BERINGER, Johann Bartholomaeus Adam Lithographiae Wirceburgensis, ducentis lapidum figuratorum, a potiori insectiformium, prodigiosis imaginibus exornata... Frankfurt and Leipzig, Tobias Goebhardt, 1767
Folio (322 x 207 mm), pp 96 [recte 98] with engraved frontispiece and 21 engraved plates; a fine, crisp copy in contemporary quarter calf and spinkled boards, spine with compartments featuring three gilt crowns, corners a bit rubbed. £6500
Second edition, comprising the sheets of the first edition (1726) with a new title, and with the irrelevant material by Hueber discarded (see below). This is the celebrated work on Beringer's 'lying stones', a series of fake fossils planted by his academic rivals in order to discredit him. Beringer (ca 1667-1738) was a Würzburg physician and dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the university. He was also a collector of natural curiosities, especially the fossils found in the Würzburg Muschelkalk formations. Two of his academic rivals, J. Ignatz Roderick, professor of geography and mathematics, and Johann Georg von Eckhart, privy counsellor and university librarian, had a number of 'fossils' carved out of limestone and planted about Mount Eibelstadt where Beringer went on collecting forays. These fake fossils included flowers, birds with feathers, formations resembling Aramaic script, spider webs, snails with antennae, even shooting stars and smiling amphibia. Despite their fantastic nature, Beringer took them seriously and prepared the present work to commemorate them. He discusses various theories of their formation, including lusus naturae, aura seminalis, vis plastica, and the possibilities of some being genuine preserved forms of organisms, and others being products of human artefact. As the frontispiece inscription makes clear, he considered some to be ancient survivals, and others to be recent creations. When the hoax was revealed, Beringer withdrew as many copies of the book as he could get ahold of, and took his adversaries to court to restore his 'lost honour'.
As Melvin Jahn writes in his translation and commentary (The lying stones of Dr. Johann Bartholomew Adam Beringer, University of California 1963) the episode is important in the history of palaeontology for revealing the variety of conflicting explanations still current and the genuine intellectual perplexity amongst learned dilettanti occasioned by 'figured stones'. Some of Beringer's 'lying stones' have survived and are in the University Museum, Oxford.
The fine frontispiece shows a stylised mountain-monument adorned with 'fossils', with allegorical figures. It was engraved by Puschner.
Following normal academic practice, this work was submitted as a dissertation by the doctoral candidate and Beringer's pupil Georg Ludwig Hueber, who bore the costs of publication as part of earning his degree. Hueber's only contribution to the work was a preface and six pages of 'medical corollaries'at the end, entirely unrelated to Beringer's text. When the sheets of the work were reissued in 1767 by Beringer's heirs, Hueber's preface and Corollaries were not included.
see Norman 195; Ward and Carozzi 183; Cobres 740 n. 2; Waller 12115
£6500
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