Sales catalogue 533: Maggs Bros

Date:
1930
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/88
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 533: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    46/294 page 26
    Westminster. Wynkyn de Worde: a.p. 1491-1500. HIGDEN, RANULF—continued. wants title and last leaf (both supplied in facsimile), and 6 ff. of table; a few leaves are slightly soiled. In this volume occur the FIRST MUSICAL NOTES PRINTED IN ENGLAND. They are at folio C1, where is related an anecdote of Pythagoras, the philosopher : — ‘Here wyse men I telle that Pictayoras passed somtyme by a smythes hous and herde a swete sowne and acordynge in the smytyng of four hamers vpon an anuelt, and therfore he lette weye the hamers, and founde that one of the hamers weyed twyes soo moche as a nother. A nother weyed other half so moche as a nother, and a nother weyde so moche as a nother and the thyrde dele of a nother. As though the fyrste hamer were of six pounde, the seconde of twelue, the thyrde of eyght, the fourth of IX. as this fygure sheweth.”’ | From thence inferring the concords of music, W. de Worde first printed the scheme in musical notation. In Caxton’s edition a space was left. II. HIGDEN, RANULF, a Benedictine of Chester (died 1364). Policronicon. Another Copy of the Second Edition. Levant morocco gilt, g. e., by Bedford. (SEE ILLUSTRATION TO ITEM 10.) £350 This copy has four leaves in facsimile: title-page and leaves 1, 7, and 8 of quire x. A few headlines are shaved. [26]
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