Description de touts les Pays-Bas, autrement appellés la Germanie inferieure, ou basse Allemagne [...].

Folio: [26]-495-[21] pp. (margin of half title underlaid, coin-sized hole in title where stamp is cut out, some larger stains in the margin of first lvs, sm. hole in blank margin of p. 130, maps of Hoorn upside down, sm. hole towards the higher gutter q6-r6, the same on lower gutter for q4-r1, some spotting and browning, some pp. cut short on top shaving the printed surface).

Contemp. mottled calf, gilt orn. spine on 5 raised bands (rebacked, joints starting to split), red edges.

Variant 2 of Plantin's French edition of a monument in the history of the Low Countries: the eloquent description of its 16th-c. towns by the Italian resident author Guicciardini (1521-1589). Complete with an allegoric. front. representing "Belgia", engr. title (version B), coats of arms of the 17 Provinces and the arms of the Duke of Anjou, another engr. front. with allegoric. border of arts & sciences and the portr. of the Duke of Anjou and 78 maps, city plans & views of Flanders (Leuven, Antwerp, Lier, Mechelen, Ghent, Bruges,...), the Netherlands (Nijmegen, Roermond, Arnhem, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht, ...) and Northern France (Lille, Douai, Tournai, Artois, Arras, Saint-Omer).
ref. Guicc. Illustr. 6, p. 40. - Voet III:1061.