Descrizione

Title printed in red and black. With engr. frontispiece by Johann Melchior Füssli, and 1 engr. folding map of Switzerland by Michael Kauffer after Christoph Weigel. 8 unn. leaves, 717 pp. (recte 709, pp. 268-277 omitted in the numbering, pp. 671-672 numbered twice), 23 unn. pp. index. 4to. Contemp. leather. Zurich, David Gessner, 1722. First edition of Johann Jakob Leu's new version of Josias Simler's main work "De republica helvetiorum" (1576). Commissioned by the publisher David Gessner, Hans Jacob Leu (1689-1768) started in 1720 with his revisions, against considerable odds since information about the regiments of the cantons were considered top secret. His aim was to continue the original text up to his own times, and to augment it with an historical part about the period from the origins of the Helvetians up to the time of Emperor Rudolf I. On the other hand he annotated the constitutional texts to conform with contemporary practice. This was to be Leu's most successful work, the only one which saw a second edition on 1735. - Fine, complete copy. - Haller IV, 409; Wyss 211; Feller/Bonjour 162 and 437; cf. M. Vogt, J. J. Leu, in: Mitteilungen Antiquarische Gesellschaft (1976), pp. 170-183; Blumer 191. HISTORY ; HELVETICA: ALLGEMEIN ;