Sales catalogue: Quaritch

Date:
December 1886-August 1887
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/17/45
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: Quaritch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/596 page 3540
    extra, leather joints, gilt edges, by Roger Payne, both works excessively rare, £36. (? 1465) These two works are partly in the peculiar backward-leaning semi- Gothic in which the Latin Bible was printed by Mentelin, which bears in one copy a rubrication dated 1460-61. The two preliminary leaves of the Augustine are a notice by the editor concerning his labours to obtain a corrected text of a treatise so useful to the men of his own order—he was a Dominican or preaching monk. He had examined all the copies that were to be found in Heidelberg, Speyer, Worms, and Strassburg, so as to make his own a perfect model of correctness; and next came the duty of multiplying examples for his fellow monks. Wherefore, since I judged that by no other mode or means could this be effected, I persuaded in every way the discreet man John Mentelin, citizen of Strassburg, master of the printing art, that he should take wpon himself the burden and labour of multiplying this little book by the methed of Printing, with my copy held before his eyes. Such are his words turned into English, and this sentence has served to identify several noteless books as printed by Mentelin. An identical statement, but with the name altered to Johann Fust, appears in the edition printed at Mentz by the latter in 1465, usually hitherto considered to be the first ; but Mr. Madden has conclusively settled the ques- tion of priority in favour of Mentelin. 35970 AUGUSTINUS (S.) pe Crvitate Der, cum Commentariis T. Valois et N. Triveth. Gloriosissimam ciuitatem dei... . folio, very fine copy with painted Capitals in old gilt russia, by Roger Payne, £30. s. l. § a. sed Argentorati J. Mentelin, circ. 1467 Excessively rare, and by many considered the first edition, as Lord Spencer’s copy bears an inscription by the illuminator, J. Bamler, dating his work 1468. ; ; The text is in the same type as the two-volume Latin Bible of 1460; the commentary is in the type which Mentelin used for his German Bible. 35971 HIERONYMUS. Fol. 1 reverse: (I)NCIPIUNT CAPITULA LIBRI EPISTOLARU saNcT] InERoNIMI. Folio 3: Amasus eps. fratri & cOpresbro iheroio . . . folio, semz-Gothic letter, 225 leaves, double columns, 50 lines per column; fine copy im blue morocco extra, gilt edges, by Mackenzie, £16. Sine nota (typts Mentelianis, circa a.D. 1468) - This very rare book is in the same type as the Latin Bible printed by Mentelin before 1460, and is known for certain to have been produced before 1469. There is a copy in the Bibliothéque Nationale, which was bound in that year by Johann Rychenbach, of Geyslingen; and the volume must therefore have been produced by Mentelin some time between 1459 and 1469, but probably nearer to the latter date— say 1467 or 1468. A consideration of the text appears to show that it preceded the edition of Rome, 1468. 35972 ISIDORI (8.) Erymonoaicon. Fol. 1: INCIPIT EPISTOLA ISIDORI . IVNIORIS HISPALENSIS EPISCOPI AD BRAVLIONEM CESARAVGYSTANYM EPISCOPYM .. . Holio 2 verso: INCIPIT LIBER PRIMVS ETHIMOLO- GIARUM ISIDORI... In calce: WXPLICIT LIBER ETHIMOLOGIARUM ISIDORI ISPALENSIS EPISCOPI . large folio, sema-Gothic letter, with headings i Roman capitals; 141 leaves, double columns, 51 lines per column; fine copy wn old russia gilt, £6. s.n. (Mentelin, circ. 1469) This is not in the same type as any of the before-mentioned volumes by Mentelin, but Panzer states that the Roman headings are in the same type as was used by the printer for his headings in the one volume of Vincentius Bellovacensis which bears his name, R—books—see under Cologne.
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