4to, [14 (of 18)] - 102 ff (missing prel. quire, quires D, O and P bound in wrong order). Ornament on title. Printed within ruled border. Age-toned, some ff. soiled, initial quire cut short at top with loss of a few letters of first line of +3). Old annotations and name on title and final page. Contemporary vellum binding, marbled endpapers (loosening, stained, spine defective, other items apparently taken out of the binding)
"Not in STCN. Ref. USTC 1539929 ('lost book'), first recorded copy of a 'lost book' by Mercator, only known from the 1654 auction catalogue of the library of Adriaan Pauw. It is a re-issue (with the 18 prel. ff. newly printed) of the Evangelicae historiae quadripartita monas (Duisberg [= Cologne, G. von Kempen], 1592. This Gospel harmony was the final work of the famous cartographer and scholar Gerard Mercator (1512-1594). ""In contradistinction to all other 16th-century harmonies and synopses, Mercator's synopsis had a purely scientific, chronological purpose. By means of this synoptic presentation of the Gospels Mercator wanted to demonstrate that Jesus' public ministry had lasted at least four full years"" Ref. Henk Jan De Jonge, Sixteenth-century Gospel Harmonies: Chemnitz and Mercator (1990)"
