"1566 Edition Princeps"

The Authorized Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus

This book is the only known "1566 Edition Princeps" that survives, and it is currently in a private collection.

This book is available in a FULL COLOR FACSIMILE . There is also a New Book about this Lost Edition

For Centuries scholars have debated if there was a missing "1566 Edition Princeps" of the famous Prophecies of Nostradamus. This is the long missing "1566 Edition Princeps". It is the only known complete copy of the Prophecies of Nostradamus that was authorized by Nostradamus!

This book was sold along with several other early copies of the Nostradamus Prophecies via a auction held by Butterfields in Los Angeles in the 1990's. The book dealer who purchased it was Krown and Spellman. It was then sold as an 18th Century copy to the current owner who collects rare books, he has owned many early editions of Nostradamus as well as many other famous works.

Authentigraph has identified this Edition as the long lost "1566 Edition Princeps" often referred to by famous occult authors over many centuries. Authentigraph believes this book is either the actual 1566 edition, or it is one of possibly only two early copies of that edition that still exist.

There are several reasons why we are willing to state that it is our opinion that this work is the famous "1566 Edition Princeps".

Due to recent discoveries of pre-1568 editions of books printed by Pierre Rigaud, we have come to the conclusion that there were two Pierre Rigauds who printed about a generation or so apart from each other in Lyon. One in the 16th Century and another in the 17th Century.

The original Pierre Rigaud that printed the "1566 Edition Princeps" printed in Lyon as did Benoist Rigaud, who was most likely a relative. Benoist is credited as the printer of the famous 1568 Edition of Nostradamus. However, that edition has proven to be a forgery see 1568 Edition is Fake.

Benoist's son Pierre Rigaud (who we refer to as Pierre Rigaud II) printed in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries. Early fake 1566 Editions that have an incorrect amount of quatrains in 7th Century are usually credited to being first printed by Pierre II. The 1566 Fake and 1568 Fake could easily have been printed by forgers and have no connection to Pierre II.

An analysis of early works by Pierre II can easily implicate or exonnerate him. The analysis of early Benoist Rigaud shows he did not print the 1568 Benoist Rigaud edition. Perhaps the same type of analysis will prove the 1566 fakes did not even come from Pierre Rigaud II.

Every known early copy of the Prophecies of Nostradamus, with possibly two exceptions, that bear the 1566 Edition date have many errors and too many quatrains in them. They are all fakes or copies made using the original forgery as its source! However, this 1566 Edition does not have the numerous errors known to be in other 1566 editions. It also has the correct amount of quatrains in the 6th and 7th Centuries.

Leoni stated that such 1566 editions that have the correct amount of quatrains are pre-1609, or printed before the 1609 error edition (forgery) was printed. It is possible that this edition is one of only two existing copies of the actual "1566 Edition Princeps". It is also possible it is pre-1609 as Leoni believed such editions are.

This edition was used to clearly establish that almost every early edition of Nostradamus known to exist are in fact unauthorized pirated editions or early forgeries. Many of the mistakes in early editions such as the 1568 and 1557 editions are not in this edition.

This edition also has the correct type of numbering code Nostradamus referred to in his own Prophecies as being a key to understanding his work. The only known early edition to have this Nostradamus code numbering system is the 1555 Bonhomme edition. That is the earliest known edition of Nostradamus' Prophecies that exists. The numbering system Nostradamus used to prove what editions were AUTHORIZED by him is very simple.

The authorized editions such as the 1555 Bonhomme and the "1566 Edition Princeps" used a strange mixture of both Roman and Arabic numerals in the numbering of the quatrains. The works of popular 16th Century authors such as Nostradamus and Shakespeare were pirated in great numbers during their lifetimes. The whole reason the First Folio was created was to put into print the actual prose of Shakespeare.

Now that the numbering code of Nostradamus is understood and referenced to in his own prophecies, all of the known early editions of Nostradamus can be seen to be inaccurate pirated editions. There are two exceptions. The 1555 Bonhomme edition which has less than 400 quatrains in it and the "1566 Edition Princeps". There are a total of only 941 quatrains in this work. That is the correct number of quatrains. All but possibly two 1566 Editions have more than 941 quatrains. The rest of the so-called 1566 Editions used the fake 1566 Edition as their source.

If this edition is not the actual "1566 Edition Princeps" then it is one of only two early copies of the "1566 Edition Princeps" that exists.

It is our opinion that Pierre Rigaud I (he printed pre-1568) printed the first 1566 Edition or what has been referred to for many Centuries as the "1566 Edition Princeps" right after Nostradamus died.

This edition has the correct amount of quatrains in the 6th and 7th Centuries and was the authorized edition of the Prophecies of Nostradamus.

There are dramatic differences that appear in the Prophecies of Nostradamus that start with the 1568 Benoist Rigaud Edition, we now know why, it was an early forgery.

It appears the fake Benoist Rigaud editions were printed several times, and then either his own son Pierre Rigaud II started to print the Prophecies near 1609, or more likely forgers started printing copies of the authentic 1566 Edition Princeps and these have been incorrectly credited to Pierre Rigaud II.

A thorough analysis of early works by Pierre Rigaud II may prove that he had nothing to do with creating the fake as many have put forth as an explanation. It is easy to show Benoist Rigaud did not print the Nostradamus edition credited to him, so it is logical to assume Pierre II did not print the fakes attributed to him either.

There are obviously two Pierre Rigaud versions. One "1566" Edition has the correct number of quatrains in the 6th and 7th Centuries supervised by Nostradamus that has many matches to the 1555 Bonhomme as well as the 1557 Rosne Editions. The other Pierre Rigaud Edition (1609 Edition) of the "1566 Edition Princeps" with the incorrect number of quatrains is most likely a forgery and may have been done by the same printer who did the 1568 Edition. Both the true "Edition Princeps" with the correct number of quatrains and the fake "1566" with the wrong amount of quatrains used 1566 on their title page.

Several other printers later created copies of the 1609 fake "1566" Edition, so later 17th and 18th Century copies have the incorrect number of quatrains in the 6th and 7th Centuries and use a 1566 Date on the title page as did their 1609 source. There are several of these early copies which all have the incorrect number of quatrains as does their alleged "1566" source, the 1566 fake is basically a recycled 1568 Benoist Rigaud Edition which is fake. Or perhaps an analysis needs to be done to show which fake is based on which fake. Is the 1568 fake based on the 1566 fake, or vice versa. I believe such an analysis will show the first editions of both fakes came from the same forger. Analysis can prove or disprove this theory.

That is why so many early copies have many similarities with the 1568 edition and not the true "1566 Edition Princeps" or the earlier 1555 Bonhomme and 1557 Rosne Editions.

The fact that other pre-1568 Pierre Rigaud books are now known to exist validates this chronology.

Notes: Since Michel Chomarat's work on Nostradamus editions, it has been incorrectly thought that the 1568 Benoist Rigaud Edition that can be found in several museums was the first complete edition of the Prophecies of Nostradamus. That is incorrect, it is obviously forgery. The 1557 Rosne Editions are most likely early pirated editions or fakes as well. The reason is simple, they use all Roman Numerals to number the quatrains. Something Nostradamus warned of in his prophecies.

It is clear when one analyzes the "1566 Edition Princeps" that they were most likely supervised by Nostrdamus himself as was the 1955 Bonhomme edition. The proof of this is the type of numbering used in the quatrains in this edition that connect it chronically to the 1555 Bonhomme Edition. This type of numbering system clearly separates the "1566 Edition Princeps" and the 1555 Bonhomme Edition from the 1557 Rosne Editions as well as the 1568 Edition and later Editions based upon the 1568 fake.

There are many obvious changes or mistakes that appear in the 1568 Benoist Rigaud Editions. This unauthorized edition was not supervised by Nostradamus and it is an obvious and badly done forgery. The 1555 Bonhomme and "1566 Edition Princeps" appear to have been directly supervised by Nostradamus due to the numbering code that connects them.

All known copies of pre-1566 Nostradamus books do not contain the complete prophecies. This is thus the first edition of the complete Prophecies of Nostradamus or what many occult authors over the Centuries referred to as "1566 Edition Princeps".

This book was the source for the book titled "1566 Edition Princeps the Authorized Prophecies of Nostradamus". It is our opinion that the supposition put forth in that work is correct. All known editions of the Prophecies of Nostradamus with two exceptions are unauthorized pirated editions of Nostradamus or early forgeries, that is why there are so many errors in them.

The 1555 Bonhomme edition is an authorized Edition that is incomplete and does not contain all of the Prophecies of Nostradamus. The "1566 Edition Princeps" is the only complete authorized Edition of the Prophecies of Nostradamus that exists. These pirated and fake editions have led the MASSES to not being able to understand the work of Nostradamus as he so warned would occur in the Latin Omen at the end of the 6th Century of his prophecies!

This Edition if it is not the actual "1566 Edition Princeps" printed in 1566, is then one of only two known existing copies of that Edition that exists. This makes this book one of the most valuable Editions of any early printed books that still exist.

This book is the only known "1566 Edition Princeps" or copy of the "1566 Edition Princeps" that is currently in a private collection. There is possibly one other such edition in existence. Chomarat referenced it in his bibliography on Nostradamus.

UPDATE

We have analyzed the only three known copies of early 1566 editions known to exist, two are in major museums and one is in a private collection.

The 1566 Edition housed in the National Library of France is an early FORGERY, the reason is simple, while it has the correct number of Quatrains in Century 7 it has a different wood cut on the title page and many misspelled words. It also uses only Roman Numerals to number the Quatrains, and authorized editions approved by Nostradamus always had a rare mixture of both Roman Numerals and Arabic Numerals. The most logical reasoning for this is that letters would have been more common characters for printers to own, so they used more common Roman Letters as numbers. Numbers were rarer in a printers type collection since books rarely used numbers and contained mostly words that needed Roman Letters.

The copy in the Bavarian National Museum of Germany is identical to the copy we had access to in the private collection, so these two copies ARE THE AUTHENTIC 1566 Edtions of Nostradamus' complete first edition. All other 1566 copies known to us at this time (January 2015) contain the incorrect number of Quatrains in Century 7 or have only Roman Numerals to number the Quatrains which is common in early forgeries such as the 1568 Benoist Riguad editons.