LXIII.

The Curiosities of the Royal Library at Dresden

476.) General Histories of Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus, according to an orderly and certain year-reckoning from the beginning of the world until our times. In this work, alongside the ecclesiastical and secular histories, the entire Cosmographia description of the world is included, as well as the customs, manners, and dress, both ancient and new, of every kingdom, land, and people; it is deduced from ancient authors found, and brought from the Latin into the German language by Heinrich Sabermehln, formerly an electoral Saxon servant in the choir, but now newly revised by M. Johann Frenzel. A manuscript in eleven volumes in folio.

At the beginning, the general history of Sabellicus, which he named Rhapsodies and divided into Enneads groupings of nine, was received very well and covered with many words of praise. However, this joy did not last long; because it was noticed that it was neither written correctly nor worked out with proper diligence, it lost much of its high regard. While it was still in good standing, the noble Elector Augustus of Saxony ordered it to be translated into German, but he did not live to see the execution of his order. Sabermehl, an unknown man, must also have

died soon thereafter, for M. Johann Frencelius, who oversaw the translation and dedicated the first three volumes to Elector Christian the First, speaks of him as a deceased person. The Supplementum supplement, which Frencelius mentions in the first dedication, and in which mention is made of the Electors Mauritius and Augustus, cannot be by Sabellicus himself, as he passed from time into eternity already in the year 1506 and concluded his history in 1503. However, it was continued by Casp. Hedio up to 1538 and by Coelius Secundus Curio up to 1560. But this continuation