Eberhard Werner Happel (ed.):

Kern-Chronica der merckwürdigsten Welt- und Wunder-Geschichte. Parts 1-2.

Hamburg, Wiering, 1690. 8vo. (Not collated.) With numerous engraved portraits and plates, some folding.

Bound in 4 volumes, covering the period 1618-1689. Contemporary vellum, worn. Hand-written titles on spines, ties missing, one spine damaged at head, some slight worming to endpapers. Contents with some slight wear and browning. Old ownership inscriptions on titles, round stamp of Alexander Erba Odescalchi.

The first two parts (of 7) of this rare periodical from the ”incunabula period of periodicals”, published by the polymath Happel (1647-1690). Included are also further writings from the Wiering publishing house, around 1685, including an account of Siam.

Alexander Erba Odescalchi will have acquired these volumes due to his interest in his own family history. Among the most prominent members of this noble family was Pope Innocentius XI, born Benedetto Odescalchi. An engraved portrait of the Pope is present in this periodical, together with a folding plate depicting the unusually large kidney stones which were extracted

during his autopsy. Innocentius XI suffered from massive uric acid kidney stones (urolithiasis) that plagued him for the last seven years of his life and ultimately contributed to his death in 1689.

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