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Eirenæus Orandus
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Alan Pritchard
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 Posted: Mon Mar 29th, 2010 04:13 pm
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Translator of Flamel (1624)

Does anyone know who he was?

The details on the title page are:

By Eirenaeus Orandus, qui est, vera veris enodans

Alan

Paul Ferguson
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 Posted: Mon Mar 29th, 2010 10:27 pm
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Alan Pritchard wrote:
Translator of Flamel (1624)

Does anyone know who he was?

The details on the title page are:

By Eirenaeus Orandus, qui est, vera veris enodans

Alan


Hi Alan,

I cannot find any evidence that he has ever been identified, but here are some random jottings:

1. Coincidentally, this is the current Rare Book Room Exhibit at the University of Illinois' website:

http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mainzv/exhibit/flamel.htm

2. The Greek epigram on the title-page is from Plato, Symposium 174B:

Agathon' epi daitas iasin
automatoi agathoi

'What if they go of their own accord,
The good men to our Goodman's board?'
[Fowler's translation]

3. The social circle around the publisher Walkley included the translator from French John Rutter (the translator of Corneille) and the translator from Latin Thomas May (Lucan, Virgil, Martial), who moved in the same circles as Sir Kenelm Digby.

4. The printer 'T.S.' was Thomas Snodham alias Thomas East.

5. The Latin epigram, 'qui est vera veris enodans' = 'who is a person who makes truths clear by means of truths'.

6. Whether the pseudonym influenced Starkey's choice of the pen-name Eirenaeus Philalethes (if that was Starkey) I know not, but this could be one line of enquiry.

7. The book formed part of the libraries of both Winthrop and Sir Isaac Newton:

http://www.videowasi.com/yt-lTaBdMreQKE/the-nostradamus-effect-isaac-newton-2060-pt1/

8. Vera Veris Enodans is, of course, an anagram of Eirenaeus Orandus.

Attached Image (viewed 721 times):

01_08.gif

Last edited on Tue Mar 30th, 2010 10:38 am by Paul Ferguson

Carl Lavoie
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 Posted: Tue Mar 30th, 2010 03:21 am
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.

With a comment like this one ...

Flamel's redirection of alchemy's traditional emphasis on the transmutation of base metals toward moral, spiritual, and philosophical transformations was fostered by the growing influence of Paracelsus in the mid-seventeenth century.

... one can infer that they didn’t buy the medieval tall tale.

 

Alan Pritchard
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 Posted: Wed Mar 31st, 2010 06:48 am
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Many thanks, Paul.

The two links were very useful.

Have you a source for Snodham's alias?

According to the invaluable British Book Trade Index, he was the adoptive son of Thomas East

see: http://www.bbti.bham.ac.uk/Details.htm?TraderID=64886

An interesting thought about Starkey

Alan

Paul Ferguson
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 Posted: Wed Mar 31st, 2010 07:35 am
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Hi Alan,

Regarding Snodham, all the library records I turned up ascribe it to him, e.g.:

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1234881/Cite


Honigmann the Shakespeare scholar also mentions it in passing:

http://books.google.com/books?id=OHY2aQ6OSaoC&pg=PA24&lpg=PA24&dq=%22thomas+snodham%22+flamel&source=bl&ots=3KlB4mmaGk&sig=UJSTCGhcXQzLhJO2grC0BxfyG3c&hl=en&ei=-OeyS7_1D8X14gaE6rnNAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22thomas%20snodham%22%20flamel&f=false


Snodham was also the most prolific lute-song publisher of his age:

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~mlo26/printers.html

Note that East is sometimes spelt Este.

Alan Pritchard
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 Posted: Wed Mar 31st, 2010 07:48 am
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Hi Paul,

I wasn't querying Snodham as the printer, but I was interested in seeing the source for your point in your first message:

4. The printer 'T.S.' was Thomas Snodham alias Thomas East.

Alan

Paul Ferguson
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 Posted: Wed Mar 31st, 2010 07:58 am
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Alan Pritchard wrote:
Hi Paul,

I wasn't querying Snodham as the printer, but I was interested in seeing the source for your point in your first message:

4. The printer 'T.S.' was Thomas Snodham alias Thomas East.

Alan


Sorry!

This alias seems well-established in early music scholarship (with which I have a tangential connection as a very bad viol player), e.g.:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:A_Dictionary_of_Music_and_Musicians_vol_1.djvu/508

and

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/3444343?lookfor=author:%22Wilbye,%20John,%201574-1638%22&offset=8&max=9

and in Vol. 16 page 329 of the DNB, available at Wikisource as Dictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_16.djvu/336

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page

which article suggests that it was not an alias as such but a retention of his step-father's name on title-pages for commercial reasons.

Last edited on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 09:37 am by Paul Ferguson

Paul Ferguson
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 Posted: Wed Mar 31st, 2010 01:00 pm
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This book by Kathleen Cohen identifies Walkley as the translator but does not provide references, see footnote 12:

http://books.google.com/books?id=s9FPVKYPirYC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=flamel+eirenaeus+orandus&source=bl&ots=IO4_5zDcLO&sig=PVknW-fJYWzjHtbRkXSFSywoSzg&hl=en&ei=2zizS4b1IIq24QbzwOSnAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=flamel%20eirenaeus%20orandus&f=false

...and see footnote 9 here for a very different explanation:

http://books.google.com/books?id=TOhajbOpKRIC&pg=PA77&dq=flamel+eirenaeus+orandus&hl=en&ei=ojqzS7_dMdCG4gbHn8DiAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=flamel%20eirenaeus%20orandus&f=false

Last edited on Wed Mar 31st, 2010 01:07 pm by Paul Ferguson

Alan Pritchard
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 Posted: Thu Apr 1st, 2010 01:37 pm
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Thank you for both those posts, Paul.

Very helpful to see a different approach to the problem.

If I may, I would like to pass the information on to the British Book Trade Index.

Alan

Paul Ferguson
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 Posted: Thu Apr 1st, 2010 01:39 pm
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Alan Pritchard wrote:
Thank you for both those posts, Paul.

Very helpful to see a different approach to the problem.

If I may, I would like to pass the information on to the British Book Trade Index.

Alan


Yes of course, please do

Paul

Paul Ferguson
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 Posted: Tue Sep 30th, 2014 03:51 am
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My attention has been drawn to the fact that the 'green man' bandeau at the top of this page of this edition of the Eirenaeus Orandus is inverted:

http://www.e-rara.ch/cgj/content/pageview/2035107

Does anyone have any idea why this might be?

Can I take this opportunity to invite anyone who has Facebook to investigate a very intriguing research group which is looking into the Green Man printer's device in a number of books of the period:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/243831572487291/


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