Sales catalogue 924: James Tregaskis & Son

Date:
July 1926
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/51/1
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 924: James Tregaskis & Son. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    gold, red, and green. Original blind stamped leather over wooden boards (slightly repaired) , the front covers with fine metal corner and centre-pieces, the former having the inscription: O MATER DEI MISERERE, the back covers of volumes III. and 1V., with wooden bosses (recent), the sides consist of panels, the interiors of which are divided into diamond-shaped compartments of intersecting foliated branch work, each space being occupied by a Tudor rose, the outer borders are decorated with ‘Tudor roses and other ornaments, the backs ornamented in blind, with clasps and catches (some missing and the leather of others being renewed). A FINE COPY IN ALMOST THE ORIGINAL STATE. £275 0 0 [Adolf Rusch: Strassburg, for Anton Koberger: | Nuremberg, about 1480 | »« Hain-Copinger-Winship *3173. According to Hain Vol. I. ends with the Book of Psalms, in this copy it ends with Ecclesiasticus, the Psalms being at the beginning of Vol. III. Hain places Solomon’s book in Vol III., here they are in Vol. II. Hain gives two settings of the first four leaves, of which this is the former (T) Fla (with sign a) Epistola beati Hieronymi presbyteri ad Paulinum presbyter de omnibus divine hystorie libris incipit; F2a: [WV] Idelicet; F3a: Prefatio sancti Hieronymi presbyteri in pentateucum incipit; F4a: no obliuione pergitur de memoria. meminimus. . . . (II) Fla: Epistola beati Hieronimi presbiteri - ad Paulinum presbiteru de omnibus diuine historie libris incipit; F2a: [V] Idelicz ; F3a: Prefatio sancti Hieronymi presbiteri; F4a: no obluione tergitur de memoria, meminimuf. Copinger says: ‘‘ The sheets are chiefly in eights, occasionally in sixes or tens. There are no regular signatures, only what are supposed to be compositors’ letters.’’ British Museum Catalogue of Incuna- bula, I., p. 92: The copy which the British Museum describes belongs to Hain’s second issue whereas the present one belongs to the first: ‘‘ The printed signatures in this case being of no use for preserving the order of the quires, may perhaps represent the seven or eight presses at which the work proceeded, the number of the presses being doubtful owing to a mixture of the letter h in some of the quires marked b. . . . This edition is the sub- ject of an urgent letter from Adolf Rusch to Johann von Amerbach, printed in C. Schmidt’s Zur Geschichte der gltesten Bibliotheken und der ersten Buch- drucher zu Strassburg, p. 155. Rumours had reached Rusch that Amerbach, with whose type he appears to have printed this edition, intended to reprint the book himself. He writes urgently to dissuade him from doing so. It appears from the letter that Rusch’s edition had been printed for Anton Koberger of Nuremberg ; but that he had kept back part of it, without Kober- ger’s knowledge, in order that the retail sale might help to defray his daily expenses. Of the copies thus secretly kept he had still about a hundred, and until these and Koberger’s stock were exhausted Amerbach’s projected edition would be a very risky venture, while the effect of copies being offered ‘ pro tribus aut quatuor aureis’’ would be disastrous to Rusch and Koberger. This would injure Rusch doubly, since all his substance was in the goods supplied to Koberger, to whom he had given long credit, so that he would not only lose the sale of the copies in his own hands, but also, if Koberger were injured, ran a risk of not being paid for those sent to Nuremberg. ‘The letter is only dated ‘6 post Oculi,’ 1.e., the fourth Saturday in Lent. It is placed by Schmidt immediately before a letter of 23 September, 1481.’ ‘‘The book is usually dated about 1480. It stands so much apart from the work of Rusch as the R-printer, or as the successor of Mentelin that it seems reasonable to treat it separately.’’ It will be seen by reference to the dimensions given above that this copy is much larger than that in the British Museum, which measures 449 x 320 mm. The British Museum copy is bound in five volumes. Proctor 299; Pellechet 2352; Voulliéme: Berlin 2138, Copinger: Incunabula Biblica, 44; ‘‘ This edition contains the Ordinary Gloss,.a commentary selected
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