Note 1002 — Chapter XI

This book is among the scarcest in the world, ipsa raritate rarior, as it is called by Schelhorn. Il est reconnu, says De Bure, pour le plus rare de tous les livres. It was long supposed that no copy existed except that belonging to Dr. Mead, afterwards to the Duke de la Valiere, and now in the royal library at Paris. But a second is said to be in the Imperial library at Vienna; and Brunet observes, on connoit à peine trois exemplaires, which seems to hint that there may be a third. Allwoerden, in his Life of Servetus, published in 1727, did not know where any printed copy could be found, several libraries having been named by mistake. But there were at that time several manuscript copies, one of which he used himself. It had belonged to Samuel Crellius, and afterwards to La Croze, from whom he had borrowed it, and was transcribed from a printed copy, belonging to an Unitarian minister in Transylvania, who had obtained it in England between 1660 and 1670.