Pope Joan was real: With etching of her giving birth during procession in Rome.
[Pope Joan] / Friedrich Spanheim / Jacques Lenfant. Merckwürdige Historie der Päbstin Johanna aus des Hr. von Spanheim Lateinischer Dissertation von dem Hr. L’Enfant gezogen, und von demselben nebst Anmerckungen des Hr. des Vignoles in Frantz. Sprache herausgegeben; nunmehro aber übersetzet. Franckfurth und Leipzig: s.n, 1737. 8vo [16.4 x 10.1 cm], [16] ff., 476 pp., with [1] folding etching, [4] full-page etchings, woodcut head-pieces, tail-pieces and initials. Bound in contemporary vellum, title in manuscript on spine, blue edges. Minor rubbing and edge wear to spine and boards. Moderate toning, minor occasional edge wear, early ownership inscription on front flyleaf.
First edition of this first German translation of the Protestant theologian Friedrich Spanheim’s (1632-1701) critical study of sources relating to Pope Joan, the female pontiff who is said to have reigned in the 9th century. The work first appeared in Latin in 1691 under the title De Papa foemina inter Leonem IV et Benedictum III Disquisitio historica. It was translated into French in 1694 by Jacques Lenfant (1661-1728), and from the French it was translated anonymously into this German version.
This edition is of note for its 5 etchings (1 of which is folding) which depict a semi-nude Pope Joan caught in bed with a man (note the papal tiara, vestments, and papal keys casually draped over a chair by the bed); Pope Joan giving birth during a procession in Rome; the special throne used to check the genitals of later pontiffs (sedia stercoraria); a scene of that throne in use; and images affixed to a building showing Joan as pope and showing her holding her baby.
Spanheim cites some five hundred sources and concludes that Pope Joan was a real historical figure.
OCLC and KVK locate U.S. copies at Harvard, Berkeley Law, Minnesota, Chicago, and Newberry.
* VD18 11471425; Elisabeth Gössmann, Mulier Papa: Der Skandal eines weiblichen Papstes: Zur Rezeptionsgeschichte der Gestalt der Päpstin Johanna; Philomneste Junior [i.e., Gustave Brunet], La Papesse Jeanne, Étude historique et littéraire (1862); J. J. Gavigan, “The Discalced Augustinians in Vienna (With a sketch of their Germanic province),” Augustiniana, vol. 20 (1970), pp. 495-580.