanistic collection of classical Roman rings. As far a we know the publisher has not been identified but the book was printed in Antwerp. Our copy lacks, in comparison with another copy we handled: the portrait, the dedication to Ernest of Bavaria, all the laudatory (from personalities of the Northern Netherlands) poems and privileges. The book was dedicated to Ernest of Bavaria, Prince-elector archbishop of Cologne, bischop of Liège, an ardent supporter of the Counter-Reformation. Gorlaeus had fled his native Antwerp as a teenager, most probably for religeous reasons. He lived in Delft where he held important political fuctions e.g. for Adolf van Nieuwenaar, stadtholder. It is conceivable that this copy, which contains the complete text by Goorle on his collection, and all the engraved plates illustrating the rings was purposely bound without the dedication and the privileges . These items would divulge the ambiguous nature of the publication (catholic & protestant). Some customers probably could not take that. From the start this was an equivocal publication, published with no date, nor a place of imprint nor a publisher's name. .

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