1600 — Folio. 2 vols. With figural titble borders and 13 woodcuts in the text. (7), 663 [but: 661], (15) ff. (17), 546 [but: 545], (10) ff. Contemporary vellum; spines and covers attractively gilt; gilt supralibros. First edition of the collected works of the Tyrol Jesuit Scherer (1559-1605), rector of the Viennese college and a fervent preacher of counter-reformation. His polemics against Osiander, Heerbrand, and other Lutherans occasioned a long series of printed refutations. Scherer's writings prove that he was "ein rühriger, gewandter, schlagfertiger Schriftsteller [...] und sich zugleich durch einen für jene Zeit ganz vorzüglichen Stil auszeichnete [...] Darunter sind von bleibendem Werthe namentlich 'Neun und zwaintig Predigen ... von Notis, Merck- und Kenn-Zeichen der wahren und falschen Kirchen', eine gründliche, durchaus praktische, für das Volk leicht verständliche Abhandlung über die Kirche" (Wetzer/W.). Part 2 contains (at the end) the famous children's catechism. - Printed at the first and only 16th and 17th century press in Bruck an der Thaya (Louckem pod Znojmem) in Moravia, established in 1595 by abbot Sebastian II from Baden near Vienna. The printer was probably Bartholomäus Albert Fuhrmann; until the press was closed in 1608, it produced merely 22 known works. - Title page with contemp. ms. note by Johann Rupert Hegemüller, to whom the author himself had presented the volumes as a gift. Later in the collection of the Austrian local historian Candid von Engelshofen (1803-66; with his library stamp and shelfmark on title page); then in the library of the Bohemian nobleman Franz Graf Thun-Hohenstein (1809-70; with his heraldic bookplate on the front pastedown). Last in the collection of the Austrian industrialist Dr. Friedrich Petrina (1911-2004; with his etched bookplate on front pastedown). - Title page with insignificant defects to upper edge. Spine of vol. 2 with slight defects to upper spine-end; attractive giltstamping largely oxydized. Altogether a fine and clean copy with interesting provenance. VD 16, S 2677 und 2678 (pt. 2 of BSB copy incomplete). De Backer/Sommervogel VII, 761, 38 (pt. 2 incomplete: ends with p. 335). Wetzer/Welte 10, 1786. Cf. Benzing 69.
