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.

    67/294 page 45
    Lyons, Jacques Arnollet: a.p. 1492-1500. 19. LA DESTRUCTION DE JERUSALEM |in French]. La destruction de iherusalem. La vengence de nostre seigner : et comment pylate fina ses iours. Gortuic Letter, double columns of 44 lines. With woodcut decorations: —On the title a large calligraphic woodcut initial L with grotesques, on the reverse a very primitive cut of Christ before Pontius Pilate; at the head of the text a small neat cut of the Crucifixion flanked by a short foliage border, and throughout the text are pretty ornamental initials, white on black ground, with floral decorations. With printed signatures. [Lyons, Jacques Arnollet, about 1500. | Folio. Levant morocco, the sides covered with gold tooling in sixteenth century style, inside dentelles, g. e., by Thibaron. (SEE ILLUSTRATION OVERLEAF.) £250 AN UNRECORDED EDITION. A romantic account of the destruction of Jerusalem, in which Pilate figures as a traitor to the Emperor Vespasian and as the defender of Jerusalem, for which he is taken to Rome and tried by the senators, who condemn him to a protracted death at Vienne (France). This story has done much to spread the legend of Pilate’s death at Vienne, in the tower of the bridge over the Rhone, the origin of which historians have been unable to discover. There is still to be seen at Vienne a monument known as Pilate’s tomb. A number of editions, all exceedingly rare, are known of this legend; nearly all were printed at Lyons. Lyons is only seventeen miles from Vienne, which had had no printing press since about 1484, and, in all probability, it was for sale at Vienne that the Lyons printers were producing La destruction de Jerusalem, for pilgrims visiting the old Roman city would be shown the supposed scene of Pilate’s death, and would be curious to read how he came to die at Vienne. The calligraphic initial L of the title was used on the title-pages of three other books printed by Arnollet at Lyons, about 1495. Two other editions of the Destruction of Jerusalem were printed by Arnollet, one circa 1495 and one dated 1504. From the Bancel Library. A copy with very wide margins; a few repairs, including a part of a short single column of text on the last leaf restored. [45]
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