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This handsomely-printed item is a poem of 65 lines written to mark the marriage of Elizabeth de Geer to Professor Tobias Andreas in Amsterdam on 26 May 1643.

The tradition of the ‘epithalamium’, a poem or song addressed to a bride on her wedding day dates back to classical Greece. During the Renaissance some were bawdy, but those produced for high status recipients such as Elizabeth were much more restrained in the advice they offered to new brides.

We know nothing about Elizabeth herself, but her father Louis de Geer (1587–1652) was a prominent merchant, industrialist and financier. The bridegroom Tobias (1604–76) was professor of history and Greek at the University of Groningen in The Netherlands.

This unique copy survives only because it was bound into a volume which contains a number of significant political and theological works.

Citation:
Epithalamium In Honorem... Tobiæ Andreæ... et... Elizabethæ De Geer (Amsterdam, 1643).,
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed December 6, 2025,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/466