Folio. (XL),528,(4),11;(72) p., 14 engraved portraits & 8 folding historical plates. Calf 33 cm (Ref: STCN ppn 171376293; Geerebaert 137,5,II; OiN p. 359; Schweiger 2,1028) (Details: Back gilt and with 6 raised bands. Boards with double fillet gilt borders. Title in red & black. Woodcut printer's mark on the title, depicting Ceres and Flora under a palmtree (Boom means tree); the banner at their feet reads: I.V.S. A.W. H.D.B., which means: 'Johannes Van Someren, Abraham Wolfgangk, Hendrik en Dirk Boom'. Woodcut initials. 14 magnificent full-page portraits of Roman emperors engraved by A. Vaillandt, and 8 double-page battle and rural scenes engraved by I. Mulder) (Condition: Binding scuffed and scratched. Back rubbed and damaged at the head and tail. Corners bumped. Front pastedown stained, slightly damaged and with a bookplate. Faint name on the front flyleaf, small hole in somewhat soiled front flyleaf. Interior fine) (Note: The Dutch Renaissancist poet, playwright and historian Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, 1581-1647, may be considered the founder of the literature of Holland's Golden Age. His style is not easily accessible, and often shows a sentence structure derived from Latin. Around 1630 he started with his translation into Dutch of the works of the Roman historian Tacitus, 56-117 A.D. These translations of the 'Annales', 'Historiae', 'Germania' and the 'Agricola' were posthumely published in 1684 by his able biographer Geeraert Brandt, 1626-1685. Hooft, in who the genius of Tacitus had arisen, according to Brandt, was not satisfied with the previously published translations, and decided to make a translation of his own which suited the style of the Roman historian better. Hooft however never found time to publish his translation. In the preface Brandt tells that the manuscript with the translations came into his hands by chance, long after the death of Hooft. He then decided to rescue them from oblivion, and to publish them, more than 50 years after Hooft had begun to translate Tacitus. In the same year the firm of Boom brought also a cheaper and smaller quarto-edition on the market. According to Geerebaert, this folio-edition was printed first) (Provenance: On the front pastedown a woodcut bookplate of J.J.A. Poley and F. Poley-Scheele, made by the Dutch graphic artist Johan Melse (See: Johan Schwencke in 'Den Gulden Winckel 31 (1932), p. 29-30) Johannes Adriaan Poleij, 1889-1951, married Francina Scheele, born 1891, in 1915 in the Dutch city of Goes) (Collation: (a)-(c)4, (d)-(g)2; A-3N-4, 3O-6, 3P-3S4, 3T6, 3V-3X4; A-S2 (leaf S2 verso blank)) (Photographs on request) (Heavy book, may require extra shipping costs)