Commentarioli Britannicae Descriptionis Fragmentum

Additional information

First edition, in eighteenth century polished calf, gilt edge tooling, a little rubbed, upper joint cracked. Spine, raised bands, decorative gilt tooling, lacking title label, slightly chipped at head. Internally, title with small printers woodcut device, [16], 79 ff (but 78), red marbled endpapers, armorial bookplate to fpd (Maccllesfield Library), without the two final blanks, title lightly soiled, text block edges reddened, small very faint oval (Macclesfield) stamp to tp. (154*99 mm). (Rowlands-Cambrian Bibliography p24; Armitage-Origins of the British Empire p206). Scarce first edition of this history of the constituent parts of Britain, with much on the Celtic peoples of Britain during and after the Roman occupation, and containing a list of Welsh words and their English counterparts. An English translation was published the following year in 1573. Llwyd was a friend of Abraham Ortelius and prepared two maps, one of Wales and one of England, for inclusion in Ortelius's atlas.