Lebaldt von Lebenwaldt, Adam
Sarleinsbach 1624 – 1696 Leoben
Adami a Lebenwaldt… Erstes Tractätel Von deß Teuffels List und Betrug In der Hebreer Cabala Mit einem Vorbericht Wie der Teuffel bey dem Menschlichen Geschlecht auff unterschidliche Weiß eingeschlichen — Andertes Tractätel Von der List und Betrug deß Teuffels In Der Astrologia Iudiciaria, Oder zu vil Urtheilenden Stern-Kunst In welcher klar vor Augen gestellet wird daß solche Wissenschaft Grund-loß und von deß listigen Teuffels Schuelen ihren Ursprung nehme — Drittes Tractätel Von deß Teuffels List und Betrug In den Vier Elementen und vil andern aberglaubischen Dingen — Vierdtes Tractätel Von deß Teuffels List und Betrug In der Falschen Alchymisterey Und Goldmacher-Kunst Darinnen außführlicher Bericht gegeben wird von den so genandten Fratribus Roseae Crucis oder Rosen-Creutzern und Theophrasto Paracelso — Fünfftes Tractätl Von Deß Teuffels List und Betrng In der Berg-Ruethen Und Berg-Spiegl Mit einem Vorsatz deß Menschenspiegls nemblich von der Physiognomia, Metoscopia, und Chiromantia — Sechstes Tractätl Von deß Teuffels List und Betrug In der Waffen-Salben Und so genandten Sympathetischen Pulver — Sibentes Tractätl Von deß Teuffels List und Betrug In der Transplantation Oder Uberpflantzung der Kranckheit — Achtes Tractätl Von deß Teuffels List und Betrug in Verführung der Menschen zur Zauberey Allwo auch von dem Antichrist als letzten Zauberer gehandlet wird mit dem Beschluß wie man sich vvr deß Teuffels List Anfechtung und Verführung bewahren solle.
Salzburg, Johann Baptist Mayr, 1680–1681
Eight parts in one volume, duodecimo (125 × 75 mm), i: (46) ff. signed A–C12 D10 and paginated (12) 1–80; ii: (50) ff. signed A–D12 E2 and paginated (4) 1–95 (1); iii: (72) ff. signed A–F12 and paginated (2) 1–140 (2); iv: (69) ff. signed π1 (= title-page; verso blank) A–E12 F8 (blanks F6, 7; errata printed on F8 recto and verso) and paginated (2) 1–129 (7); v: (65) ff. signed A–E12 F6 (–blank F6) and paginated (2) 1–137 (i.e. 127, pp.71–80 passed over in numeration) and (1); vi: (99) ff. signed A–H12 I4 (–blank I4) and paginated (2) 1–198 (i.e. 196, pp. 95–96 passed over in numeration); vii: (84) ff. signed A–G12 and paginated (2) 1–166; viii: (183) ff. signed A–P12 Q 4 (–blank Q4) and paginated (4) 1–362. The printer’s woodcut device appears on all eight title-pages.
provenance faded ink stamp Fürstlich Solms-Lich’sche Bibliothek zu Lich (Erstes Tractätel, folio A2 recto) — Bonhams, ‘Printed books, maps, manuscripts and photographs’, London, 13 November 2007, lot 651
Apart from a few short tears or paper defects in fore margins of Achtes Tractätl repaired by the binder; in fine state of preservation.
binding contemporary vellum; title lettered on spine; red edges.
Only edition of ‘On the Cunning and Treachery of the Devil’, a series of eight tracts addressed to a simple audience in which the author condemns in turn cabalists, casters of horoscopes, alchemists and Rosicrucians, practitioners and believers in the divining rod, weapon-salve cures (cure by sympathy), and ‘transplantation’ (causing or curing illness at will), together with magicians of all kinds. The vituperative attack – on all of Agrippan magic with the exception of Paracelsus, who is defended perhaps out of local patriotism (Vierdtes Tractätel, pp.80–110) – suggests the great strength of popular belief in superstition in Steiermark, and the new-found determination of established religion to combat it.1
The elevated social status of the author made him an ideal instrument of the Counter-Reformation. After obtaining his medical degree at Padua, Lebenwaldt became physician to the abbot and monks at Benediktinerstift Admont (1655–1671), and latterly also to the dukes of Styria. In recognition of these services, he was created a councillor in Styria (1656), Count Palatine (1659), and apostolic notary (1665–1677). In later life Lebenwaldt gave up medicine and devoted himself to scholarly and literary pursuits, recognised by his appointment in 1679 as imperial poet laureate,2 and reception in 1683 into the Leopoldine academy ‘Societas naturae curiosorum’ in Breslau.
The first tract of the eight tracts in our volume, entitled Der Hebreer Cabala, and setting the pace with its intemperate and pejorative language suggesting the Cabala was a kind of Jewish plot,3 is dedicated jointly to Christoph Jäger and to Franciscus, Abbot of Benediktinerstift St. Lambrecht; the Andertes Tractätel is dedicated jointly to Fridericus Schumius and Albertus, Abbot of Benediktinerstift Admont; the Sibentes Tractätl to Henricus Probst; and the Achtes Tractätl to Ludwig Frantz von Rehling (the other tracts have no dedications).
The Achtes Tractätl is recorded in copies dated 1681 and 1682 and the Erstes Tractätel and Vierdtes Tractätel are known with the title and other pages in two states (variants catalogued by Vd17), suggesting that some sheets had to be reprinted for the publisher to make complete copies or sets of the tracts.
Eight copies of the complete work (some imperfect) are known to the writer
● Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek / Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, 32.8.3081–1 (parts 1–8) ● Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek / Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Theol. Jud. 278, misc.1 (parts 1–8) ● Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek (parts 1–8) ● London, British Library, 8632.aa.13 (parts 1–8)4 ● Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Phys.m. 134 m–1/8 (parts 1–8) ● Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, R-41131 (parts 1–8) ● Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, +69.N.70 (apparently parts 1–8) ● Weimar, Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, F 158 (parts 1–8)
and six incomplete sets
● Bethesda, National Library of Medicine, WZ 250 L442t 1681 (parts 6–8 only)5 ● Glasgow, University of Strathclyde, Ferguson Ak-g.34 (parts 1–4 only)6 ● Halle, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt, AB W 5122 (1) (parts 1–2, 4 only) ● Hartford, CT, Trinity College, BF1546. L43 1680 (parts 1–7 only) ● Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Bibl. Sud. 1168–1/4 (parts 1–4 only)7 ● Salzburg, Stiftsbibliothek St. Peter, SPS-13870 (parts 1–5 only)
references Georg Kloss, Bibliographie der Freimaurerei (reprint Graz 1970), no. 2628; Frederick Leigh Gardner, A catalogue raisonné of works on the occult sciences. Volume i: Rosicrucian books (London 1903), p.42 no. 290 and Gardner’s Bibliotheca Rosicruciana (second edition London 1923), p.52 no. 370; August Wolfstieg, Bibliographie der freimaurerischen Literatur (Burg b.M. 1912), pp.954–955: ‘Die sogenannten mittleren Rosenkreuzer’, no. 42467; Hugo Hayn, Bibliotheca Germanorum Erotica & Curiosa, edited by Alfred N. Gotendorf (Munich 1912–1929), iv, p.87: “So vollständig ist dieses höchst interessante Werk sehr selten!”; Arthur Jackson Ellis, The Divining Rod: a history of water witching, with a bibliography (Washington, dc 1938), p.29; Hans Henning, Faust-Bibliographie (Berlin & Weimar 1966), p.243, no. 1895 (references in Achtes Tractätl pp.46–47, 74–75, 165–166, 219)
1. In the years 1546–1746, some 820 persons in Steiermark were indicted as witches or magicians; see Verena Perlhefter, Die Gestalt des ‘Hexenjägers’ des 17. Jahrhunderts und sein Gesellschaftliches und Politisches Umfeld: Adam Lebaldt Von Lebenwaldt, Matthew Hopkins und Cotton Mather, Leben, Werke, Werdegänge (Frankfurt am Main 2003), pp.40–86, with a lengthy discussion of Von deß Teuffels List und Betrug based on Elfriede Grabner, “Von des Teufels List und Betrug”. Die “Tractätel” des steirischen Ärztes Adam von Lebenwaldt als Quelle zum Volksglauben seiner Zeit’ in Zeitschrift des historischen Vereines für Steiermark 76 (1985) pp.173–191. See also E. Grabner, ‘Ein steirischer Arzt im Barock. Heilkunde und Volksglauben des 17. Jahrhunderts bei Adam von Lebenwaldt’ in Zeitschrift des Historischen Vereines für Steiermark 83 (1992), pp.355–370.
2. John L. Flood, Poets Laureate in the Holy Roman Empire: a bio-bibliographical handbook (Berlin & New York 2006), iii, pp.1106–1108 no. L–27.
3. Philip Beitchman, Alchemy of the word: cabala of the Renaissance ([Albany] 1998), p.186.
4. Catalogue of books printed in the German-speaking countries and of German books printed in other countries from 1601 to 1700 now in the British Library (London 1994), L–339.
5. Peter A. Krivatsy, A Catalogue of seventeenth century printed books in the National Library of Medicine (Washington, dc 1989), p.687 nos. 6719–6721.
6. John Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica: a catalogue of the alchemical, chemical and pharmaceutical books in the collection of the late James Young of Kelly and Durris (Glasgow 1906), ii, pp.14–15 (part iv lacking title-page).
7. Andreas Frewer, Bibliotheca Sudhoffiana: Medizin und Wissenschaftsgeschichte in der Gelehrtenbibliothek von Karl Sudhoff (Stuttgart 2003), pp.169–170 nos. 1168–1/4.