Hi,
It was my birthday the other day and I was fortunate enough to acquire two books, one practical and one indulgent.
The first that I got was
Butcher’s excellent recent
work on the coinage of
Roman Syria. A huge tome packed with information on the province and luckily, being a fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society, I could purchase it for my partner to give to me at 30 % discount to soften the financial blow (and well worth the annual subscription fee to the society).
The other book my partner chose came as a
complete surprise to me. I’ve always wanted a seventeenth century numismatic book, a volume from the early days of
numismatics as a discipline. I have a number of 19th century works but, like I said above, I wanted an indulgence.
She bought for me, from my friend and fellow board member Leetoone, Charles Patin’s 1683
work Introductio ad Historiam Numismatum that was bound with Joseph Suares De Nummis Antiquis & Nummis Antiquis Dissertatio, also from that year.
The small volume is tightly bound in old leather and is just wonderful.
Patin (1633 – 1693) was a physician and scholar who bough a
collection of coins from the Comte de Brienne with the intention of drawing and publishing them. He travelled through
Germany, Netherlands,
England,
Switzerland and finally
Italy adding to
his sumptuous
collection that was said to rival the
collection of Louis XIV of
France.
Regards,
Mauseus
