Magnus, Olaus; Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus... Sic in epitomen redacta, ut non minus clare quam breviter quicquid apud Septentrionales scitu dignum est, complectatur. Antwerp, Christopher Plantin, 1558. Octavo, pp. title page woodcut printer's device, 14, 192 numbered only on one side of each page.

Bound in a 18th century vellum with title in ink on spine. The binding is tight and clean, text with light soiling of title page, early penned ownership signature on title owners book plate on paste down and notes on last end sheet. Text with minor soiling at margins. In very good condition.

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Olaus Magnus (1490-1557; Olaus Magni or Olaus Magni Gothus) was a Swedish ecclesiastic and writer, who did pioneering work for the interest of Nordic people. He had in his youth travelled through the whole of Scandinavia. During a visit to Rome the Reformation in Sweden began. Due to his affiliation with the Catholic church he remained abroad with his brother and never returned to Sweden. Both were exiled and their Swedish properties were confiscated in 1530. Olaus Magnus settled in Rome in 1537. He eventually spent the remainder of his life with the monastery of St Brigitta in Rome, where he subsisted on a minor pension provided to him by the authority of the Pope.
Olaus Magnus is best remembered as the author of the famous Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, or History of the Northern People, a work on the folklore and history of the people of Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Denmark, first published in Rome in 1555. The work was considered throughout Europe as the definitive study of Scandanavian region. Offered here is the 1558 first edition of the abridged version, edited by the well-known humanist and city clerk of Antwerp, Cornelius Graphaeus, of Olaus Magnus'  This is also one of the earliest printings by the firm Plantin. Graphaeus preferred to remain anonymous, but the present edition being the first to be published after Magnus' death, at the end of 1558, his name is mentioned on the title for the first time. The beautiful and vivid woodcuts  illustrate the way of life in Northern Europe including the mining, the way of walking on snow with snow-shoes, warfare, hunting, fishing, hunting seals and whales, sea-monsters, etc. Plantin had used for his first abridged edition a whole set of newly cut woodblocks by Arnaud Nicolai, which were made after the 1555 edition. The work is still considered to contain a wealth of information in regard to Scandinavian customs, folklore, legends and monsters.