Politike Discoursen, handelende in ses onderscheide Boeken, van Steeden, Landen, Oorlogen, Kerken, Regeeringen, en Zeeden (Political Discourses, Treating in Six Separate Books, of Towns, Countries, Wars, Churches, Governments, and Seas)
Leiden: Pieter Hake (Hackius), 1662. First edition. Hardcover. Quarto. [14], 516pp. Engraved title by J. Philippe, with 8 historiated border vignettes. Lettrines. Contemporary calf, gilt spine with raised bands and morocco lettering piece; edges daubed in blue and red; dentelles; marbled endleaves. Clear cello tape repairs at verso title-page (reinforcing a clean 6-inch clean tear at the center of the leaf; and along the gutter margin) and at a few outer margins. Faint marginal embrowning and occasional foxing, else a very good, amply-margined copy, handsomely bound.
Collation: *4, **3, A-3S4, 3T2 (= 265 leaves)
Rare Leiden quarto edition of this highly influencial study of political systems. “Inspired by Machiavelli’s Discorsi, De la Court wrote these maxims against monarchy. He warns against a too powerful church and factions. He prefers a richly populated city republic without restrictions on commerce by guilds or monopolies” (Klasthorst, et al.) Brother of the more famous Pieter de la Court (1618-85), and a businessman active as a supplier of raw materials to the Leiden cloth industry, “Johan de la Court (1622-60)... was an important source for the rise of the Dutch radical tradition, having developed a vigorous republican theory (much influenced by Machiavelli) in the 1650s and being the first Dutch writer to advocate a popular commonwealth, or democratic republic as the best form of state. His democratic ideas were publicized in the Consideratien van staat which first appeared at Amsterdam in 1660, with further editions appearing in 1661-2, but they were progressively diluted in the subsequent publications of his brother" (Israel, Radical Enlightenment). As Israel goes on to note: “Spinoza’s embrace of democratic republicanism owes much to the writings of Johan de la Court.”. Very Good-. Item #49155
References: Catalogus van de Bibliotheek der Vereniging het Spinozahuis, 32; J. Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 175, n. 4; 259-260; Klashorst, Blom, & Haitsma Mulier, Bibliography of Dutch seventeenth century political thought: an annotated inventory, 1581-1710, 233; Van Doorninck, Bibl. van nederlandsche Anonymen en Pseudonymen (1870), 1273: noting parenthetically the present edition, but not indicating it as a quarto. The Amsterdam edition published the same year by J. C. van der Gracht is noted as an octavo; I. W. Wildenberg, Johan & Pieter de la Court (1622-1660 & 1618-1685): bibliografie en receptiegeschiedenis: gids tot de studie van een œuvre (Amsterdam, 1986), 1061; Not in Bamberger's Spinoza & Anti-Spinoza Literature, although Pieter de la Court's pseudonymous De Jure Ecclesiasticorum (1665) is the first book listed.
Price: $1,500.00