The ‘Hammer of Witches’
Malleus Maleficarum.
[Speyer: Peter Drach, ca. 1492-1495].
Price: $87,500.00
About the item
The third Drach edition. 190 leaves. Collation: a6 b–d8 e–z6 A–E6 F–G8. 1 vols. 4to. Nineteenth-century green quarter leather and marbled boards. Title leaf mounted, with some small marginal repairs. Early ownership signature of Valentino Mu—, Stolberg, and his manuscript annotations and glosses, especially in first third of text. Last leaf with annotations in an eighteenth-century hand, the story of Melusina, with a sketch of her taking flight. ISTC ii00167300; GW M12480; Goff I165 (dated 1492?); Hain-Copinger 9240; BM 15th cent., II, p. 498 (IA.8634); Polain 2123; IGI 5183; BSB-Ink I-228. Provenance: bookseller's label on front paste-down: B. Westermann & Co. 440 Broadway New York; Rev. Edwin A. Dalrymple; Maryland Diocesan Library; General Thological Seminary.
Item #371001
Early edition of the “the most important and most sinister work on demonology ever written. It crystallized into a fiercely stringent code previous foklore about black magic with church dogma on heresy, and, if any one work could, opened the floodgates of the inquisitorial hysteria … [it was] the source, inspiration, and quarry for all subsequent treatises on witchcraft.” — Robbins, Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology.
The Malleus Maleficarum was first printed by Peter Drach, and is dated to circa 1487 as some copies include a separately printed approbation dated 19 May 1487. A second edition was printed before August 1490. This is the third edition produced by Drach, and is dated conjecturally 1492 to 1495. Two editions were printed in 1494 (by Koberger in Nuremberg and Koelhoff in Cologne).
The book was published and republished in at least 13 editions up to 1520, then revived from the late 16th century, undergoing at least 16 editions between 1574 and 1669, as well as numerous editions in German, French and English.
