This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/21/2022
JUSTUS, Pascasius. De Alea. Amsterdam: Ludovic Elzevir, 1642. 12mo. Engraved title by Cornelius van Dalen depicting a group of men playing dice while a woman looks on from a balcony above. Later green calf with gilt titles and scrollwork on spine (rubbing, notations, last page disbound). While traveling through Spain during the mid-16th century Flemish physician Pascasius Justus noted that while the citizens of those towns he visited lived in abject poverty they were inordinately fond of playing card games and gambling. De Alea was one of the first books ever printed to examine gambling addiction from a medical point of view rather than a moral one, which was the popular viewpoint of the time. The Elzevir family of printers were one of the most celebrated family of printers in Holland throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries, renowned for their small books and the quality printing contained therein. A similar copy of this book sold at Christie’s as part of their “Historic Cards and Games: The Stuart and Marilyn R. Kaplan Collection” sale on 20 June 2006. See Catalogue Raisonnae de la Bibliothèque Elzevirienne de feu Jules Chenu, 363.