Category Archives: Bindings

A Statement of Invoice from Roger Payne (1739-1797), English bookbinder

Posted on by
Reply

Statement of invoice prepared by Roger Payne for binding The Holy Bible containing the Old Testament and the New. Edinburgh: James Watson, 1715. (Ex) 5179.1715. Ms. stored apart from the book in Manuscript Collection C140, Box 37, folder “Payne.’

In rare book libraries, fine bindings made with great skill are often encountered simply on their own, with little sense of their maker other than a name.  Extraordinarily, on a rare occasion, one finds a description of the binder’s work in his own words.  Such is the case with the undated statement of billing from Roger Payne illustrated here.

Scheide Librarian, Eric White, has said of Payne: ‘Roger Payne (1738–1797), perhaps the most famous of all English bookbinders, was well known both for his exquisite gold tooling and his squalid lifestyle. He worked at Eton beginning in the late 1750s, then at London with the support of the bookseller Thomas Payne (no relation). There he served many illustrious patrons,’ including Dr. Benjamin Moseley, Michael Woodhull, C.M. Cracherode, and the second Earl Spencer.

A near contemporary of Payne, the Rev. Thomas Frognall Dibdin (1776-1847) described Payne’s invoices as ‘original and diverting,’ ‘replete with the garrulous chit-chat of an old stager of four score; in parts resembles a Coach-maker’s account,’ and ‘loquacious and … original specimens of arithmetical compositions.’

Our reaction today is to treat the invoices more fair-mindedly as rare contemporary documentation showing what was regarded as valuable at that time.  In this and other statements (at least, another 13 are known and transcribed; see list below) Payne draws our attention to factors crucial to making the binding.  In this instance, he covers these factors starting from the outside of the book to the inside.  But for purposes of getting a sense of his process, the following comments cover from the inside of the book to the outside.

The first of these factors includes the time and effort taken to clean, unwrinkle, mend and otherwise prepare the pages of the text block: ‘Some few places had a little writing ink I took it out safe.’  Then, he draws our attention to the materials of the binding  ‘back lined with Russia Leather under the Blue Morocco cover very strong’  or ‘sew’d with silk on strong & neat bands.’  He’s stating these terms about materials because he knows that binders can choose cheaper components such as linen thread or lining the spine with paper. Lastly he sets forth details about the finishing of the binding ‘all the gold impressions  … worked first plain afterwards work’d in Gold & Double Gold used thro ye whole Work.’  He sums up the work, and in this case his summary occurs initially, with the words ‘Bound in the best manner’ or, in the example illustrated here, ‘finished in the Richest & most elegant Taste  Richer & more exact than any Book that I have ever Bound.’

At the left upper corner of the statement of billing is a diagram of the lettering on the spine. It appears in just this format on the book itself, an edition of the Authorized Bible printed at Edinburgh in 1715 (ESTC T91151). The binding has the initials ‘T P’ on the front cover.  These are those of publisher and antiquarian bookseller Thomas Payne, who served at Roger Payne’s guardian (supplying ‘regular pecuniary assistance’) during the physical decline of his later years.  The total cost for the binding is £ 2.1.6.

The Holy Bible containing the Old Testament and the New. Edinburgh: James Watson, 1715. Ex 5179.1715 Spine height: 19 cm. Larger image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ownership history

1877 – Ellis & White, booksellers, London,  item 61* in catalogue 41: Catalogue of Valuable Books comprising Many Volumes of great Rarity and Curiosity, including Early Printed Books n English, Latin, German, Italian, & Flemish: Rare Old English Poetry; Some very Remarkable  Volumes Illustrated with Wood Engravings of an Early Date, &c. &c.’ Priced at £42

 

 

 

 

1890  – Sale of the books of Sir Edward Sullivan, at Sotheby’s, London, 19 & 27 May 1890, lot 770.  Sold to James Bain Ltd. for £62

1892  – William Lorings Andrews, Roger Payne and his art. A short account of his life and work as a binder.  (New York, 1892), p. 31 states that the book is the possession of a New York collector

1895 – Illustrated in Robert Hoe’s One hundred and seventy-six historic and artistic bookbindings dating from the fifteenth century to the present time pictured by etchings, artotypes, and lithographs after the originals selected from the library of Robert Hoe (New York, 1895)

1911 – Sale catalogue of the Library of Robert Hoe, April 24 and ff., lot 297.   Cyrus Hall McCormick (Princeton class of 1879) purchased the book at the sale for $900

1936 – C. H. McCormick dies in 1936 and the books pass to his widow, Alice Marie Holt McCormick.  She later remarries and becomes Alice H. Brown (Mrs. Marshall Ludington Brown.)

1948 – Alice H. Brown gifts the books of her first husband C. H. McCormick to the Princeton University Library.

List of other statements of invoice by Roger Payne
Dibdin records and transcribed the following bills in The Bibliographical Decameron, London, 1817, vol. II, p. 511 ff.:

  1. Glasguae. MDCCXCV. (ESTC T86592): Dibdin, BD, II, p.512 (also transcribed in C. Davenport, Roger Payne [Chicago, 1929], p. 70, illustrated plate 31), undated original in the John Rylands Library. Invoice total £ 16.7.0
  2. Petrarch, described in Spenceriana, vol. 4, p. 141-143: Dibdin, BD, II, p.512-513 (also transcribed in C. Davenport, Roger Payne [Chicago, 1929], p. 71). Undated. Invoice total £ 4.7.0
  3. C[l]avis Astro[logiæ] Elimata, bound for Dr. Benjamin Moseley (ESTC R39993): Dibdin, BD, II, p.513. Undated. Invoice total £ 0.4.0
  4. Harmony of the World by Heydon London 1662, bound for Dr. Benjamin  Moseley (ESTC R16451): Dibdin, BD, II, p.514. Dated ‘1796, 11th’ Invoice total £ 0.10.6.  This book is held by the Scheide Library at Princeton and will be the subject of a future blog posting.
  5. Soul of Astrology, by Salmon, London 1679, bound for Dr. Benjamin Moseley (ESTC R6301): Dibdin, BD, II, p.514. Undated. Invoice total £ 0.9.6
  6. Vesalli Humani Corporis Fabrica, bill in possession of Edward V. Utterson: Dibdin, BD, II, p.514 (also transcribed in C. Davenport, Roger Payne [Chicago, 1929], p. 72). Undated. Invoice total £ 0.15.0
  7. Sandys Travels MDC.X. Wheeler and Spons Travels M.DC.LXXV, bill in possession of Edward V. Utterson (ESTC S121765 [1615 ed. and many later ed.] and ESTC R9388 [1682 ed.]): Dibdin, BD, II, p.515. Dated ‘Dec. 1st’ Invoice total £ 1.13.0

C. Davenport records the following bills in Roger Payne [Chicago, 1929], in addition to those noted above:

  1. Cambridge 1694 (ESTC R24132): Davenport, RP, p. 69, illustrated plate 29, undated original in the British Library. Invoice total £ 4.9.0
  2. Lilly’s Christian Astrology. London, 1695. Bound for Dr. Benjamin Moseley (ESTC R233955 [1647 ed. and several later ed.]): Davenport, RP, p. 73, (also transcribed in Sydney Glover, ‘A Famous Bookbinder …’, The Collector’s Magazine (London, 1905), p. 42) undated original in 1908 Sotheby’s auct. of the books of Lord Amherst of Hackney. Invoice total £ 1.3.6
  3. The Faerie Queene … MDXCVI (ESTC S117748): Davenport, RP, p. 74, illustrated plate 30, undated original in the British Library. Invoice total £ 2.10.0
  4. Mosaical Philosophy by Fludd. London, MDCLIX (ESTC R6980): Davenport, RP, p. 75, undated original in the British Library. Invoice total £ 1.13.6
  5. Heydon, Elhavarevna. London, 1665. (ESTC R8694): Davenport, RP, p. 76, undated original in the British Library, shelf mark C.66.b.1. Invoice total £ 1.18.0
  6. Plot (Robert). The Natural History of Staffordshire. Oxford, 1686. (ESTC R21986) Davenport, RP, plate 32, undated, original owned by booksellers John Tregaskis and Son, ca. 1929. Invoice total £ 4.14.6

 

Transcription of Payne’s statement of invoice

"" Letter’d in ye most exact Manner, exceeding rich small Tool Gilt Back of a new pattern studded in Compartments. The outsides finished in the Richest & most elegant Taste Richer, & more exact than any Book that I ever Bound.
The insides finished in a new Design exceeding elegant. Bound in the very best manner sew’d with silk on Strong & Neat Bands. The Back lined with Russia Leather under the Blue morrocco cover very strong & neat Boards.

The Finest Blue Morocco All The Gold Impressions except studds worked first Plain afterwards work’d in Gold & Double Gold used thro ^ye whole Work

 

Frontispiece was pasted very clumsy on another leaf I took it off & cleaned the paste off & mended 3 places. Title 1 piece

Psalms X. XXII. LXXXVI. CXXII. CXXXVIII. CXLII
Jeremiah III. Proverbs XIX. Saint Matthew VIII ) Mended and several placed ruled where the pieces was put on.
A hole in ye printing have endeavour’d to make perfect by another Holy Bible. I cleaned all the printing part from ye other side required great care & time & several Back margins mended which cannot now be seen. ___ Some few places had a little writing ink I took out quite safe.

 

Roger Payne in his workshop. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By S. Harding. Frontispiece to C. Davenport, Roger Payne (Chicago, 1929).

Sir Thomas Phillipps – Illustrations of his distinguishing marks of ownership in books and manuscripts from the Phillipps Library

Posted on by

Supplementing examples posted by Peter Kidd on his website ‘Manuscripts/Provenance,’ in the entry for Sir Thomas Phillipps http://www.manuscripts.org.uk/manuscripts/provenance/collectors/phillipps.htm

A. N. L. Munby writes in Phillipps Studies No. 4 (Cambridge, 1956), p. 165

In the 1820s Phillipps commissioned an armorial bookplate, which was however inserted very sparingly in books and manuscripts (fig. 1). Many of the early acquisitions bear a stencilled stamp of his crest, a lion rampant, applied rather crudely to the front paste-down or to the first leaf (fig. 2), and, on the paste-down, in the case of manuscripts, was inscribed the number allotted to the book in the Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum (fig. 3); in most instances this number was repeated on a tiny printed slip glued to the spine (fig. 4). Many thousands of manuscripts are identifiable at sight by their drab buff boards, Phillipps’s usual binding style. (fig. 5) A very large number of the printed books have no identification of ownership by Phillipps other than the small pencilled initials ‘MHC’ at the top of the front paste-down, denoting that the item in question had been entered, but not necessarily printed, in the Middle Hill Catalogue (fig. 6). Many books in the great residue of the library purchased in 1946 by Messrs Robinson have been provided with a discreet armorial label which identifies their provenance (fig. 7)

Figure 1 – Armorial bookplate

Figure 2 – Stencil

Figure 3 – Stencil with number

Figure 4 – Slip on spine

Figure 5 – Middle Hill Boards

Figure 6 – MHC (Middle Hill Catalogue)

Figure 7 – Bibliotheca Phillippica – W. H. Robinson Ltd.

A Magnificent Manuscript of 1458, Signed by its Scribe — and by its Illuminator?

Posted on by

Giovanni Balbi, Catholicon. Scheide Library M 163, f. 2r

An immense folio manuscript of Giovanni Balbi’s Catholicon, the essential Latin dictionary of the later Middle Ages, is one of the most spectacular illuminated manuscripts preserved in the Scheide Library. Bound in 15th-century tooled calfskin over wooden boards, it consists of 326 vellum leaves measuring 534 x 355 mm, and is estimated to weigh as much as a well-nourished toddler. The book was first recorded in 1783, in the library of the Augustinian Canons of Heilig Kreuz (Holy Cross) in Augsburg, Germany.1 

The completed manuscript, one of the longest of all medieval Latin texts, was signed by its diligent scribe, Hainricus Lengfelt, on Saturday, 18 December 1458. Lengfelt, originally from Erfurt but active in Augsburg, is known to have produced two additional manuscripts: a very similar second copy of the Catholicon, written for the Cistercians of Aldersbach bei Passau in 1462 (illuminated by Johannes Bämler, now at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Clm 2975); and a German translation of Arnoldus de Villanova’s Remedia ad maleficia (Colmar, Bibliothèque Municipale, Ms 81), dated 1467.

Hainrich Lengfelt’s signature (1458) in the Scheide Catholicon, f. 303r.

Scheide Catholicon, f. 76r

The rich illumination of the Scheide Catholicon, which includes 29 large capital letters painted on gold leaf with extensive foliate borders, long has been securely attributed to Heinrich Molitor, a leading calligrapher who worked both in Augsburg and for the Benedictine Abbey of Scheyern during the 1460s.2

It was recently noticed that the large initial M on folio 182 recto has a handsome brown-ink M written in the margin to its left, whereas the other illuminated letters of the alphabet have a much smaller guide letter. A similar M, written next to various large initials in a Latin Bible manuscript illuminated by Molitor, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris (Ms lat. 140), appears to serve as Molitor’s signature.3

Scheide Catholicon, f. 182r (with Molitor’s ‘M’ in left margin?)

Latin Bible, Paris, BNF, Ms. lat. 140, illuminated by Heinrich Molitor, with ‘M’ written next to other illuminated initials.

If this interpretation of the otherwise unexplained M proves to be correct, then the Scheide Library’s Catholicon would be one of the extremely few 15th-century manuscripts that was ‘signed’ both by its scribe and by its illuminator.

Lengfeld’s pride in his calligraphic skill (and possibly Molitor’s justifiable pride in his illuminated initials) should be considered in light of the immense changes in book production methods that arose in Germany during this period. The emergence of Europe’s typographic printing technology in Mainz during the early 1450s, credited to Johannes Gutenberg, led to the publication of extensive folio editions of the Catholicon at Mainz in 1460 (by Gutenberg?) and by Günther Zainer in Augsburg in 1469, as well as some twenty further editions printed by others by the year 1500. Whereas Lengfeld and Molitor would have had many more books to write and illuminate, future generations had far fewer opportunities to work on this scale and at this level of luxury.

   

        

 

________

1 Philipp Wilhelm Gercken: Reisen durch Schwaben, Baiern, angränzende Schweiz, Franken, und die Rheinische Provinzen… 1: Von Schwaben und Baiern (Stendal, 1783), pp. 258-59.

2 John T. McQuillen, ‘Fifteenth-Century Book Networks: Scribes, Illuminators, Binders, and the Introduction of Print’, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 107, No. 4 (December 2013), pp. 495-515.

3 I thank Paul Needham, Scheide Librarian (Emeritus), for bringing this Bible to my attention.

Mystery Solved: A Long-Lost Spanish Vocabulario (ca. 1492-93) Comes to Light at Princeton

Posted on by

Alfonso de Palencia, Universal vocabulario (Seville, 1490), EXI Oversize 2530.693q

Many of the most important discoveries in the study of rare books are the results of fruitful collaborations. In this case, we were confronted by an anomaly: Princeton’s copy of the first printed Latin-Spanish dictionary, Alfonso Fernández de Palencia’s Universal vocabulario en latín y en romance, vol. I (Seville: Paulus de Colonia, 1490), which lacks its title page and introductory ‘argumentum’, begins and ends with single printed leaves from an entirely different book – a Spanish-Latin dictionary printed with a slightly larger fifteenth-century typeface:

Universal vocabulario, 1490 (video)

Whereas these stray leaves seem to owe their survival to having been recycled as binding waste that served as protective endleaves for the Universal vocabulario of 1490, there is some question as to how they became available to the eighteenth-century binder, and whether they may have been selected for their lexicographical content. However, a more central mystery remained to be answered: what exactly was the dictionary that provided these long-forgotten fragments?

Princeton fragment 1, verso: ‘Prologo’ to Queen Isabella

Princeton fragment 2, recto: Apuesta–Arcaz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first fragment, blank on its recto, consists of a short ‘Prologo’ in parallel Spanish and Latin, dedicating a new dictionary to Queen Isabella of Castille and Leon, Aragon, Sicily, and Granada. The second clearly belongs to that dictionary: it contains the Spanish terms Apuesta–Arcaz on the recto and Arco–Arreboçar on the verso (77 terms in total), each with brief Latin definitions that occasionally cite passages in the works of Virgil; the heading ‘dela letra A’ appears in the upper margins. After inconclusive consultations with several experts, the first breakthrough came from Oliver Duntze at the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke in Berlin, the leading research center for the cataloging of fifteenth-century European printing. Duntze was able to provide an almost certain identification of the printers: the types precisely matched those of the Seville press of Meinhard Ungut und Stanislaus Polonus, specifically the state of their types used in 1492.

The date ‘ca. 1492’ was a good match for the status of the royal dedicatee, Queen Isabella (1451–1504), who took the specified title of ‘Reina de Granada’ only after the capture of that territory in January of that year. However, the text contained in these leaves, including the royal dedication, did not match up with any known Spanish dictionary printed during the fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries. None of the bibliographical tools at our disposal or the book historians we consulted could provide an identification of the edition that was the source of these stray leaves; we began to suspect, as had Frederick Vinton, the librarian who oversaw the acquisition of the volume in 1873, that they represented a previously untraced edition – and a potentially important discovery.1

A turning point came in February 2018, when Dr Cinthia María Hamlin, a specialist in medieval literature from Secrit-CONICET (Argentina’s National Scientific Research Council) and the Universidad de Buenos Aires, visited Princeton University Library’s new Special Collections Reading Room and requested to see several early Spanish books. During her visit I inquired whether it would be a distraction to ask her opinion of the mysterious leaves in the Universal vocabulario of 1490. She quickly became fascinated by them, knowing that one does not encounter pages from an unidentified fifteenth-century Spanish dictionary every day. We agreed that the problem deserved much further research, both for the benefit of European printing history and Spanish linguistic history.

Working from digital images upon her return to Buenos Aires, Hamlin investigated the mysterious dictionary, eliminating all of the candidate texts by Antonio de Nebrija and Fernández de Santaella and analyzing the linguistic characteristics of the limited sample of word definitions that the fragments provided. Within a little over a month she made a startling breakthrough. Following up on a suggestion offered by her colleague Juan Héctor Fuentes, she discovered that an anonymous fifteenth-century Spanish-Latin Vocabulario, known only from a manuscript at the Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial (MS f-II-10), matched Princeton’s printed fragments nearly word for word.2

Colecciones Reales. Patrimonio Nacional. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio del Escorial, f.II.10 (f. 17v).

Princeton fragment 2, verso: Arco–Arreboçar (with Latin definitions similar to those of the Escorial MS).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thus, Hamlin and Fuentes hypothesized that the long-lost Vocabulario represented by the fragments, datable to 1492-93, was the first Spanish-to-Latin (not vice-versa) vocabulary ever printed, preceding Nebrija’s first Salamanca edition (variously dated between 1492 and 1495, but most likely 1494-95). The two scholars’ discovery has been introduced in the co-authored ‘Folios de un incunable desconocido y su identificación con el anónimo Vocabulario en romance y en latín del Escorial (F-II-10).’ Romance Philology 74/1 (Spring 2020), 93-122, and will be developed further by Hamlin in ‘Alfonso de Palencia: autor del primer vocabulario romance-latin que llego a la imprenta?’ in Boletín de la Real Academia Española (forthcoming in 2021).

After further research, Hamlin concluded that the anonymous author of the Escorial Vocabulario, and, therefore, that of the previously unknown printed edition preserved in Princeton’s binding fragments, was none other than Alfonso Fernández de Palencia (1423–1492), the author of the very same Universal vocabulario of 1490 into which the mysterious Princeton leaves had been bound. As Hamlin notes, Palencia’s Universal vocabulario has many of the the same ‘authority’ quotations, highly similar definitions (especially for toponyms), and several of the terms have the same grammatical explanation and thus almost certainly are the works of the same author. This important discovery, too, will be explored in greater detail in Hamlin’s forthcoming article.

Fifteenth-century Spanish printing of any kind is difficult to come by in libraries outside of Spain. It is even more remarkable to have located traces of a previously unknown Spanish edition of that period. Moreover, it is a signal accomplishment to have been able to resurrect an unknown printing of a previously anonymous work of such importance, in vernacular Spanish, and then to augment our knowledge of that text with both a long-lost royal dedication and a convincing identification of its author, one of the most influential Spanish humanists of the fifteenth century. The fields of printing history and Spanish linguistic history have profited mightily from the collaboration that solved this bibliographical mystery.

More about Princeton’s Universal vocabulario of 1490 (EXI Oversize 2530.693q):

The book consists of vol. 1 only, covering letters A-N. Its gilt red-dyed goatskin binding is probably 18th-century Spanish. The earliest known owner was Richard Heber (1773–1833), the English bibliomaniac; this copy was offered in part 2 of the Heber sales, Sotheby’s (London), June 1834, as lot 4689. In 1873 it was purchased by the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) along with an important collection of old books and Reformation pamphlets owned by Dr. Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg (1802–1872), a noted philosopher and philologist at the University of Berlin and father of a famous surgeon. It is possible that Trendelenburg bought the Vocabulario at the Heber sale of 1834, but there may have been unknown owners between 1833 and 1873.

********************

1 Frederick Vinton, the Librarian of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), inscribed the second fragment “This is a great curiosity. It is part of a Spanish Vocabulary entirely unknown to Bibliographers and must have been printed about the same time as this of Palentia in which the Latin precedes the Spanish.”

2 Gerald J. MacDonald, Diccionario español-latino del siglo XV: an edition of anonymous manuscript f.II.10 of the Real Biblioteca de San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Transcription, study, and index (New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 2007).

WHAT COULD BE BETTER? Pairing and Comparing the Scheide and Kane Copies of Fifteenth-Century Books

Posted on by

Question: What could be better for the study of early printed books than examining a copy of a rare 15th-century edition?

Answer: Examining two copies of a rare 15th-century edition.

      

Thanks to several formerly independent channels of 20th-century collecting, now united, Princeton University Library’s Special Collections owns multiple copies of more than thirty 15th-century editions. We do not consider them ‘duplicates’, as that would imply that they are absolutely identical, and that nothing is to be learned from the ‘second’ copy. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if every letter of every word printed on every page were virtually identical (with printing shop corrections and other improvements, this is often not the case), the individual copies would still reflect entirely different histories of readership and survival, preserving unique material evidence that may be crucial to the attentive researcher, or of worthwhile interest to the casual student of book history.

Illustrated below are four examples of 15th-century editions represented by two copies. In each case, one of the copies was owned by Grenville Kane (1854–1943) of Tuxedo Park, New York, whose fine library of early books and Americana was purchased by the Trustees of Princeton University in 1946, while another copy is in the incomparable Scheide Library, long on deposit in Firestone Library but bequeathed to Princeton University in 2015 by the late William H. Scheide (1914–2014), Class of 1936. The first things that strikes most present-day viewers are the differences in their hand-decoration, and in their various bindings – copy-specific features that were added only after the individual sets of printed sheets were sold to their first owners. Moreover, three of the selected pairs also exhibit distinctive typographic variations, belying the notion that they are ‘duplicates’. Here we offer only the briefest introductions to these pairs of books, which call out for further study and comparison:

 

Cicero, De Officiis. [Mainz:] Johann Fust & Peter Schoeffer, 4 February 1466. 

Scheide 31.17

These two small folios, both printed on vellum, are from the second edition of Cicero’s treatise on the honorable fulfillment of moral duties, one of the first Classical works to be published. The Scheide copy, richly illuminated in Franco-Flemish style, is among the most beautiful of the roughly 50 copies that survive. It emerged from the collection of Ralph Willett (1719–1795), whose library at Merly was sold by Sotheby’s in 1813, and later was owned by Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773–1843), and Robert Stayner Holford (1808–1892), of Gloucestershire, respectively. In 1925 Holford’s son sold the book to the Philadelphia bookseller A.S.W. Rosenbach, from whom Gertrude Scheide Caldwell purchased it as a Christmas gift for her brother John H. Scheide in December, 1927.

EXKA Incunabula 1466

Princeton’s other copy, decorated in German style, has been traced back to 1572, when ‘David Weisius’ was recorded as its donor to the town library of Augsburg. This individual was probably David Weiss (1531–1593), Augsburg patrician and town benefactor. It remained in Augsburg until 1798, after which it passed through three important private collections in Moscow.1 In 1931 the Soviet government sold it through Maggs Brothers, London, to Grenville Kane, whose collection came to Princeton University Library in 1946.

 

 

 

Recent research has led to the important discovery that the pair of painted coats-of-arms on the first page of Princeton’s Cicero refers to the German noble families of Truchseß zu Wetzhausen (left) and Wilhelmsdorf (right). To date, the only known union between these families was the mid-15th-century marriage of Jakob Truchseß zu Wetzhausen of Dachsbach and Susanna von Wilhelmsdorf.2 Their son, Dr Thomas Truchseß zu Wetzhausen (ca. 1460–1523), Dean of Speyer Cathedral, one-time student and later defender of Johannes Reuchlin, and correspondent and host of Erasmus of Rotterdam, was almost certainly the owner of Princeton’s 1466 Cicero.

Comparison of the Princeton and Scheide copies also reveals several typographic variants, including the presence in the Scheide copy of a four-line Latin incipit, printed in red on the first page, but omitted from the Princeton copy, in which a shorter titulus was written in by hand; numerous instances of each of these contingencies survive. Another striking difference is found on f. 14 verso, where the Scheide copy has the heading printed as usual in red type, while in the Princeton copy, the entire heading was printed upside down – an isolated accident that resulted from one of the many complications of printing with two colors.

 

St Augustine, De Civitate Dei. Rome: Conradus Sweynheym & Arnoldus Pannartz, in domo Petri de Maximo, 1468.

EXKA Incunabula 1468

This Royal folio is either the second or the third edition of this foundational text of Western Christendom, following the Subiaco edition of 1467 and possibly the Strasbourg edition, datable not after 1468. The first page of the text in the Princeton copy was illuminated in colorful Italian ‘bianchi girari’ style. Interestingly, for the gilt initial G that introduces the words ‘Gloriosissimam civitatem dei’, a woodcut stamp, not printed in other copies, provided black outlines for the illuminator’s work, which continued free-hand into the margin. Several pages bear extensive contemporary annotations. The volume was bound in the 1790s for the British bibliophile Michael Wodhull (1740–1816), and was acquired by Princeton in 1946 with the Kane collection.

 

Scheide 59.5

By contrast, the copy purchased by John Scheide in 1940, which emerged from the Syston Park Library in 1884 and was rebound in London by Douglas Cockerell in 1903, never received its requisite initials or decoration by hand; indeed, the book reveals virtually no evidence of use by early readers. The copy is nevertheless of considerable interest, as its introductory leaf bears a beautifully written and historically significant gift inscription (below), which records that Nicolò Sandonino (1422–1499), Bishop of Lucca beginning in 1479, presented this book to the Carmelites of San Pietro Cigoli in Lucca in 1491. It is curious that these friars, who disposed of numerous important books during the early 18th century, seem to have had no use for the bishop’s gift.

The Bishop of Lucca’s gift inscription, 1491.

 

Leonardo Bruni, De bello Italico adversus Gothos. Foligno: Emiliano Orfini & Johann Neumeister, 1470.

EXKA Incunabula 1470 Bruni

The first book printed in the small Italian town of Foligno was this history of the 5th-century Goth invasion of the Italian peninsula, compiled in 1441 by Leonardo Bruni. It was published in 1470 by Johannes Neumeister, a peripatetic printer from Mainz who made a career of enticing investors into supporting unsustainable printing ventures. It is bound with another rare Chancery folio, the only copy held in America of Bernardus Justinianus, Oratio habita apud Sixtum IV contra Turcos. [Rome]: Johannes Philippus de Lignamine, [after 2 Dec. 1471]. The rubrication throughout is French, and the bottom margin of the first leaf bears the inscription ‘Jacques le Chandelier, 1550’. This owner is probably to be identified with the contemporary Royal Secretary in Paris by that name. The volume later wandered through a series of distinguished European private libraries and came to Princeton University with the Kane collection in 1946.3

Scheide 40.1

The Scheide copy, illuminated in the Italian ‘bianchi girari’ (white vine) style, is probably the one offered by the Ulrico Hoepli firm in Milan in 1935. It subsequently entered the library of Giannalisa Feltrinelli (1903–1981), an Italian heiress and bibliophile who had homes in Rome, Milan, Geneva, and Stanbridge East, Canada. The book was auctioned at Christie’s in New York on 7 October 1997, lot 19, to H. P. Kraus. When his firm’s inventory was auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York in December 2003, the book remained available and was bought after the sale by William H. Scheide.

 

 

In addition to featuring contrasting French and Italian hand-decoration, the two copies are differentiated by variant typesetting in their colophons, which include different spellings of the surname and hometown of Neumeister’s patron, the master of the papal mint in Foligno, Emilianus de Orfinis. Whereas the colophon in Princeton’s copy reads ‘Ursinis Eulginas’, that of the Scheide copy has been corrected to ‘Orfinis Fulginas’ (below).

 

Ptolemy, Cosmographia. Ulm: Lienhart Holle, 16 July 1482.

The Super-Royal folio ‘Ulm Ptolemy’ of 1482 is famous for its 32 large woodcut maps, including the great double-page ‘World Map’ carved by Johannes Schnitzer of Arnsheim, 26 regional maps based on Ptolemy’s 2nd-century CE descriptions, and five new maps of Italy, France Spain, Scandinavia, and the Holy Land, based on manuscript projections by the editor of the work, Nicolaus Germanus, a Benedictine monk from the diocese of Breslau who lived and worked in Florence.

EXKA Ptolemy 1482

The Princeton copy, sold by the Rappaport firm in Rome toward the beginning of the last century, came with the Grenville Kane collection in 1946. The Scheide copy, richly hand-colored throughout, was inscribed in 1509 by Johannes Protzer (d. 1528), a scholar and bibliophile of Nördlingen, Germany. It emerged in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps in the 19th century and was acquired by John H. Scheide from A.S.W. Rosenbach in 1924.

Scheide 58.6

Although bibliographers sometimes discuss two 1482 Ulm ‘editions’ of this book, in fact there was only one edition, albeit one with many of its maps accompanied by textual descriptions that can appear in one of two or more alternate settings. For example, in the Princeton copy (below, left), the ninth map for Asia is accompanied by text that was composed into columns of 27 lines within a somewhat cramped square-shaped woodcut frame. By contrast, in the Scheide copy (below, right), the same page was composed more spaciously into 30 lines, fitting less tightly into a taller rectangular frame. To date, there has been no conclusive analysis of all the variant pages. Only a systematic comparison of multiple copies will provide a clearer understanding of the production of the 1482 Ulm Ptolemy.

               

What Could be Better?

Whereas traditional rare book librarianship tended to look upon the acquisition of ‘duplicates’ as undesirable or wasteful, given that precious funds could go toward adding texts that were not already represented in the collection, it is worth considering the special pedagogical and research value of comparing two copies from the same edition side by side. Experienced scholars as well as first-time students can appreciate that the two copies present distinct multiples of the original creation, each one preserving its own archeological record of survival and human intervention. Rubrication, illumination, binding, annotation, censorship, damage, repair, and other reflections of ownership and use offer fascinating traces of their disparate trajectories through history, revealing the many ways in which old books, as Milton observed, ‘are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them’.

Addendum:

Readers may be interested in the Morgan Library’s virtual tour by John McQuillen, “Why Three Gutenberg Bibles?”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIteWBHSa00&fbclid=IwAR2615uiqBWL15HGX8kAnOykQfWUBshMmNUIv1CRI6fBlQ8IvZ6jzz-jbjk

Notes:

1 Count Aleksei Golowkin (d. 1811) of Moscow, whose gilt coat of arms appears on the front cover of the red-dyed goatskin binding; Alexandre Vlassoff (d. 1825), Imperial chamberlain in Moscow; Prince Michael Galitzin / Golitsyn (1804–1860), also in Moscow, with whose family it remained into the 20th century.

2 Johann Gottfried Biedermann, Geschlechtsregister der Reichsfrey unmittelbaren Ritterschaft Landes zu Franken Löblichen Orts Baunach (Bayreuth: Dietzel, 1747), table 197.

3 Early owners included Paul Girardot de Préfond (during the 1760s) in Paris; Pietro Antonio Bolongaro Crevenna (1735–1792) in Amsterdam; Michael Wodhull (1740–1816) in London; and William Horatio Crawford (1815–1888) at Lakelands in Cork, Ireland. In 1897 it was offered by the Quaritch firm (Catalogue 166, no. 770).

 

 

Non finito: Unfinished Initials in Princeton’s 1469 Apuleius

Posted on by

Unfinished initial and border in Princeton’s Apuleius (Rome: Sweynheym & Pannartz, 1469).

The first edition of the works of Lucius Apuleius of Madauros (ca. 124–ca. 170 CE), a North African philosopher and rhetorician, was published in Rome by Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz in 1469. Printed in an edition of 275 copies, it includes the ‘The Golden Ass’, a bawdy proto-novel in which the protagonist, Lucius, experiments with magic and thereby inadvertently transforms himself into a donkey, a circumstance that allows him to observe human behavior, undetected, from a new vantage point. The tale of Cupid and Psyche also appears here for the first time, narrated as a story within the story.

Illumination with ‘bianchi girari’ in Virgil’s Opera (Rome: Sweynheym & Pannartz, 1469).

As was customary in early printed books, Sweynheym and Pannartz left large open spaces at the beginnings of each of the ‘books’, each intended to be filled in by hand with rubricated or illuminated initial letters. One of the prevailing styles of hand-decoration in Italian books during this period featured spiraling white vine tendrils, called ‘bianchi girari’. Princeton’s rare first edition of the poetical works of Virgil, also printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1469 (at left), exemplifies this colorful style.

The Apuleius of 1469 offers unusual insights into fifteenth-century book production in that it was intended to display ‘bianchi girari’ initials and borders, but the work was never finished:

Instead, the book displays graceful preparatory drawings for the decoration, executed in plummet (soft lead) for establishing the composition and brown ink for the final outlines. The initials A and B (shown here) would have been covered with gold leaf, and the interstices between the outlined tendrils would have been colored red, blue, and green, and possibly augmented with yellow. Sketchy little circles in the margins indicate where gilded ‘bezants’ would have provided additional ornamentation. One of the tendrils to the left of the initial A breaks off suddenly, just where it should have continued down the left margin of the text; this argues for the interrupted nature of the work, and seems to rule out the possibility that this is later ’embellishment’ by a nineteenth-century admirer of the fifteenth-century style.

The Duke of Hamilton’s engraved armorial bookplate, ca. 1820.

Princeton’s copy of the Apuleius was owned in the early nineteenth century by Alexander Douglas-Hamilton (1767–1852), 10th Duke of Hamilton and 7th Duke of Brandon, in Lanarkshire, Scotland. The Hamilton Palace Library was auctioned by Sotheby’s in London on 1 May 1884, with the Apuleius listed as lot 95. It passed through the Quaritch firm in London in 1888 and entered the collection of Robert Hoe of New York City, whose books were sold by Anderson Galleries in 1911 (lot 91). The next known owner was Grenville Kane, a New York collector who obtained it in 1920. His estate sold his library to the Trustees of Princeton University in 1946.

Two Major Discoveries among Princeton University Library’s Printed Binding Fragments

Posted on by

Princeton University Library is home to several hundred early printed fragments discovered within old bookbindings. These are the vestiges of old printed books, which, having fallen out of use centuries ago, eventually came to be conscripted into inglorious servitude as recycled waste material within the bindings of newer books. The last surviving witnesses to otherwise lost books, they serve historians of book culture as primary evidence of the rising and falling fortunes of texts, patterns of readership, and routes of dissemination. As such, they should be counted as books in their own right, albeit copies that happen not to have survived intact.

Recent discoveries of early printed binding waste at Princeton include a bifolium from Boniface VIII, Liber sextus decretalium (Mainz: Johann Fust & Peter Schoeffer, 1465), which now serves as the vellum cover of Johann Funck’s Chronologia, hoc est, Omnium temporum et annorum ab initio mundi  (Wittenberg: Zachariah Lehmann, for Andreas Hoffmann, 1601), formerly at the University of Tübingen. This is the second-earliest printed fragment still preserved on a bookbinding at Princeton. A fragment of the Gutenberg Bible, ca. 1455, preserved in situ on a German law book printed in 1666, was featured in an earlier installment of the “Notabilia” blog:

https://blogs.princeton.edu/notabilia/2017/04/18/princeton-acquires-a-vellum-fragment-of-the-gutenberg-bible-preserved-as-a-book-cover/

Especially important for the study of 15th-century book culture is the discovery — in a neglected box of old binding fragments — of two paper leaves of a previously UNKNOWN edition of a German Prognostication for the Year 1482, by Wenzel Faber von Budweis (ca. 1455–1518), a Bohemian-born physician and astronomer at the University of Leipzig. The quarto booklet was published in Augsburg by Christmann Heyny, using the late Günther Zainer’s types, probably toward the end of 1481.

The vernacular German text consists of Faber’s predictions for the coming year that were pertinent to the city of Leipzig and surrounding regions. Faber was one of the leading authors of this popular genre, known as Practica, and Princeton’s Prognostication for 1482 is the earliest surviving work by this author. The complete text is known from a Leipzig edition of the same year, uniquely preserved at Nuremberg’s Stadtbibliothek, but no other trace of this Augsburg printing has ever been found. It has been catalogued as a new, unique item in the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke in Berlin. Their description, listing only the Princeton fragments, is below:

For much more on Wenzel Faber von Budweis, including two manuscripts at Princeton University Library that he owned – one of which includes a partial inventory of his library at the time of his death, see Don C. Skemer, ‘Wenzel Faber von Budweis (c. 1455/1460–1518): An astrologer and his library in the early age of printing’, in: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 82 (2007), pp. 241-277, and these catalogue records:

https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/11333371

https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/4990964With thanks to Falk Eisermann & Oliver Duntze, Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, Berlin.

Two 16th-Century Cambridge Bindings by Garrett Godfrey

Posted on by

         I

Virgil. Opera Vergiliana docte et familiariter exposita. Jodocus Badius, ed. Paris: François Regnault, 1515.

Junius Morgan Collection 2945.1515q

While reviewing Princeton University’s extensive collection of early editions of Virgil’s poetry, I noticed that the Paris edition of 1515, presented to Princeton by Junius S. Morgan toward the beginning of the last century, was preserved in a worn but handsome early 16th-century blind-tooled calfskin binding that was unmistakably English. Upon closer inspection, the letters “GG”, embossed repeatedly into the elaborate cover decoration, caused a flash of recognition: this is the monogram of Garrett Godfrey, a bookseller and binder active in Cambridge from 1502 until his death in 1539, now recognized as one of the most notable figures of the early modern English book trade. As Princeton did not otherwise own a binding by Godfrey, this was a significant discovery.

Like many of England’s binders of the period, Godfrey came from the Netherlands. According to Roger Ascham’s Toxophilus (1545), “Garret our bookebynder” recalled that when his famous countryman Erasmus of Rotterdam made several long visits to Cambridge (between August 1511 and January 1514), the great humanist scholar would ride his horse around the market hill as a respite from his studies before returning to his quarters. Many of Godfrey’s surviving bindings enclose works by Erasmus, and it has been suggested that Erasmus lived in the home of the bookbinder during his visits to Cambridge.

The fact that a 1515 Parisian edition of Virgil’s works had been imported to Cambridge is not surprising. Although Virgil’s poetry was studied, and enjoyed, throughout Europe, it was not until 1570 that England would print its own Latin edition of this Classic work. The present book, with extensive scholarly commentary and notes, was owned early on by an Englishman whose name is inscribed on the title page: “…Magistri Thome Lane quondam vicarii de Reydon et Southwold in Suff.” This individual seems to be Thomas Lane (d. 1541), vicar in Reydon and Southwold in Suffolk, about 75 miles east of Cambridge.

Godfrey’s binding of the 1515 Virgil also includes two pastedowns recycled from the vellum leaves of a discarded manuscript of Averroës (Ibn Rushd), In Aristotelis Metaphysicorum libros commentarii, Book 5, that apparently was produced in Cambridge in the 13th century (the initial E for “Ens” begins chapter 7; the P for “Potentia” begins chapter 10). A survey of other Godfrey bindings likely will reveal related fragments, likewise used as pastedowns.

           

Godfrey’s activities as a bookseller and binder in Cambridge are particularly well documented thanks to the chance survival of several leaves from his account books, which were found in one of his bookbindings now at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The surviving accounts, datable from 1527 to 1533, include lists of book titles, often with their prices, as well as the names of their buyers. These records refer to four copies of Virgil’s Opera bound for various patrons, but it seems impossible to match up such transactions with Princeton’s book.

II

[Johannes Justus Landsperger]. Candela Evangelica. [Cologne]: Eucharius Cervicornus, 1527.

[Bound with:] Johannes Fabri, Bishop of Vienna. Causse rationabiles. Cologne: Petrus Quentell, 1527.

Princeton University Library recently purchased two theological works printed in Cologne in 1527, recognizing that the items offered far more significance for the history of books than the bookseller had realized. The two octavos were bound together in what the dealer described online as a period blind-tooled calfskin binding. More precisely, it is a rare signed panel-stamped binding by Garrett Godfrey.

The calfskin binding is one of two dozen (or so) that survive with Godfrey’s panel stamp bearing his monogram, “GG.” These initials normally appear on the upper cover within a shield at the foot of a large Tudor rose surrounded by scrolls bearing the couplet “Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno Eternu[m] florens regia sceptra feret.” On Princeton’s acquisition, the leather is worn and the shape of the shield is difficult to see. At either side of the rose are two angels in a field of flowers with the arms of St. George on the left and those of the City of London on the right.

 The panel stamp on the lower cover bears the royal arms of Henry VIII beneath a crown, all supported by two angels amid flowers. 

Godfrey’s accounts mention both of the titles contained in Princeton’s recently acquired volume. In fact, they appear in consecutive order in two distinct entries. Unfortunately, both entries are among those that do not supply the prices or the names of their buyers. The earlier entries read:

1 candela evangelica

1 cause febri 

The second entries, written amid several other bindings datable to 1527, read:

1 candela evangelica

1 cause fabri 

One of these pairs of books, or one just like it, bound together and sold by Godfrey, must be the pair now at Princeton University Library.

An inscription on the rear endleaf provides the identity of a 16th-century owner: “Iste liber pertinet [ad me] Edmundo Poulter.” Our earliest post-16th-century knowledge of the book is its appearance in the collection of the English bibliographer and bookbinding historian Edward Gordon Duff (1863–1924). It was sold in the auction of Duff’s books at Sotheby’s, London, 16 March 1925, Part I, lot 38, going to the book historian and bookseller E. P. (Ernst Philip) Goldschmidt (1887–1954) for £8 5s.* The book appeared again for sale in the catalogue of E. P. Goldschmidt & Co., Ltd., Early Printed Books: Medicine, Mathematics and Early Science, XVIth Century Books and Many Specimens of Early Bindings, Bibliography, Etc. (London, [1928]), no. 249. It came to light again and was auctioned as an anonymous property at Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Atlases, Maps, and Printed Books (London, 29 June 1981), lot 407. At some point thereafter, a change in ownership resulted in a loss of knowledge, and so the initials “G.G” tooled in gold lettering on its old cloth box (probably Duff’s) no longer held any discernible meaning. It was only when the book was offered online in 2019 that I recognized the binding as the work of Garrett Godfrey and snapped it up for Princeton.

* I thank Dr Arnold Hunt, Cambridge University, for contributing this information.

                

Epilogue

In the summer of 2019 Lara Katz, a high school junior at Pierrepont School (Westport, CT), volunteered for a one-month directed research project on medieval manuscript fragments found in bookbindings of Princeton University Library’s early printed books. Surveying dozens of fragments, Lara was able to identify numerous medieval Latin texts that were highly abbreviated and difficult to read. Among these were two recycled pastedowns in the octavo Garrett Godfrey binding (above), which preserve portions of Johannes Duns Scotus (ca. 1266–1308), Quaestiones super libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, Book 5; a rubricated headline across each leaf, which reads “Metha[physi]ce V,” confirms Lara’s discovery.

Update

We are delighted to note that Lara Katz has been accepted to Princeton University and will be attending as a member of the Class of 2024. Congratulations, Lara!

A Fifteenth-Century Rubricator’s Complaint

Posted on by

The 1483 Horace, with Donatus fragment visible.

In November 2017, Notabilia reported Princeton University Library’s acquisition of a copy of Horace, Opera (Venice: Johannes de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, et Socii, 17 May 1483), the original binding of which included two fragments of the Ars minor of Aelius Donatus, printed with the same typeface that had been used to print Gutenberg’s 42-Line Bible in Mainz, ca. 1455.

 

One intriguing aspect of the book that we were unable to explain was the rubricator’s cryptic inscription at the end of the Horace:

We contacted Dr. Falk Eisermann at the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke in Berlin, who consulted with Dr. Christoph Mackert at the University of Leipzig, who provided the answer. The rubricator complained, quite understandably, that he had completed his arduous work, encompassing hundreds of red and blue initials and thousands of paragraph marks and red capital highlights, with “DIGITIS FESSIS” — tired fingers.

Some of the rubricator’s handiwork.

Vestiges of a Lost Carolingian Bible Discovered at Princeton

Posted on by

Ink offset on the upper board of EXI Oversize 5707.674q

The fifteenth-century binding of Princeton University Library’s copy of Nicolaus de Ausmo, Supplementum Summae Pisanellae et Canones poenitentiales (Venice: Franciscus Renner, de Heilbronn and Nicolaus de Frankfordia, 1474), preserves the ghostly remains of one of the greatest of all lost books: the ninth-century “Tours Bible” of Trier, a large-format manuscript written at Tours ca. 835 as part of the religious reforms initiated by Charlemagne (742–814), later deposited at the Imperial Benedictine Abbey of St Maximin in Trier, only to be discarded for use as binding waste in Trier during the fifteenth century.

Since the closure of St Maximin in Trier in 1802, approximately 85 fragments from this lost Carolingian Bible have come to light, all within fifteenth-century book bindings from this monastery’s library. Many are preserved in Trier’s Stadtbibliothek, while others are in Vienna, London, Berlin, Bonn, Koblenz, Walberberg, and three institutions in the United States: Indiana University’s Lilly Library, Cornell University’s Olin Library, and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Carolingian ink offset on the lower board, reversed and enhanced image.

Princeton’s vestiges of this lost Carolingian Bible are neither a full vellum leaf nor a small fragment, but rather the reversed offset of ninth-century minuscule script, written in red and black ink, which has adhered to the Trier binding’s bare wooden boards, formerly covered by two vellum fragments from the discarded Tours Bible, which were removed at an unknown date. Decipherable with the aid of enhanced digital images shown in reverse, the preserved text consists of the Latin chapter summaries for 4 Kings (IV Regum), which would have preceded the beginning of that biblical book. The vellum leaf that bore this offset text, which was cut into two pieces and pasted down horizontally across the interior surfaces of the upper and lower boards, appears not to have survived. Thus, the offset in the Princeton binding is the only witness to its existence and the only record of its contents.

Detail of the Moutier-Grandval Bible. London, The British Library © British Library Board.

Some idea of the lost Tours Bible from Trier may be obtained by comparing the offset discovered at Princeton to the same biblical text in the ninth-century “Moutier-Grandval Bible” at the British Library, one of the greatest of all surviving Carolingian manuscripts. In both bibles, a red-ink rubric reads “Incipit capitulatio de Libro regum quarto,” while a series of Roman chapter numerals and initial Ds written in red ink descends the left side of the column. The script and spacing exhibited in each of the bibles is closely comparable, suggesting that they were produced within the same scriptorium.

Comparison of the Princeton offset (top) and Moutier-Grandval Bible in London (bottom).

Inscription on f. 1r

The Princeton copy of Nicolaus de Ausmo, printed in Venice in 1474, reached St Maximin in Trier soon after its publication. There, presumably during the later 1470s, it was inscribed “Ex libris Imperialis Monasterij S. Maximinj” and was bound (with the Carolingian Bible fragments) in wooden boards covered with blind-tooled calfskin; one of the tools impressed into the leather verifies its early provenance, bearing the words “Codex sancti Maximini.”

Detail of binding: “Codex sancti Maximini” stamp

 

 

When St Maximin in Trier was dissolved in 1802, many of its library’s books went to the local Stadtbibliothek, but many others were scattered to the four winds. The Nicolaus de Ausmo of 1474, along with several other books from St Maximin, became part of the collection of Joseph von Görres (1776–1848), a German writer and historian in Koblenz. His collection of printed books was sold by Süddeutsches Antiquariat in Munich (Katalog 32, dated 1903 [i.e. 1902]), no. 2. The catalogue entry mentioned the book’s provenance from St Maximin in Trier, but not the Carolingian binding waste or its offset. The book was owned next by Edward Duff Balken (1874–1960), Princeton Class of 1897, who presented it to Princeton University Library in 1940. The Carolingian offset was discovered and identified by Eric White on March 29, 2018, during preparations for a meeting of RBSC’s Rare Books Working Group, an informal book history workshop for interested Princeton University graduate students.

For further reading:

Die Touronische Bibel der Abtei St. Maximin vor Trier: Faksimile der erhaltenen Blätter… Ed. Reiner Nolden (Trier, 2002).

Florentine Mütherich, “Die Touronische Bibel von St. Maximin in Trier,” in: Studies in Carolingian Manuscript Illumination (London, 2004), 341-60.

The Only Copy in America of Virgil’s Bucolica [Strasbourg: Heinrich Eggestein, ca. 1473-74]

Posted on by

Vergilius Maro, Publius. Bucolica [Strasbourg : Heinrich Eggestein, about 1473-74] f°. Goff V-203.      Oversize VRG 2945.325.001q

Given the rich holdings of Virgil’s poetry in Princeton University Library, one of the world’s foremost repositories of fifteenth-century editions of his works, it is perhaps easy to overlook the collection’s earliest separate edition of the Bucolica, which is one of only five copies to survive and the only copy preserved outside of continental Europe. Written in 42–39 BCE, the Bucolica (Latin ‘On the care of cattle’) was Virgil’s first major work, preceding the Georgics and the Aeneid. The Bucolica consists of ten brief eclogues that evoke the idyllic scenes and daily hardships of rural life within the Roman Empire. The poems were sensationally popular in ancient Rome and have never gone out of favor, as medieval Christians admired Virgil’s mastery of Latin verse and perceived messianic themes in his imagery. Virgil became Dante’s hero, and readers of the Renaissance esteemed Virgil above all other poets. In modern times, improved editions of his works, as well as reliable translations, continue to find a broad readership.

The first printing of the works of Virgil, including the Bucolica, Georgics, and the Aeneid, appears to be the folio edition published in Rome c. 1469 by Conradus Sweynheym and Arnoldus Pannartz. Princeton University Library is one of eight institutions to hold that edition, and the only one outside of Europe. The first separate printing of the Bucolica appeared in a smaller quarto format from the Cologne press of Ulrich Zel, c. 1470, which is known in only eleven copies.

Princeton’s earliest Bucolica, from the second separate edition, was printed in Strasbourg by Heinrich Eggestein about 1473-74. It is a slender Chancery folio (30.9 × 21.2 cm) of sixteen leaves in which the poems were composed in a single narrow column of 27 lines per page, spaciously leaded as in a school book. In the past the edition has been dated variously as c. 1468, c. 1470, and c. 1472. The earlier dates are clearly too early, falling before Eggestein introduced his type known as ‘4:99G’, used here, which also appeared in datable editions from 1471 to 1473. The dating of c. 1472 for Eggestein’s Bucolica, cited in most of the prevailing bibliographies, accords with the printer’s chronology but it does not take into account the key evidence of his paper supply. Paul Needham, the Scheide Librarian at Princeton, has determined that the watermarks found in the Bucolica, depicting a Bull’s Head surmounted by a Tau Cross, belong to a Chancery paper stock from Basel that also was used c. 1474 in Valascus de Taranta, Tractatus de epidemia et peste [Basel: Martin Flach, c. 1474]. Needham suggests that the best dating for Eggestein’s Bucolica is therefore c. 1473-74.

Eggestein’s edition of the Bucolica first came to light in 1810, when the French bibliographer Jacques-Charles Brunet (1780–1867) described it in his Manuel de libraire, vol. 2 (p. 648), citing the copy then owned by Comte Léon d’Ourches (1766–1843) of Nancy. The confident attribution in 1810 of an unsigned Bucolica to Eggestein exhibits a precocious knowledge of early Strasbourg typefaces. In the following year that same copy of the Bucolica was sold in the Catalogue des livres rares, précieux et bien conditionnés du cabinet de M. Léon d’Ourches (Paris: Jacques-Charles Brunet, 1811), lot 619, to the Parisian booksellers Guillaume De Bure l’aîné and his two sons; soon thereafter the De Bure frères sold that book to the Bibliothèque nationale de France, where it remains.

Duru’s 1853 binding.

Princeton University’s copy of Eggestein’s Bucolica was the second to emerge, one of only two copies ever to appear on the rare book market. It was first recorded in the German bookseller Fidelis Butsch’s Catalog einer ausgewählten Sammlung von Inkunabeln, literarischen Curiositäten und Seltenheiten (Augsburg, 1851), p. 35. In 1853 it was rebound by the fashionable Parisian binder Hippolyte Duru in brown morocco (goatskin) paneled in blind with darkened fillets, gold corner fleurons, and inner dentelles in gold over marbled endpapers, with all edges gilt.

Duru’s stamp.

Inside front cover.

The Princeton copy also bears the bookplate of the Parisian printer and book collector Ambroise Firmin-Didot (1790–1876), who is probably the owner who brought the book to Paris from Augsburg to be rebound by Duru. In the Catalogue illustré des livres précieux manuscrits et imprimés faisant partie de la bibliothèque de m. Ambroise Firmin-Didot (Paris, 1878), the Bucolica was sold as item 104 to Bernard Quaritch, who offered in his List 327, Latest Purchases (1879), no. 18687. Soon it came into the possession of Rev. William Makellar (1836–1896), a not particularly wealthy Presbyterian minister in Edinburgh who managed to acquire a Gutenberg Bible in 1885. In the Catalogue of the Extensive Library of Valuable Books and Manuscripts of the Late Rev. William Makellar (London, 1898), Sotheby’s sold the Bucolica as lot 3127 to the Piccadilly bookseller James Toovey (1813–1893) for £22; Toovey kept it within his ‘reserve’ collection, most of which his heirs sold to J. Pierpont Morgan of New York in 1899. However, the Bucolica, and many other important editions of Virgil (including the rare first edition of c. 1469), went instead to Morgan’s nephew, Junius Spencer Morgan (1867–1932), an 1888 graduate of the College of New Jersey, which is now known as Princeton University. An outstanding amateur scholar, philanthropist, and collector of art and books, Morgan gave the entirety of his great collection of Virgil editions, encompassing more than 700 titles, to his alma mater over a period of many years. His is the only copy of Eggestein’s Bucolica ever to leave continental Europe.

Junius Spencer Morgan (1867–1932). Princeton, Class of 1888.

Three other copies of Eggestein’s Bucolica have come to light. One is part of a Sammelband of several works preserved at the University Library in Freiburg im Breisgau; another was found at the Cathedral Library in Hildesheim in 1908; a third was identified among the thousands of incunables at the Bavarian State Library in Munich. Mysteriously, as in the Princeton copy, the rubricator of the Munich copy mistook the first word of the Bucolica, ‘[T]ityre,’ and filled in a colored initial ‘S’ instead, so that it reads ‘Sityre.’ With its ample margins and clean white paper, the Princeton copy is perhaps the finest of the five that survive.

Rubricator’s beautiful mistake: S instead of T.

Princeton Acquires Hidden Gutenbergian Donatus Leaf

Posted on by

“Time will bring to light whatever is hidden” – Horace

When this 1483 Venetian edition of the poetic works of Horace (65–8 BCE) was offered on a bookseller’s website on August 31, 2017, my eyes were drawn quickly away from its handsome Venetian typography to behold the narrow strip of vellum binding waste visible at the left side of his online image. Although neither the bookseller nor any previous owner had noticed it before, this strip was printed with the typeface used to print the Gutenberg Bible! Minutes later, Princeton had purchased the Horace, and when the book arrived, I was pleased to discover that there were actually two of these narrow vellum strips, one at the front and one at the back, folded and sewn into the binding around the first and last quires of the Horace. It was decided that Princeton’s paper conservator, Ted Stanley, should lift the old paper paste-downs inside each cover, and indeed this revealed much broader extensions of both of the vellum strips, still glued down onto the 15th-century wooden boards.

Above: Horace. Opera, with commentary by Cristoforo Landino. (Venice: Johannes de Gregoriis, de Forlivio, et Socii, 17 May 1483), as offered online in 2017.

Ted Stanley’s blog:

https://conservation.princeton.edu/2017/11/revealing-gutenbergian-text/

The results of Ted Stanley’s work are seen below, in photography by Roel Muñoz:


Front board and leaf following first quire, inverted to show the printed fragment.

 


Back board and leaf preceding final quire, inverted to show the printed fragment.

 

The two vellum fragments, now fully revealed except for two narrow widths that remains folded around the first and last six leaves of the Horace, constitute a complete leaf (folio 11 of 13) from a previously unknown 33-line edition of the Ars minor of Aelius Donatus (fl. 4th century CE), the essential Latin grammar used in medieval schools. Although it uses Johannes Gutenberg’s types, this edition most likely was printed by Gutenberg’s former colleagues in Mainz, Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer (or by Schoeffer alone).

Left: Composite image of the visible portions of the Donatus leaf, still bound inside the Horace.

 

Whereas the red markings throughout the Donatus fragments were added by hand, the blue chapter initial A on the fragment at the back of the Horace was printed by the press in blue ink containing indigo. This feature helps to date the Donatus edition to no earlier than 1457, when Fust and Schoeffer first introduced colored initials, including the identical A, in their famous Mainz Psalter. Moreover, in line 24, the misprint ‘audiuntur’ instead of ‘audiuntor’ matches that in a nearly identical fragment at Giessen University and in a fragment of a 35-line edition in Paris, which bears the printer’s colophon of Peter Schoeffer (alone). This suggests that all three editions were printed after Johann Fust died in 1466. 

Thus, a few decades after the Donatus was printed, a bookbinder saw fit to recycle the schoolbook in order to provide supports for the binding of the Horace. The rubrication of the Horace is German in style, not Italian. This strongly suggests that the book was imported to Germany from Venice at an early date. The use of a printed leaf from Mainz as binding waste likewise suggests that the Horace was bound in Germany. Moreover, an inscription by an early owner, Johann Ogier (Freiherr) Faust von Aschaffenburg (1577-1631) of Frankfurt am Main, suggests that city, with its important international book fair, as the likeliest location for the demise of the Donatus, and the binding of the Horace.

Today, no copies of any Mainz edition of the Donatus survive intact, and even such small typographic specimens as this are fabulously rare – the last time a Gutenberg-type Donatus fragment was discovered was in 1973. However, what is most important is that the present fragments were found in situ, and Princeton intends to leave them where they belong. These are the only known Mainz Donatus fragments that are still preserved within the binding that constitutes their original datable context, and it is this unique circumstance that provides important information about the lives – and deaths – of Europe’s earliest printed books.

Eric White, PhD
Acting Curator of Rare Books
Princeton University Library

Princeton Acquires a Vellum Fragment of the Gutenberg Bible Preserved as a Book Cover

Posted on by

Biblia Latina (The 42-Line Bible). [Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg, c. 1455].

Princeton University Library’s Department of Rare Books and Special Collections is pleased to announce the acquisition of the most significant specimen of the ‘Gutenberg Bible’ discovered during this century. This single leaf printed on vellum (calfskin) is a remarkable survival from what is widely considered the first book printed in Europe: the large folio Latin Bible that demonstrated the immense potential of the typographic method that Johannes Gutenberg, with financial backing from Johann Fust, developed in Mainz during the early 1450s. Given that Princeton University has been a leading center for Gutenberg-related studies ever since 1958, when the Scheide Library and its beautifully preserved two-volume paper copy of this Bible were deposited in Firestone Library (the collection was bequeathed to Princeton by William H. Scheide in 2014), the new vellum fragment provides welcome additional avenues for research into the early history of printing in the West.1

The fragment owes its survival to the fact that – more than two centuries after the Bible was printed, and long after its historical significance had been forgotten – its vellum was considered useful as recycled waste from which to make book covers. Although this grim fate once was common among obsolete books of all descriptions, this is in fact the only specimen of the Gutenberg Bible still preserved as a book binding ever to appear on the rare book market. Clearly, a discarded copy of the Gutenberg Bible was cut into hundreds of pieces for this purpose – but where, and when? The Princeton fragment itself provides evidence of unusual specificity, as it still encloses a copy of the Erneuerte und verbesserte Landes- und Procesz-Ordnung, an ordinance of litigation within the Electorate of Saxony, printed at Cöthen, Germany, in 1666. Moreover, a contemporary inscription indicates that the slender quarto volume was owned by the noted jurist Adam Cortrejus (1637–1706), who earned his doctorate at Jena in 1666, long served as Syndic in Halle, and died in Magdeburg. This owner’s limited itinerary and the strictly local interest of the Cöthen law book both suggest that the bindery of this book – and likewise the lost Gutenberg Bible – should be localized to Saxony-Anhalt, northwest of Leipzig, during the last decades of seventeenth century.

This localization is especially interesting in light of Eric White’s previous research, published in 2010, concerning several dozen other vellum fragments of the Gutenberg Bible that survive as binding waste.2 Categorized by their distinct styles of rubrication (headlines, initials, and chapter numerals added by hand), these fall into eleven groups, each localized to the region in which they first were discovered, or were used as binding waste. One such group, consisting of six identically rubricated leaves, includes three leaves found in 1819 on two different bindings at the Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek in Dresden, two leaves at the Grolier Club in New York City owned by Friedrich Barnheim at Insterburg in 1867, another leaf sold by the Leipzig antiquarian Theodor Oswald Weigel by 1865 (now at the Museo Correr in Venice), as well as a leaf from Apocalypse formerly at the Universitätsbibliothek in Breslau, now lost. Dr. White localized this otherwise lost Gutenberg Bible to the vicinity of Dresden and predicted that any yet-to-be-discovered fragments exhibiting the same rubrication style very likely would hail from that same region. The fact that the rubrication exhibited by the Princeton fragment closely matches that of the Dresden group indicates that all seven fragments derive from the same lost Bible. Moreover, the three German towns associated with Princeton’s binding – Cöthen, Halle, and Magdeburg – are just to the northwest of Dresden and Leipzig.

Front cover, turned sideways, showing the rubricated initial F and the chapter numeral v.

Initial F on the Princeton binding.                            Initial F on a fragment found in Dresden.

Detail of front cover, showing rubricated headline PA RA [-lipomenon], i.e., I Chronicles.

Detail of headline P found in Dresden.                          Detail of headline A found in Leipzig.

The Princeton binding was discovered by Stefan Krüger, a bookseller in Cologne, within an unexamined mixed lot of mainly 19th-century law books auctioned in Bonn c. 2006. Krüger made no announcement of his discovery until November 2016, when he advertised online that the binding would be sold on January 26, 2017, at the 31st annual Ludwigsburg Antiquaria, held near Stuttgart. In accordance with the traditions of that fair, the item would be available at a substantial (but by no means inflated) fixed price to the first applicant, or, in the event of a broader interest, to the winner of a lottery among those in attendance.

Chaos ensued on the first day of the Ludwigsburg fair, where at least 76 bidders (including Princeton’s Curator of Rare Books) drew lots for the item. The winning number belonged to a member of a consortium of German dealers headed by the independent bookseller Detlev Auvermann, an emigré to London who formerly had worked for Quaritch, Ltd. He agreed to Princeton’s immediate request for ‘first refusal’ upon determination of his sale price. While Princeton University Library administrators contemplated this major purchase, Auvermann expressed his intention to offer the item at the annual New York Book Antiquarian Book Fair beginning on March 9, 2017. The negotiations formalizing Princeton’s acquisition were completed at the end of February, and Auvermann was able to display the binding at the New York fair, marked ‘sold.’ Princeton took possession of the item on March 12.

Although the surface of the Bible fragment is somewhat abraded and stained, as is usual for vellum leaves used as book coverings, the condition of the binding is excellent; the structure is intact, and the connections between the spine and the covers are strong. Internally, the 1666 Cöthen law book is in very good original condition. A new clam-shell box covered in navy blue Asahi backcloth was created by Princeton’s Collections Conservator, Lindsey Hobbs.

Today, 36 paper copies and 12 vellum copies of the Gutenberg Bible survive reasonably intact, either as complete Bibles or as incomplete bound volumes. Added to these are an incomplete paper copy dismantled in 1920 for sale as individual books or single leaves, and three copies on paper and eleven copies on vellum known only from binding waste. The study of the impact of early printing in Europe is well served by giving closer scholarly attention to the fourteen copies, including the one represented by Princeton’s fragment, that may not survive in the form of books, but which do survive, nevertheless.

VALUE TO RESEARCH AND INSTRUCTION AT PRINCETON

Like William Scheide himself, Princeton’s librarians, particularly the successive Scheide Librarians, have researched and published on many aspects of Gutenberg’s invention and the earliest printed books. Moreover, Princeton’s faculty have embedded book history into the university’s curriculum and are training their undergraduate and graduate students to approach the discipline with open-minded curiosity and direct experience of the original artifacts. This major acquisition is intended to continue and enrich that tradition:

  • Princeton’s acquisition of the Gutenberg fragment brings a historically unique and physically ‘at risk’ survival from the first European printing enterprise into permanent institutional protection.
  • Whereas all other Gutenberg Bible leaves discovered since 1900 have been removed from their host bindings, destroying historical evidence, Princeton’s purchase of this specimen establishes forever the premium value of leaving early binding waste intact.
  • Contributing to an emerging field of book history research – the loss of books – this ‘miraculous’ fragmentary survival effectively encapsulates the extreme fluctuations in the Gutenberg Bible’s historical fortune over five centuries.
  • To a degree unsurpassed by any similar specimen, this fragment and its host volume document the time and place at which an otherwise lost copy of the Gutenberg Bible was discarded for use as waste material for book bindings.
  • The physical states of the Gutenberg Bible in Princeton’s Scheide Library and this the fragment perfectly complement each other: two paper volumes in their original binding preserved in benign neglect in Erfurt until 1840 vs. a vellum fragment from a copy cut apart by a binder c. 1666. No American library holds a similar pairing.
  • Prior to this acquisition, Princeton owned the Scheide copy of the Gutenberg Bible and 19 paper leaves from 3 others (worldwide, only the Morgan Library represents as many copies). The addition of this fragment introduces a specimen printed on vellum and provides the unique opportunity to analyze the varied rubrication and provenance evidence of five copies of the Gutenberg Bible in one library.

Call #: (ExI) 2017-0006N

https://pulsearch.princeton.edu/catalog/10138910

 

Eric White, PhD
Curator of Rare Books
Princeton University Library

____________________

              1 Paul Needham, The Invention and Early Spread of European Printing as Represented in the Scheide Library (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Library, 2007).

              2 Eric Marshall White, ‘The Gutenberg Bibles that Survive as Binder’s Waste’, in Early Printed Books as Material Objects. Proceedings of the Conference Organized by the IFLA Rare Books and Manuscripts Section. Munich, 19-21 August 2009. Bettina Wagner and Marcia Reed, eds. (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2010), 21-35.

 

THREE DISCOVERIES IN ONE: New Evidence for a Book Bound and Owned in Ulm, ca. 1500-1531

Posted on by

ottoThree discoveries by three different researchers have cast new light on a remarkable 500-year-old book that has been at Princeton University since 1873: Otto von Passau’s Die vierundzwanzig Alten, oder Der goldne Thron, completed by the Strasbourg printer Johann Schott on 28 March 1500. In this work, illustrated with 25 woodcuts, the Twenty-Four Elders of Revelation 4:4 expound upon passages of scriptural wisdom so as to guide the reader to the “golden throne” of eternal salvation.

The first discovery was made in 2007 by Scott Husby, Princeton’s conservator for Rare Books and Special Collections (since retired), who identified the folio’s original (ca. 1500) blind-tooled pigskin-covered binding as the work of bookbinders at Ulm in southern Germany. ulm-o-123The tooled emblems found on the binding, including a distinctive Lamb of God, Winged Lion of St. Mark, and Pierced Heart, are associated both with the bindery of the Augustinian canons of the “Wengenkloster “ of St. Michael in Ulm, and with Konrad Dinckmut, a printer active in Ulm from 1476 and recorded as a bookbinder in that city from 1481; Dinckmut’s sons Hans and Michael appear to have continued binding books with his tools into the sixteenth century.

A Reformation-era inscription within the book supports this localization, as it records that the volume was the property of the Franciscan fathers of Ulm until the eve of the feast of St. Francis (4 October) 1531, when the city’s adoption of Protestantism led to their expulsion (“Gehort den vatter[n] zu Ulm als sy uszogen seind umb Francisci im xxxi jor”):

o-123titlepage

The second discovery was made by John Lancaster, Curator of Special Collections, Emeritus, Amherst College Library, in October 2016. He identified the mysterious printed paper sheet that had served the bookbinder as a pastedown inside the folio’s front cover. Noting that it came from a Latin grammatical work printed idsc_0007n quarto format, he quickly determined that “the text is Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale – of which there are hundreds of editions. But the lack of commentary rules out many editions, so a quick look for editions without commentary, preferably quite late (since the Otto von Passau was printed in 1500), led to success! [Ulm: Johann Schäffler], 15 Feb. 1500.”

This Ulm edition of the Doctrinale is truly rare: it exists only in a single incomplete copy at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, and – as we now know – the single sheet of binding waste discovered at Princeton. As the sheet appears to have been printed on one side only and was never cut into individual leaves, it would have been discarded by Schäffler’s printing shop in Ulm ca. 1500 and handed over as waste material for use by the Ulm binder of Princeton’s Otto von Passau, a book that likewise was printed in 1500 and imported to Ulm soon thereafter.

The third discovery came in November 2016, when Eric White, Princeton’s Acting Curator of Rare Books, tackled the nagging problem of the handsome coat-of-arms painted inside the book’s back cover, beneath the initials P and R and the date 1505. A longer-than-desired period of fruitless searching ultimately was rewarded when a match was found in a sixtdsc_0008eenth-century compendium of German armorials: the quarters on the right, divided per fess into black over white, refer to the civic arms of Ulm, while on the left the white unicorn on a black field identifies the crest as that of the family Roth von Schreckenstein, prominent patricians of Ulm.

The initials PR are believed to belong to Paulus Roth von Schreckenstein (b. 1435), the Bürgermeister of Ulm during the 1470s. Although his date of death is not known, he may well have left the book to the Franciscans of Ulm soon after 1505. Another Ulm binding with a nearly identical painted coat of arms and the initials PR is at the University of Gießen; it encloses Dinckmut’s rare Ulm edition of Der neuen Liebe Buch (not before 1486) and three Strasbourg editions from 1507 to 1509.

These discoveries increase the scholarly value of Princeton’s copy of Otto von Passau by bringing unusually rich context to the relationships between printers, bookbinders, and both mendicant and secular book owners in Germany five centuries ago; they may also shed particularly interesting light on the broader but heretofore forgotten book collecting activities of a prominent member of Ulm’s patriciate, Paulus Roth von Schreckenstein.

pr1505

Princeton University Library Rare Books and Special Collections. Call no. ExI 5959.692. Purchased by the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1873 along with an important collection of Reformation pamphlets owned by Dr. Adolf Trendelenburg of Berlin.

Acquisitions at the Pirie Sale

Posted on by

PRINTED BOOKS ACQUIRED AT THE PIRIE SALE

Stephen Ferguson
Associate University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections

“I’d never intended to practice law,” said Robert S. Pirie (1934–2015), a prominent New York lawyer and investment banker. “I wanted to become the rare book curator.” Pirie was the youngest in a cohort of twentieth-century American collectors of early English literature, among whom Robert H. Taylor (1909–1985) was the oldest. Long-time Princeton resident and major antiquarian bookseller John Brett-Smith (1917–2003), although British-born, was also a member of this cohort. There were many commonalities among the three. All had a bond and loyalty to the legendary New York antiquarian bookshop Seven Gables, which supplied each of them with tasteful, distinguished, and provenance-rich copies of major and minor monuments of England’s literary greats. (For more on the Seven Gables cohort, see Nicolas Barker, “Robert S. Pirie, 1934–2015,” The Book Collector 64.2 [Summer 2015]: 202–10.) Furthermore, their collective imagination and achievement projected their reputations beyond the Northeast and clear across to Britain. In some respects, the attainments of two members of this group are preserved in the Princeton University Library. Robert Taylor’s bequest is well known. Perhaps less well known is the work of John Brett-Smith, who, as bookseller and sometimes donor, augmented, supplied, and extended our collections of English literature. Therefore, when the Pirie collection came to auction in December 2015, we had another—and perhaps the last—opportunity to capture some of the glory of this remarkable group of twentieth-century collectors. Guiding our bidding decisions were themes already strong in the Taylor collection: annotated books, books of notable provenance, and extraordinary books signaling the literary taste of early modern England. The fifteen books purchased at the Pirie sale are listed below.

PIRIE

ANNOTATED BOOKS

Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Husbandry (London, 1580); annotated by Gabriel Harvey (1552/3–1631).

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War [in Greek] (Venice: Aldus, 1502), bound with Pausanias, Works (Venice: Aldus, 1516); annotated by Roger Ascham (1515–1568) and Richard Morison (c. 1514–1556) (pictured above).

Ben Jonson, Works (London, 1692), and John Suckling, Fragmenta Aurea (London, 1646); both annotated by Charles Lamb (1775–1834).

Pliny, Epistolae (Venice: Aldus, 1508); annotated by Nicholas Udall (1505–1556).

Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 4th ed. (London, 1658); annotated by Browne (1605–1682).

Matthias Eberhart, Scholastica (Wittenberg, 1572); annotated by Robert Burton (1577–1640).

Erycius Puteanus, Comus (Oxford, 1634); annotated by Leigh Hunt (1784–1859).

BOOKS OF NOTABLE PROVENANCE

Arthur Duck, Vita Henrici Chichele (Oxford, 1617); with the initials of Isaak Walton (1593–1683).

Michel Montaigne, Les Essais (Paris, 1625); with a note in the hand of Abraham Cowley (1618–1687) and bookplates of later notable owners.

Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum (London, 1626); with supralibros of H[enry] G[oodere] and labels of other owners.

Elkanah Settle, Thalia Triumphans (London, 1717); binding with the arms of Henry Fiennes Clinton, 7th Earl of Lincoln (1684–1728).

Abbe d’Aubignac, Pratique du théâtre (Paris, 1657); with the signature of William Congreve (1670–1729) on the title page.

William Burton, Description of Leicester Shire (London, 1622); binding with the crest of Robert Glascock.

A MARKER OF LITERARY TASTES

A Sammelband, in a contemporary binding, of eight English translations from Ovid, by George Chapman (1559?–1634), Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), Thomas Heywood (c. 1574–1641), and others, all published between c. 1625 and 1640.

 

MANUSCRIPTS ACQUIRED AT THE PIRIE SALE

Don C. Skemer
Curator of Manuscripts

Pirie3The Manuscripts Division acquired three works at the Pirie auction: an Elizabethan prayer book c. 1580; a 1666 scribal copy of “The Second and Third Advice to a Painter,” a text that Professor of English Nigel Smith attributes to Andrew Marvell (1621–1678); and the 1660s memoir of an English woman named Mary Whitelocke. The daughter of London merchant Bigley Carleton, Whitelocke penned a fascinating 175-page memoir of her life and intimate thoughts for her eldest son. She traces her life from the time of her first marriage at the age of sixteen to Rowland Wilson (d. 1650), Member of Parliament, also from a London mercantile family. Whitelocke’s second marriage in 1650 was to the prominent Puritan lawyer, politician, and diplomat Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605–1675), a Member of Parliament and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England, with whom Mary had seven children. Much of the memoir relates to Mary’s family, home, and religious beliefs. Particularly interesting is Whitelocke’s poignant account of a miscarriage that occurred during her first marriage. There is some discussion of public affairs and events, particularly in her defense of Bulstrode Whitelocke’s public life. The manuscript has been in private collections since 1860, when it was cited and quoted in a biography of Bulstrode Whitelocke. All three manuscripts have been added to the Robert H. Taylor Collection of English and American Literature (RTC 01).

Princeton’s Greek Bible of 1545, annotated by Martin Chemnitz

Posted on by

 Chemnitz.tp.1000             Chemnitz.Adam.1000

On December 8, 2015, it was discovered that Princeton University Library’s “copy 2” of the Greek Bible, Tēs Theias graphēs : Palaias Dēladē kai Neas Diathēkēs hapanta (Basel: Johannes Hervagius, 1545), with a Latin preface by the Lutheran reformer Philipp Melanchthon, has an important but long forgotten provenance. The title page bears a mid-sixteenth-century inscription written by Johannes Willibrochius (d. 1606) of Danzig that records his presentation of the Greek  Bible to his friend “M. Martino Kemnitz,” i.e., Martin Chemnitz (1522–1586). Chemnitz.inscription.1000
Both of these men were pupils of Melanchthon at the University of Wittenberg in the early 1550s, and Chemnitz went on to became the most important Lutheran scholar of his generation. He came to be known as “Alter Martinus” (the Second Martin), as his theological writings were essential for the sustained success of Lutheranism after the death of its founder and namesake in 1546.

Early biographies of Chemnitz mention his careful study of the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek during the early 1550s, and indeed the Old Testament of Princeton’s Greek Bible bears thousands of marginal annotations in Greek and occasionally in Latin, written in a neat script that matches that of Chemnitz’s autograph letters. The annotations are mainly content notes, with some brief definitions and comments, but not many extended thoughts.

Johannes Willebrochius, who gave the Bible to Chemnitz, was an important figure in his own right. After his graduation from Wittenberg in 1552 he became a leading physician in Danzig. Later, he served as court physician to Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria at Prague and Innsbruck. Like Chemnitz, Willebrochius wrote theological works that ended up on the Tridentine Index of Prohibited Books. The few notes within Princeton’s Greek Bible of 1545 that were not written by Chemnitz clearly match the handwriting found in the letters of Willebrochius.

Front cover (tooling enhanced for legibility)

Chemnitz.rollDated 1550, the folio Bible’s pigskin binding bears the stamped initials “JW.” These initials clearly were added for Johannes Willebrochius before he gave the book to Chemnitz. Other stamps and rolls used to decorate the covers, including a rolled frieze (at right) with roundel portrait busts of Duke Friedrich of Saxony, Hercules, Antoninus, and Septimius Severus, dated 1524 on the surface of the tool itself, indicate that the binding was produced in Wittemberg by the noted master binder Nikolaus Müller.

The Greek Bible was donated to Princeton University Library on December 8, 1965, by Dr. Margaret Irving Handy (1889-1977), pioneering pediatrician of Delaware. It bears the signature of her grandfather, Rev. William Collins Handy (1835-1909), Princeton Class of 1855 (Divinity), later a prominent Presbyterian of New Scotland, New York, who seems to have purchased the old Bible for $1.83 in 1862. His brief autobiography of 1895, reprinted in the Princeton University Library Chronicle 30/3 (Spring, 1969), 200-203, unfortunately makes no mention of his Bible. Interestingly, the rediscovery of the Chemnitz provenance occurred exactly 50 years (to the day) after the granddaughter’s gift to Princeton.

Chemnitz.EvaThe “Chemnitz Bible,” heretofore unrecognized, is rich in research potential: for example, Princeton’s Prof. Anthony Grafton noticed that one of Chemnitz’s Latin marginalia, concerning the Vulgate version’s corruption of Genesis 3:15, cites “Philip” and quotes Melanchthon’s letter of January 1, 1539, addressed to “studiosis adolescentibus” (see Melanchthoniana paedogogica, ed. Karl Hartfelder (Leipzig: Teubner, 1892), 55). The Bible may be consulted in the Rare Books Reading Room; its call number is EX Oversize 5156.1545aq.

Chemnitz.open.1000a

15th century bookmark with column indicator

Posted on by

Sermones aurei de Sanctis Fratris Leonardi de Vtino

Sermones aurei de Sanctis Fratris Leonardi de Utino Venice: Franciscus Renner, de Heilbronn, with Nicolaus de Frankfordia, 1473. (Goff L-152) Call number: ExI 5428.579

Although this incunable was rebound in 1945, a remnant of the original 15th century binding was laid in — a bookmark with a rotating column-indicator. ❧ Other examples are known, such as:
• Harvard University, Houghton MS Typ 277, 12th c. [link to image] Register bookmark with adjustable dial set between column II and III (i.e. col. B verso and col. A recto [not pictured]) [See the recent posting discussing this Houghton example in the blog medievalfragments (Institute for Cultural Disciplines, Universiteit Leiden)].
• Medieval Rotating Column-Indicators: An Unrecorded Second Example in a Thirteenth Century Bible (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Ms 49) by Richard Emms published in Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2001), pp. 179-184 [Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41154907]

A Binding by Thomas Krüger 1580

Posted on by
Signed and dated: T.K. 1563. British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. ‘Modern impression’ print acquired by the British Museum in 1867, of panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder.
British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115
Front cover of Ex 5646.604.

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. Panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on front cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604.

From a description of an instance of the use of this panel on a binding at the British Library:

“Thomas Krüger, possibly the son of the binder Nikolaus Krüger of Wittenberg and himself a binder, started work not later than 1560. A number of his panels were signed, either with his full name or with his initials, and some were dated. … The large Melanchthon panel on this binding, dated 1563 and with Cranach’s device at the bottom, … [Ed.: note Cranach’s device: Cranach's.device.from.Weale1]… was copied from a woodcut by Cranach dated 1561,showing Melanchthon wearing the same fur-trimmed robe, neckcloth and shoes as on the panel, but with a closed instead of an open book in his right hand and a cap in his left. The face and hair are remarkably alike. The same woodcut served as example for the panels of other Wittenberg binders, such as those signed by Severin Rötter and Nikolaus Müller.” (- Mirjam M. Foot, “A Binding by Thomas Kruger, 1573. ” The Book Collector Vol 30, no. 2 (Summer 1981) p. 232-3. For image see the British Library Database of Bookbindings [link])

The back cover of this Leipzig, 1580 Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Book of Concord) is stamped in gold with a full length portrait of Martin Luther, a panel also made by Thomas Krüger. Surrounding both panels is a blind decorative roll composed of four portrait heads and three coats of arms. The roll is signed ‘H.B.,’viz., Heinrich Blume, also of Wittenberg. Further details and bibliography about these two panels and one decorative roll are available in the Einbanddatenbanken (EBDB). For Luther, see Zitiernummer EBDB p002949; for Melanchthon, Zitiernummer EBDB p002950 and for roll signed ‘H B’ with four heads and three coats of arms, see Zitiernummer EBDB r000351

❧ Larger images

Signed and dated: T.K. 1563. British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. ‘Modern impression’ print acquired by the British Museum in 1867, of panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder.
British Museum. Dept. of Prints and Drawings. No. 1867,0713.115

Front cover of Ex 5646.604.

Full length portrait of Philip Melanchton. Panel signed and dated: T.K. 1563., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on front cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604.

Full length portrait of Martin Luther. Panel signed T.K., that is, Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on back cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604

Full length portrait of Martin Luther. Panel signed T.K., viz., Thomas Krüger, Wittenberg bookbinder. Panel stamped in gilt on back cover of blind-tooled pigskin binding of the first Latin edition of the Lutheran Konkordienbuch (Leipzig, 1580). Call number: Ex 5646.604

Aristotle on all fronts: Four 18th century editions bound in one volume covering child birth, magic, palmistery, jokes, sex, astronomy, astrology, physiognomy, “monstrous” children and slang words.

Posted on by

15891
Bound in first:. Aristotle’s Compleat Master-piece. In three parts dispaying the secrets of Nature in the Generation of Man […] to which is added a treasure of Health; or the Family Physician. Twenty-First Edition. [London]: printed and sold by the Booksellers, 1738. (ESTC N298970, noting ‘Not in fact by Aristotle; the attribution is spurious.’)

15891_1

Followed by: Aristotle’s Compleat and Experienc’d Midwife. In two parts. I. A guide for child-bearing women in the time of their conception, bearing and suckling their children […] II. Proper and safe remedies for the curing of all those distempers that are incident to the Female Sex […] Made English by W—S—, M.D. The Seventh Edition. London: printed and sold by the Booksellers, [1740?] (ESTC N51114 noting ‘Not in fact by Aristotle; the attribution is spurious.’)

15891_2

Followed by: Aristotle’s Book of Problems. with other Astronomers, Astrologers, Physicians and Philosophers. Wherein is contain’d divers, Questions and Answers touching the state of Man’s body […]. Twenty-Fifth Edition. London: printed and sold by J.W, J.K, G.C., D.M, A.B, E.M, R.R, J.O. and L, B.M. and A.W, [1710?]. (ESTC N43372 noting ‘Not in fact by Aristotle; the attribution is spurious.’)
15891_3

And lastly comes: Aristotle’s Last Legacy: or, his Golden Cabinet of Secrets opened for youth’s delightful pastime. I. A compleat English Fortune-Teller. II. The whole art of Palmestry. III. A treatise of Moles. IV. The interpretation of Dreams. V. Observations on the Fortunate and Unfortunate Days. VI. A compleat books of Riddles. VIII. The city and country Jester; being a collection of new and witty Jests, Puns and Bulls. To which is added the Most Compleat Canting Dictionary. Translated into English by Dr. Saman, student in Astrology. Second Edition with the “Canting Dictionary.” London: printed for A. Bettsworth and C. Hitch […], J. Osborn […], S Birt […], J. Hughes […]. [1720?] (Not in ESTC)
15891_4

15891_5     
All these may be found bound together
    at call number (Ex) Item 6748731

A Victorian collector makes an incunable

Posted on by

PTT.2864.1476.adnotatio
Adnotatio on back pastedown.
PTT.2864.1476.cover
Binding with the monogram of John Eliot Hodgkin
PTT.2864.1476.leaf.118.recto
[On right] Facsimile leaf made ca. 1860 by John Harris [leaf 118]

❧ The present physical make-up of this 1476 Milan edition of Horace resulted from the fabricating instructions of engineer and book collector John Eliot Hodgkin (1829-1912) of Richmond, Surrey.

To understand this book physically we must reverse-engineer it. Doing so we discover the chronological sequence of its production:

1. About 1860, John Eliot Hodgkin came into possession of an imperfect copy of the 1476 Horace and about that time, he states, he obtained from John Harris a facsimile of leaf 118. [For more on John Harris, see “John Harris the Pen-and-Ink Facsimilist”
by Toshiyuki Takamiya, Keio University (Link)]
2. The assemblage went into the hands of a binder who added margins to damaged leaves thus bringing all leaves to a uniform size of 25.6 cm tall x 15.7 cm wide. The leaves were washed and bleached leaving ghosts of annotations throughout. On the last leaf, faintly appears the name ‘Zanner Amerigoti.’
3. The text block was sewn onto five cords laced into boards covered in brown calf tooled in gilt with the recessed monogram “I E H”. All edges gilt.
4. On the back pastedown, Hodgkin mounted his ‘Adnotatio,’ in effect a memorial tablet detailing the recording of this edition by authoritative bibliographers and cognoscenti collectors.
5. In 1902, JEH published his descriptive notes about this copy in his Rariora.
[Link]

Rariora.1476.page-titlepage.uc2.ark--13960-t8z89hs5s-168

The book was sold at Sotheby (London) at Hodgkin’s sale in May 1914. In November 1914, Robert Patterson, class of 1876, presented it to the Library. Call number: PTT 2865.1476

Dodona’s Grove: an early English publisher’s binding (1650)

Posted on by

Copy to come

Dendrologia. Dodona’s grove, or The vocall forest. Second part. By James Howell esquire [London, : Printed by W.H. for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at his shop …, 1650.] Call number: RHT 17th-324

The Library’s copy in the Robert H. Taylor Collection is comparable to copies at Folger, University of Pennsylvania, the Bodleian, and the British Library. According to Frank Mowrey (Folger): “One of the earliest English ‘publisher’s’ bindings, decorated with a block specially cut for the book. … [However] this does not mean that the whole edition would have been bound in this way, as was the case with 19th-century and later publisher’s bindings.” ❧ Brown sheepskin over pasteboards with blind, gilt, and silver decoration. Two-line border in blind. Covers blocked in silver with an oval panel of three trees lettered “DODONA’S GROVE” inside a wreath. Red and black sprinkled edges. ❧ The Taylor copy also has contemporary manuscript annotations identifying the original corresponding to each allegorical name.

Remnant of ream wrapper on binder’s pasteboard (late 17th century)

Posted on by

Binding covering: Miscellany poems and translations by Oxford hands. London : Printed for Anthony Stephens, Bookseller ... in Oxford, 1685. [bound with] Poems and essays, with a paraphrase on Cicero's Lælius, or, Of friendship [by Edward Howard]. -- London : J. C. for W. Place, 1673. Call number: RHT 17th-323

Exposed upper layer of pasteboard showing wrapper fragment with figure of posthorn and notation “Fine Paper.” This is the interior side of the front board of a late 17th century calfskin binding covering: Miscellany poems and translations by Oxford hands. London : Printed for Anthony Stephens, Bookseller … in Oxford, 1685. [bound with] Poems and essays, with a paraphrase on Cicero’s Lælius, or, Of friendship [by Edward Howard]. — London : J. C. for W. Place, 1673. Call number: RHT 17th-323. Other binding particulars: boards blind tooled with double line fillet frame and floral corner tool; edges in blind with garland tool; sewn on six single raised alum tawed supports, only four laced through the boards.

Chirm’s banded bindings.

Posted on by

“To prevent Mistakes and Impositions, these printed Bills are placed in the Front of every Book in the banded Binding and in no other. March 11, 1776”

Front pastedown and recto of front free endpaper of George Fisher, The Instructor:or, Young Man's Best Companion Twenty second edition (London, 1775) Price bound 2s. 6d. ESTC N8733 [Call number: (Ex) Item 6617351]

Authenticating “bills” serving as front pastedown and front free endpaper of George Fisher, The Instructor:or, Young Man’s Best Companion Twenty second edition (London, 1775) Price bound 2s. 6d. ESTC N8733 [Call number: (Ex) Item 6617351]

“In 1776, the bookseller Sylvanus Chirm also made an attempt to replace ‘the deceitful Practice of stabbed Bindings’ with books sewn on bands, … ” (N. Pickwoad, “Bookbinding in the eighteenth century,” Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 5. 1695–1830, p.287)

Chirm describes ‘binding in the common manner’ and his remedy:

“It is called the punch’d or stabb’d Binding, and is done as follows: The Sheets
being folded into a Book, two Holes punched. thro’ them near the Back, and a
String drawn thro’ each Hole, into the Pasteboard Sides is the chief Fastening;
the Books bound this Way are made to open stiff at first, in order to appear strong;
but that is a mere Deception: opening them wide (as Children are apt to do)
strains them so much that some of the Leaves are soon torn off the Strings, and
become loose. Sometimes one or both the Strings break, and the whole Book then
falls to Pieces. To remedy this Evil, a Method is now adopted, of binding these
Books (as well as all others) upon Bands: these Bands are laid across the Back, and
every Leaf is sewed down to them, which with proper glewing, renders the Book
so strong and durable, as to do more than twice the Service of those bound the
common Way.”

Pickwoad further notes that the project was taken over by Chirm’s partner and successor, George Herdsfield

"School Books in Chirm's Binding" http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063895281;view=1up;seq=8 Charles Marshall. A practical introduction to arithmetic; or, The teacher of arithmetic's assistant: containing, arithmetic of whole numbers, with vulgar, decimal, and duodecimal fractions. To which is added, an appendix of directions and examples for receipts, promissory notes, bills of exchange, bills of parcels, bills of book-debts, and letters; with various exercises on the same.Fifth Edition. London: Printed for G. Herdsfield, 1789.

“School Books in Chirm’s Binding”
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015063895281;view=2up;seq=8
Charles Marshall. A practical introduction to arithmetic; or, The teacher of arithmetic’s assistant: containing, arithmetic of whole numbers, with vulgar, decimal, and duodecimal fractions. To which is added, an appendix of directions and examples for receipts, promissory notes, bills of exchange, bills of parcels, bills of book-debts, and letters; with various exercises on the same.Fifth Edition. London: Printed for G. Herdsfield, 1789.
[Label of successor, George Herdsfield, is from example at the University of Michigan]

For more on this project designed to improve the sturdiness of the bindings of school books, see A. N. L. Munby, “Chirm’s banded bindings” Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society Vol. 1, No. 2, 1950, p. 181-186.

Oxford binding • 1636 • Hatching

Posted on by
“Oxford binders developed a habit for two-way hatching patterns [on the board edges], finishing a row of diagonal hatching with a few rows running horizontally, or diagonally the other way; this can be a useful rule of thumb for recognising Oxford work between about 1580 and 1650, …” – David Pearson, English Bookbinding Styles, 1450-1800 (London: British Library, 2005), p. 113. Oxford.hatching.0
“One very distinctive feature of nearly all Oxford bindings executed between 1580 and 1620, and of a certain number between the latter date and about 1670, is the ‘hatching’ at the head and tail of the back. This consists of diagonal lines, …” — Strickland Gibson, Early Oxford Bindings (Oxford: Bibliographical Society, 1903), p. 41 (see also Plate XXX) Oxford.hatching.foot.of.spine.0

Exemplar: Peter Heylyn, Mikrokosmos: a Little Description of the Great World. Oxford : Printed by William Turner, and are to be sold at the black Beare in Pauls Church-yard [by M. Allott, London], 1636. Call number: (Ex) 1007.461.11.

Supralibros of the College of Navarre

Posted on by
Supralibros-College.de.Navarre Cypher-College.de.Navarre

Library of the College de Navarre, Paris, in: J.W. Clark, The Care of Books (London, 1901) fig. 64

Library of the College de Navarre, Paris, in: J.W. Clark, The Care of Books (Cambridge, 1901) fig. 64. Built in 1509 and demolished in 1867.

Cypher composed of the interlaced and mirrored initials C R N [Collegium regium Navarricum], as identified in L. Bouland, “Monogramme du collège de Navarre” in Archives de la Société des collectionneurs d’ex-libris (Paris: 1895) [2d Année, No. 1, Janvier], pp 66-69.
[Text of article]

On covers and spine of Petri Gualterii Chabotii pictonis sanlupensis praelectionum in Q. Horatii Flacci poemata tomus primus[-tertius] : … cum catalogo auctorum, quorum in his commentariis usus fuit, & syllabo verborum et rerum memorabilium. (Basilae : Per Leonhardum Ostenium, MCXCI-MCXCIV [1591-1594]) [Call number: PTT 2865.1591q] [Also has the armorial bookplate of W[illia]m Constable, F.R.S. and F.A.S. (Franks 6646)]

Binds & Sells all sorts of Stationary Wares

Posted on by

AC128.Subseries. 1E.Ledgers.1769.ticket

John Dean Book-binder & Stationer at the Sign of Dean Swift in Front Street between Walnut & Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia, Binds & Sells all sorts of Stationary Wares. Journal, Bill-book, Sale-book, Ledger. Adams, Sc.

Trade card of John Dean, mounted on front paste-down of Ledger of the Trustees of the College of New Jersey, May 1st, 1769 (Call number: Mudd Library: AC128, Subseries 1E: Ledgers).

Engraved by Dunlap Adams, “Engraver in Front Street between Chesnut and Walnut streets,” as per his advertisement in the Pennsylvania Gazette, September 6, 1764.

Further details: Francis James Dallet, “A Colonial Binding and Engraving Discovery: the College Ledger of 1769,” Princeton University Library Chronicle, v.31, no.2 (Winter, 1970) [link to issue]

AC128.Subseries. 1E.Ledgers.1769.upper.cover

AC128.Subseries. 1E.Ledgers.1769.upper.cover.detail

Arms of Charles d’Orléans-Valois, Duc d’Angoulème (1573-1650)

Posted on by

VRG.2945.311.Ita.581.arms.Charles.d’Orléans-Valois

L’Eneide di Virgilio del commendatore Annibal Caro Venetia, B. Giunti & fratelli, 1581. Call number: VRG 2945.311 Ita 581 (bound with Della Eneide di Vergilio il quarto libro tradotto in ottava rima per M. Gio. Battista Filippi. Genova, appresso Antonio Bellone, 1562.)

Also with the “CC” cypher of Charles d’Orléans-Valois. However without his arms present it is difficult to determine for certain if this was his.

VRG.2945.1542s.Chiffre.CC

Virgilius Paris, apud S. Colinaeum, 1542. Call number: VRG 2945.1542s

Marca de fuego: Colegio Apostólico de San Francisco (Pachuca, Mexico)

Posted on by

Ex.6069.314.946

According to Mercedes I. Salomón Salazar of the Biblioteca José María Lafragua (a contributor to the Catálogo Colectivo de Marcas de Fuego), this “marca de fuego” originates from the Colegio Apostólico de San Francisco (Pachuca, Mexico).

The brand can be found on Scotus moralis pro confessariis …in quo ea, quae subtilis doctor in quatuor Sententiarum, & quolibeta sparsim docuit, interrogatorij forma inspiciuntur by Bonaventura Theuli (1596-1670), published in Mexico by I.B. de Hogal, 1727. Call Number: (Ex) 6049.314.946.
For Catálogo Colectivo de Marcas de Fuego , see
http://www.marcasdefuego.buap.mx:8180/xmLibris/projects/firebrand/

Publishers catalogues • 19th century Britain

Posted on by
Ward.Lock.Box25.19th.cent.Brit.pub.cats.1
 		Ward.Lock.Box25.19th.cent.Brit.pub.cats.1a
Ward.Lock.Box25.19th.cent.Brit.pub.cats.3

 Ward.Lock.Box25.19th.cent.Brit.pub.cats.3a
Ward.Lock.Box25.19th.cent.Brit.pub.cats.2

 Ward.Lock.Box25.19th.cent.Brit.pub.cats.2a
Exemplars from the 1,800 recently acquired 19th Century British Publishers’ Catalogues, a collection arranged alphabetically by name of publisher in 31 boxes. These exceptional color-printed covers are found in box 25, covering Ward, Lock, & Co. The collection was put together chiefly by London antiquarian bookseller Donald Fraser, a project planned to culminate in a [never] published work titled London Publishers 1770-1880, with an Appendix on Binders’ Tickets, Quentin Books, Ltd. A full listing of the collection is available. [Link to listing.] The call number for the collection is: RCPXR-7017242. [Permalink for the main catalog record for this collection.]

An Enigmatic Binding • ca. 1565

Posted on by
Ex.N7710.J96.copy4.front Ex.N7710.J96.copy4.back

Front: Solitudo Acerbitas Mera — Solitude – Bitterness — Unadulterated
Back: Dulcis Comes Tilia — Sweet Companion — Linden Tree

Hadrianus Junius (Adriaan de Jonge), 1511-1575. Emblemata
Antwerp: Christophor Plantin, 1565. (Ex) N7710 .J96 copy 4See William S. Hecksher “Heliotropes and Romantic Ruins,” Princeton University Library Chronicle45:1 (Autumn, 1983), p. 39-40 for discussion.

Inscribed on front free endpaper: Me utitur Jacobus Reepmakerus.
Me.utitur
The books of Jacob Reepmaker were sold in 1701: Catalogus variorum insignium, & rarissimorum librorum … Jacobi Reepmakeri … quorum auctio publica habebitur in officina Joannis ab Oosterwyk … Ad diem 7 Junii [1701], & diebus sequentibus, etc. Amsterdam, 1701.

Supralibros: Camille Aboussouan

Posted on by

Camille.Aboussouan

Supralibros of Camille Aboussouan. His books sold at Sotheby’s (London) 17th and 18th June 1993, The Library of Camille Aboussouan. His vita is available from UNESCO. He served as ambassador from Lebanon to UNESCO. Earlier this year, his death was announced [19/01/2013] by the Lebanese embassy in Paris.

Supralibros on front cover of Andrea Alicati, Emblemata (Paris, 1602). Call number (EX) N7710 .A35 1602.

Fore-edge painting • Ravensworth Castle • Gateshead-on-Tyne

Posted on by


Now in ruins, Ravensworth Castle in County Durham was for several centuries the seat of the Liddell family. ❧ This painting decorates the fore-edge of a 32 cm tall copy of the Carmina of Horace printed in Strasbourg in 1788. Judging from the build-out depicted, this painting likely dates from the second quarter of the 19th century. ❧ This copy also has the armorial bookplate of Ravensworth Castle (Franks 18291). Call number PTT 2865.1788.2q.

Over-wrap • early 19th century American binding repair

Posted on by


            
Binding reinforced and / or repaired with an over-wrap. Partially removed subscription or circulating library label suggests this copy endured regular use.
❧ Foster, Hannah Webster, 1759-1840. The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton; a Novel; Founded on Fact. Boston, Printed by Samuel Etheridge, 1797. Call number: (Ex) PS744.F7 C6 1797. [This copy also has a early handwritten listing identifying the actual names for the three principal characters.]

“One of the finest covers of the early Victorian period” – Ruari McLean

Posted on by

Recently added to the Robert F. Metzdorf Collection of Victorian Bookbindings :

Thomas Moore, Irish Melodies, (London: Longman & Co., 1846). Call number: ExMe 3864.9.349.13.

In his Victorian Publishers’ Book-Bindings in Paper, Ruari McLean captions this book “Gift Books From Longman … Cream paper on bevelled boards, printed in green and gold on upper, spine, and lower. Note the skillful introduction of the title into the circle round the illustration. One of the finest covers of the early Victorian period, probably designed by Owen Jones. …”[ p. 30 (London: Gordon Fraser, 1983)]. McLean illustrates the lower side of the cover on p. 13.

Original 18th century circulating library wrappers

Posted on by



George Buchanan (1506-1582). The History of Scotland, from the Earliest Accounts of that Nation, to the Reign of King James VI. translated from the Latin of George Buchanan. In two volumes. Edinburgh: Printed by A. Donaldson and J. Reid. for Alex. Donaldson, 1762. Call number: (EX) Item 6427104. ❧
Provenance: Lot 279, sold at Bloomsbury Auctions (London), 14 December 2011. Also, in 1991, these were sold at Bloomsbury, June 13, 1991, lot 362, to Simon Finch. ❧ The British Library holds A Catalogue of Hargrove’s Circulating Library at Harrogate (York: W. Blanchard, 1801).

Presentation to Johann Martin, Freiherr von und zu Aichelburg

Posted on by

Stamped in silver on front cover: “Dem Wolgebornen Herrn, Herrn Johann Martin Freyherrn von und zu Aichelberg, Herrn auf Zassenegg, und Rodenhoffen, einer löbl. Laa. alda deren Lands-Vochten, und Landshauptman[n]ischen Verhören Beysitzern, &c Meinem gnädigen Herrn, Herrn zu einem glückseeligen Neuen Jahr 1732”

Larger image

[Almanach und Progosticon] [n.p., 1731?]
Text includes table of chronology, almanack, bloodletting table, prognosticon, and “Natur-und-Kunst Curiositäten Calendar.” Call number: (Ex)AY851.N37
[Transcription courtesy of Mark Farrell, senior cataloguer]

Prize binding • 1826

Posted on by
Stamped in gilt on front cover: “Ecole Royale Gratuite de Dessin Année 1826 Premier Prix Annuel Remporté par Antoine Louis Huet.”
❧ Gaspard Monge (1746-1818). Géométrie descriptive: 4. éd., augm. d’une théorie des ombres et de la perspective, extraite des papiers de l’auteur par M. Brisson.
(Paris: V. Courcier, 1820). Call number: (Ex) QA501 .M74 1820.

14,000 and counting: “Bound in the Vellum manner”

Posted on by

On front paste-down of An account of the constitution and present state of Great Britain, published in London by John Newbery

“The Purchasers of Books bound in the Vellum manner are desired to observe that they are sewed much better than the Books which are bound in Leather; open easier at the Back, and are not so liable to warp in being read. If by any Accident the Covers should be stained or rubbed they may be new covered for a Penny, an advantage that can not be remedied in Leather ; so that this method of Binding is not only cheaper but it is
presumed will be found more useful.
    The only Motive for trying this Experiment was to adopt a Substitute for Leather which was greatly enhanced in its Price, either by an increased Consumption, or of Monopoly; how far that purpose will be answered, must be submitted to the Determination of the Reader.
    In the course of five Years, upwards of Fourteen Thousand Volumes have been sold bound in this Manner, and not One Hundred of them have been returned to be new covered; a sufficient Proof of its Utility and the Approbation of the Public.

       St. Paul’s Churchyard, Sept. 22, 1774.

❧ An account of the constitution and present state of Great Britain, together with a view of its trade, policy, and interest, respecting other nations & of the principal curiosities of Great Britain and Ireland. London, Printed for Newbery and Carnan [177-?]. Call number (EX) DA620 .A5 1770z ❧


Title labels

Posted on by

“Several alternative schemes for labeling fore-edges were devised by seventeenth century librarians, including the pasting on of paper tabs or labels, attached to either the boards or one of the leaves, carrying shelf numbers or titles.” – David Pearson, English Bookbinding Styles, 1450-1800: A Handbook (London, 2005), p. 107.





Castle Forbes Library

Posted on by

Books from this library were sold in London on 21st July 1993. See: Sotheby’s (Firm) The Library of the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Granard:extracted from Castle Forbes, County Longford … (London, 1993).

Left: Bookplate of Castle Forbes Library • Right: Anonymous armorial bookplate of
George Forbes, 6th Earl of Grannard (1760-1837) [Arms. Forbes impaling Rawdon. In 1779, he married Selina Frances, daughter of John 1st Earl of Moira] Franks 10892.


Crest of George Forbes, 6th Earl of Grannard (1760-1837). For further details see
British Armorial Bindings: http://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/stamp-owners/FOR001 • Other marks of ownership for this library are illustrated in the sale catalogue. ❧ ❧ Sources of these examples: Gay, Sophie, 1776-1852. Laure d’Estell par Mme. ***. Paris: Ch. Pougens, an X (1802). Call number (EX) PQ2260.G25 L38 • Minutes of evidence taken before the Committee for privileges, on the Earl of Berkeley’s pedigree, in the year 1799. (London) 1811. Call number (Ex) Item 6375489q.

The Heldenrüstkammer of Archduke Ferdinand II in Schloss Ambras

Posted on by



“A catalogue of the Heldenrüstkammer of Archduke Ferdinand II in Schloss Ambras, the first collection of armour formed for historical reasons in the first purpose-built museum North of the Alps.” The work illustrates 125 suits of armor, one per plate. Its full title runs to 133 words. What follows is a rendering of just the first portion of the full title: “Most true images of the most august emperors, the most serene kings and archdukes, of the most illustrious princes, as well as earls, barons, nobles, and other eminent men, who were either the commanding leaders in war or within their realms performed admirably…[together with] succinct descriptions [of their achievements].” (Sometimes this work is referred to as the “Armamentarium Heroicum,” Latinizing the German for “Heroes Armory.”)
❧ This tour-de-force of Baroque illustration was complied by Jakob Schrenk von Notzing with plates believed to be by the engraver Dominicus Custos. The book was published in Innsbruck in 1601. This date in the Princeton copy has been revised by means of a handstamp to read “M.DC.XIX.” The Library’s copy is bound in contemporary calf and is stamped with the name and arms of its first owner: Hector Le Breton, seigneur de la Doineterie, who held public offices during the reigns of Henri IV, Louis XIII, and Louis XIV. In 1615 he succeeded his cousin as roi d’armes de France.
❧ Call number; (Ex) D106 .S3f. Purchased in 1983 from Robin Halwas (antiquarian bookseller, London; his catalogue 3, number 79).
❧ Cf. Elisabeth Scheicher, “Historiography and Display: The Heldenrustkammer of Archduke Ferdinand II in Schloss Ambras.” Journal of the History of Collections 2 (1990): 69-79.

17th century armorial binding and contemporary slip case

Posted on by

Figure 1
❧ The figures explained: Armorial binding covering
Ogier Ghislin de Busbecq, Legationis Turcicae epistolae quatuor.
Frankfurt, A. Wechels Erben, C. de Marne et J. Aubry 1595. Call number (Ex) 1789.229.13.
❧
J. Basil Oldham in Shrewsbury School Library Bindings (Oxford, 1943) notes the following regarding one such book bound for Ramiro de Guzmán, Duque de Medina de las Torres (ca. 1600-1668): On both covers there is a “narrow border formed by a simple conventional foliage roll, with a foliage ornament in each angle; in centre, an heraldic stamp 96×75 mm; a shield, surrounded with the following letters in circles CGDDMMAHPPMIGPCLA, and surmounted by a coronet under which is a scroll bearing the letters FEI. On the upper cover: arms: two coats impaled: Dexter (arms of Felipe Ramirez de Guzman, Duke of Medina de las Torres, Marquis of Torrel): Two caldrons checky with snakes issuing therefrom, flanked in saltire by ten ermine-tails (5 and 5), within a bordure gobony of Castile and Leon; Sinister (arms of Anna Caraffa, Duchess of Sabbioneta, Mondragone and Trajetto, Princess of Stigliano): Quarterly of six (two in chief and four in base): 1. Per fesse (a) three bars (Caraffa) and (b) a band counter-embattled between six stars (Aldobrandini); 2. a cross patty between four eagles crowned, and over all an escutcheon quarterly of three bars and a lion rampant (Gonzaga); 3. four pallets (Aragon); 4. per fesse a castle (Castile) and a lion (Leon); 5. four pallets flanked in saltire by two eagles crowned (Sicily); 6. a column ensigned by a crown (Colonna). On the lower cover: arms (unidentified): Upon a terrace in base, a plant growing between reeds or tufts of grass; in chief an arched band inscribed REVOLUTA FOECUNDANT, with, beneath it, and ranged in the same manner, three rows of stars.”
Ramiro de Guzmán’s arms impale those of his second wife, “Anna Caraffa, daughter of Antonio Caraffa, Duke of Mondragone, and Elena Aldobrandini. He had previously married Marie de Guzman, daughter of Gaspar de Guzman, Count of Olivares, Philip IV’s minister, to whose titles, through his marriage, he succeeded on Olivares’ death in 1645, for which reason he used the acrologic inscription round the shields which Olivares had used as an adjunct to his armorial insignia. The letters (C and G being transposed towards the end) stand for: ‘Comitatui grandatum ducatum ducatum marchionatum marchionatum arcis hispalensis perpetuam praefecturam magnam Indiarum chancellariatum primam Guzmanorum lineam addidit.’ The letters FEI stand for: ‘Fortuna etiam invidente.’
As the owner of the book would not be likely to use the boastful inscription of his father-in-law until he had, by the latter’s death, succeeded to his titles, the book was probably not bound till after 1645, and in Spain, not Naples, because by that time the owner had ceased to be Viceroy of Naples. A larger variant of these heraldic stamps is found on some books.” (p. 120-121; Shrewsbury School Library example illustrated on plate XXVI)
❧ Figure 2 • Two inscriptions on titlepage:
Alongside right margin, “[Guil.] Godophin” [See a comparable example at the University of Pennsylvania.] This is the signature of English diplomat, Sir William Godophin (1634?-1696) •
At bottom:”Ex libris bibliothecae Domus S[anct]ae. M[ari]ae M[ontium] Piorum Operariorum” From the library of the Congreation of the Pii Operarii, a group of religious founded at Naples in 1602.For comparable provenances, see exemplars at Cambridge University Libraryand at
Universitats de Catalunya.]
❧ Figure 3 • A remarkable survival • 17th / 18th century slip case custom made for this book. Why would such a case have been made? Perhaps to protect the book during travel — Busbecq’s Turkish Letters provided important detailed information about the Ottoman state and were highly prized (and still are.)
Figure 2 (above) ❧ Figure 3 (below)

Cypher of Comte Henri Siméon (1803-1874)

Posted on by
Comte Henri Siméon had a distinguished public career during the Second Republic and the Second Empire. He also devoted years to translating Horace; his work published during his final years. He had a notable library, about which see Leon Techener, “Le Comte Siméon,” Bulletin du bibliophile(1874) p.245-246. Twenty five of his books are found in the Library’s Horace collection. They include editions and translations published between 1650 and 1872. Some have presentation inscriptions, including one from Paul Lacroix (“le bibliophile Jacob.”) All are bound and marked distinctively: the bindings are signed “Petit succr de Simier” and have Siméon’s cypher consisting of the initial H and S in “majuscules fleuronnées” surmounted by a “couronne de comte.” Correspondence documenting the Horace collection shows that a number of Siméon’s books were acquired from Maggs Brothers ca. 1912.

❧



Binder’s ticket: Padeloup. Relieur du Roy.

Posted on by

❧ “Relié par Padeloup Relieur du Roy, place de Sorbonne à Paris” pasted at foot of title page of Représentation des fêtes données par la ville de Strasbourg pour la convalescence du Roi à l’arrivée et pendant le séjour de Sa Majesté en cette ville
Paris: imprimë par Laurent Aubert, [1745]. ❧ Call number: (Ex) 1509.171.761e. ❧ Bound in mottled calf, with royal arms in gold at center of front and back covers, arms of Strasbourg in corners of covers, inner and outer dentelle, marbled end papers, gilt edges.

Crest of Sir Andrew Fountaine (1676-1753)

Posted on by
His library sold at Sotheby’s, June 11, 1902. ❧ Crest and spine at right:
Cotton, Charles, 1630-1687.
Scarronnides: or, Virgile travestie. A mock-poem. In imitation of the fourth book of Virgils Aeneis in English, burlesque … London, Printed by E. Cotes for Henry Brome … 1665. (VRG) 2945.312 Eng664.
❧
In addition to the above, another Virgil from the Fountaine library was purchased by Junius Spencer Morgan. This has Fountaine’s crest stamped on the front cover. JSM obtained this Virgil from Quartich, who put in his date of acquisition ’16.VI.1902.’
The nyne fyrst bookes of the Eneidos of Virgil conuerted into Englishe vearse by Thomas Phaer… London : Printed by R. Hall, for N. Englande, 1562. (VRG) 2945.311 Eng562.
❧
For further details, see British Armorial Bindings, http://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/stamp-owners/FOU002

Ex Libris Adr. Jos. Havé

Posted on by

❧ Ownership stamping of Adrien-Joseph Havé (1740-1817) on spine of: Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d’, 1723-1789. La contagion sacrée; ou, Histoire naturelle de la superstition. Ouvrage tr. de l’anglois. … Londres, 1768. (Ex) BF1410.xH6.
For details on Havé, see entry above from Jadart (H.) Les Bibliophiles Remois, leurs Ex-Libris et fers de reliure (1894).

Monogram binding stamp: ER with coronet: Comte Roger du Nord (1803-1881)

Posted on by
Roger, Édouard Léon, comte Roger du Nord, 1803-1881, diplomat, senator. His books auctioned: Catalogue des livres rares et précieux composant la bibliothèque de feu M. le comte Roger (du Nord) (Paris: Ch. Porquet, 1884) ❧ At far right, exemplar printed on front cover of 1884 catalogue. ❧ Princeton holds lot 419: Cicero. Epistolae ad familiares [Venice]: Nicolaus Jenson, 1471. At center, detail from front cover, gilt on red morocco. [Lot number 32 is in the Chapin Library, Williams College].

Supralibros of Jeanne Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrue (1670-1736)

Posted on by
Her arms stamped on the covers of: François Parfaict (1698-1753) Histoire du théâtre françois depuis son origine jusqu’à présent. Avec la vie des plus célébres poëtes dramatiques, des extraits exacts, & un catalogue raisonné de leurs piéces, accompagnés de notes historiques & critiques. Paris, A. Morin [etc.] 1734-49. Call number: (THX) PQ500 .P3 (vol. 1-2)
❧ For further details on this collector see Ernest Quentin-Bauchart, Les femmes bibliophiles de France (XVIe, XVIIe, & XVIIIe siècles)(Paris, 1886), T. 1, p. 411-428.

Minerva presents prize books

Posted on by


Detail of stamp on covers of an 18th century Dutch prize book: an award from the Latin school of the city of Amersfoort.
❧ Pliny, the Younger. Epistolarum. Libros decem, cum notis selectis; Jo. Mariae Catanaei, Jac. Schegkii [et al], Recensuerunt suisque animadversionibus illustrarunt Gottlieb Cortius et Paullus Daniel Longolius... Amstelaedami, apud Janssonio-Waesbergios, 1734. Call number: RCPXR 2905.311.234. For further particulars see J. Spoelder, Prijsboeken op de latijnse school, (Amsterdam, 2000), especially page p. 479.

Two Ducal Supralibros

Posted on by
❧ Initial B surmounted by ducal coronet: stamp of Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch (1746 – 1812) together with arms of Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albermarle (1650 – 1688). On the front and back covers of Charles Sorel (1582?-1674) The comical history of Francion, wherein the variety of vices that abuse the ages are satyrically limn’d in their native colours: interwoven with many pleasant events, and moral lessons, as well fitted for the entertainment of the gravest head as the lightest heart. By Monsieur de Moulines, sieur de Parc, a Lorain gentleman [pseud.] … Done into English by a person of honor. London, Printed for Francis Leach, 1655. Call number: EXOV 3292.5.394.5 ❧

For further details, see British Armorial Bindings, for Monck, http://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/stamp-owners/MON001 and for Scott, see http://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/stamp-owners/SCO005

Kelliegram Binding

Posted on by

Twenty five folio volumes bound by Kelly & Sons, London, stamped “Kelliegram Binding.” This term distinguished a production notable for covers with elaborate, pictorial inlaid color leather. ❧ [Further examples.] ❧
B.F. Stevens’s Facsimiles of manuscripts in European archives relating to America, 1773-1783 : with descriptions, editorial notes, collations, references and translations. London : Photographed and printed by Malby & Sons, 1889-1898. “Issued only to subscribers at 4 Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, London. “The facsimiles are almost wholly of unpublished manuscripts …” — v. 25, p. xv. Limited edition of 200 sets; the photographic negatives were destroyed. Gift of John H. Scheide. Call number (Ex)2009-0375q

John Boyle, 5th Earl of Orrery (1707–1762)

Posted on by
Bound in vellum stained green

A Collection of the State Letters of the Rt. Hon. Roger Boyle, the first earl of Orrery (Dublin, Printed by and for G. Faulkner, 1743). Call number (Ex) 1473.16.691.
❧ With his badge: “O” surmounted by an earl’s coronet stamped on spine:

For further details, see British Armorial Bindings, http://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/stamp-owners/BOY003

❧ Inscribed on front free endpaper: “Orrery. Leicester Fields. Feb: 8th 1750-51”

❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

Horace
Call number (PTT) 2865.321.241.
A nonce volume bound for John Boyle, Earl of Orrery, for his literary endeavors.
Bound in calf with spine title “Orrery’s Odes of Horace & Co.” Signed on front free endpaper “Orrery. Caledon: October 17th, 1746.”
❧ Bound together in this volume are interleaved copies of his First Ode (ESTC T35560), Pyrrah (ESTC T46133), and Poem to the Memory of Edward Sheffield (ESTC T42559) as well as 23 blank leaves at front and 23 blank leaves at back. Some of the interleaves have his autograph comments on the facing text. Moreover, on pp. 2-8 of front blanks: his two autograph poems: 1) “Translation of a Copy of Verses in Mr Waller’s Poems, entitled On my Lady Isabella playing on the Lute” (in Latin with Waller’s poem in English on the facing page) and 2) “Lusus Pilae amatorius. Petronii Afranii” with “Imitated. 1727” on the facing page. On p. 1 of back blanks: his autograph poem (English): “To Mr Rysbrack. On his Buste of **********”.
❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧ ❧

Ange Goudar (1720-1791).
Pensées diverses. A Londres, chez Mr. P. Vaillant in the Strand. Chez Mr. W. Meyer in Mays-Buildings. Chez Mrs. Nutt at the Royal-Exchange. Chez Mr. Jollife in St. James-Street. Chez Mr. G. Jones in Ludgate-Street, 1750. ESTC T109290. Call number: Ex 3255.5417.371


Bookplates ❧ In A Collection of the State Letters

His bookplate dating to 1751 or later;
John succeeded his father as fifth earl of Orrery in 1731 and his kinsman as fifth earl of Cork in 1751.

❧ ❧ In The Workes of Benjamin Jonson. (London, 1616) Call number (EX) 3806.1616q

His bookplate with arms of Boyle impaling Hamilton to commemorate his marriage in 1738 to Margaret, the only daughter of John Hamilton, Esq., of Caledon, co. Tyrone. and his initials “I.O.” to left of coronet. ❧ For further details about his bookplates see: Journal of the Ex Libris Society vol. 7 p.57 for “Notes on some Boyle bookplates” at
http://goo.gl/YjiKj

❧ His sale: Catalogue of the valuable and extensive library and collection of autograph letters of the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Cork and Orrery removed from Marston, Frome which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods at their great rooms 8 King Street, St. James’s Square on Tuesday, November 21, 1905 and two following days at one o’clock precisely. London: Printed by William Clowes and Sons. [1905]. 736 lots, mostly itemized.

Garter arms of George Granville William Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland

Posted on by

Quarterly in eight ❧
Musæum regalis societatis: or, A catalogue and description of the natural and artificial rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham Colledge. Made by Nehemiah Grew … Whereunto is subjoyned the comparative anatomy of stomachs and guts. By the same author.
London, Printed for Tho. Malthus … 1685.
Call number: (EX) 8001.793.41.1685q
❧
A fillip: bookplate on the verso of the title page
of Musæum regalis societatis
John Gordon, 16th Earl of Sutherland (1661–1733)
Quarterly ❧
Martial. Venice: Aldus, 1501. Call number: Kane Special 1501 Martial

❧ For other examples see http://goo.gl/NClZs (Quarterly in eight) and http://goo.gl/sLASN (Quarterly).

See also, British Armorial Bindings, http://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/stamp-owners/LEV002

Supralibros of Jean de la Rochefoucauld, abbé de Marmoutiers (d. 1583).

Posted on by
Paolo Emili(d. 1529).
De rebvs gestis francorvm libri X. Anoldi Ferroni… De rebvs gestis Gallorum libri IX ad historiam Pauli Aemylii additi, Chronicon I. Tilii de regibvs francoribii, a Pharamundo usque ad Henricum II. Paris: apud Vascosanum, 1555. Call number: (Ex) 1508.324.
Also on the front pastedown:
18th century armorial bookplate: “Du Comte Antoine Facipecora Pavesi Sus-Intendant génèral des Eaux dans la Ville, et Duché de Mantoue.” See:
Jacopo Gelli, 3500 ex libris italiani (Milan, 1908), p. 156.

Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe

Posted on by


Omar Khayyam.
Rubiayat … tr. into English verse by Edward FitzGerald, with an introduction by A.C. Benson … Reproduced from a ms. written and illuminated by F. Sangorski & G. Sutcliffe.
[Bushey, Engraved and printed by André & Sleigh, 1910]
Call number (EX) 2472.379.6.13q
Bound in full vellum with elaborate gold tooling and jewelled clasps; the front cover in color with a peacock as the central motive. In clamshell box.

Supralibros of Marco Antonio Foscarini, doge of Venice, 1695/?6-1763

Posted on by
Arms of
Marco Antonio Foscarini, doge of Venice, 1695/?6-1763. Noted historian and bibliographer.
“He left a rich and very select library of books and manuscripts, which was sold after the fall of Venice in 1799. The Emperor of Austria purchased the collection of manuscripts for 10,800 livres, and they are now in the imperial library at Vienna. A catalogue of the historical part of the collection, consisting of nearly 400 manuscripts, which were among the materials by the aid of which Foscarini compiled his history of Venetian literature, is given at tho end of [his]Storia Arcana (published post-humously, Florence, 1843)” [C.Knight, Biography:or, Third division of “The English encyclopedia” (London, 1867), II, col. 961-962].
❧
Erizzo, Sebastiano. Espositione di m. Sebastiano Erizzo nelle tre canzoni di m. Francesco Petrarca, chiamate le tre sorelle. Nuouamente mandata in luce da m. Lodouico Dolce.(Venice: Andrea Arriuabene, 1561.) Call number (Ex)3134.66. ❧ Another example of a Foscarini armorial binding is in the Graphic Arts Collection:
Barozzi, Pietro. De modo bene moriendi. (Venice: in Aedibus Io. Antonii & Fratrum de Sabio, 1531). Call number (GAX) 2004-3555N

Claude Crespigny of the South Sea House

Posted on by
Claude Crespigny of the South Sea House
[This post first published in December 2011. Revised May 2013]
❧ Armorial bookplate, signature, crest, cipher, inscription. ❧
Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny (1706-1782). At death, he left his library to his great nephew, Hugh Reveley (1772-1851) whose signature is in pencil on recto of the free endpaper. ❧ On spine is Crespigny’s cipher (interlaced C’s) and crest (On a chapeau, gules, turned up, ermine, a enhit arm erect, holding a broad sword, proper). ❧ Inscribed on pastedown: “This book was given me by the Hon.ble John Spencer Esq.r A.o 1745.”
❧ Johann Heinrich Cohausen (1665-1750). Hermippus redivivus : or, The sage’s triumph over old age and the grave. Wherein, a method is laid down for prolonging the life and vigour of man. Including a commentary upon an antient inscription, in which this great secret is revealed; supported by numerous authorities. The whole interspersed with a great variety of remarkable, and well attested relations. London : Printed for J. Nourse, 1744. Call number: (Ex)3437.93.345.6

1752 Irish prize binding

Posted on by
Prize bookplate from Trinity College, Dublin to William Stopford, presented by Brabazon Disney, at the beginning of Michaelmas Term, 1752. Armorial stamp of Trinity College, Dublin, on front and back covers.

According to William B. Todd in “Note 571 Academic Prize Books” (Book Collector 49:3 (Autumn, 2000) p. 442-444, William Stopford in the same year was also awarded as a prize book: Juvenal & Persius, Dublin, 1746. (Illustrated in Prof. Todd’s 1961 catalogue Prize Books)

Terence. Comoediæ. (Dublin: Typographia Academiæ, 1745)
Call number (Ex) Item 6201299

Three 18th century Irish bindings attributed to Joseph Leathley’s binder

Posted on by
Adjacent at right is entry 49 in J. McDonnell and P. Healy, Gold-tooled Bookbindings Commissioned by Trinity College Dublin in the Eighteenth Century (Leixlip, 1987); there illustrated in black and white.
Horace [ed. J. Hawkey] Dublin, 1745. Call number (PTT) 2865.1745 c.1. [John Boyle, Earl of Orrery (1707-1762), former owner.] 		Horace [ed. J. Hawkey] Dublin, 1745. Call number (PTT) 2865.1745 c.3. [Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773) former owner.] Juvenal [ed. J. Hawkey] Dublin, 1746. Call number (ExV) 2873.1746

Early 18th century cottage-roof style

Posted on by
Early 18th century cottage-roof style binding covering Horace, Carminum libri quinque [edited by George Wade] (London: William Bowyer, 1731). According to the ESTC, Bowyer’s records show 24 copies printed in quarto, and 250 in octavo. This is one of the 24 quartos. A small capital ‘D’ in iron gall ink is at center of the verso of the titlepage. Bookplate of George John Warren Vernon, 5th Baron Vernon (1803-1866) on front pastedown.. Acquired by donor Robert W. Patterson from Maggs before 1921. Call number (PTT) 2865.321.231.

Marcas de Fuego ❧ Convento de San Cosme y San Damián de Puebla (Mexico)

Posted on by
According to the Catálogo Colectivo de Marcas de Fuego, these are “marcas de fuego” of the Convento de San Cosme y San Damián de Puebla (Mexico; Mercidarian Order)
See http://goo.gl/F8QKZ and
http://goo.gl/x9jxs
for details.

Call number (Ex) 5959.612q
Maldonado, Angel, bp., 1660-1728.
Oraciones evangelicas … dadas à la estampa por d. Balthasar de Montoya Maldonado … En Mexico, Por los herederos de J.J. Guillena Carrascoso, 1721.

Acknowledgement to Madison C. Bush, Class of 2014, for making this identification.

Stamped with the arms of Graf Hans Günther von Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (1532-1586)

Posted on by
Arms surrounded with inscription:
HANS GUNTTER • DER • VIER • GRAFFEN •
DES • REICHS • GRAFFE • ZU SCHWARCZBURG • HERRE • ZU • ARNSTADT • SUNDERSHAUS • UND LEUCH

❧ Edges gauffered and gilt. Clasps.

❧ Call number (Ex)BX8069.K57 1584q ❧ Timotheus Kirchner, Gründliche warhafftige Historia von der Augspurgischen Confession (Leipzig: Defner, 1584.)

For another example see:
Wappeneinband aus dem Besitz des Grafen
Hans Günther von
Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. Nach 1566
http://www.museum-digital.de/thue/pdf/publicinfo.php?oges=991

Arms of Jean-Alexandre van den Broecke, fl. 1646

Posted on by
Arm on covers of Gesta Dei per Francos, siue Orientalivm expeditionvm, et regni Francorvm hierosolimitani historia a variis, sed illius æui scriptoribus, litteris commendata: nunc primùm aut editis, aut ad libros veteres emendatis. Auctores præfatio ad lectorem exhibet. Orientalis historiae tomus primus [et secundus] Hanoviæ, typis Wechelianis, apud heredes I. Aubrii, 1611. Call number: (Ex) 14084.388q
cf. Armorial belge du bibliophile (1930), v.3, p. 680-681.
   Arms also appear on copy of J. A. de Thou, Historiarum sui temporis (Geneva, 1620-26)
http://www.auction.de/_scripts/nax_object.php?id=59811&language=e

Blue morocco 18th century English gold tooled binding with green silk ties and gold thread tassels.

Posted on by
Blue morocco 18th century English gold tooled binding with green silk ties and gold thread tassels.•
In Chancery. Breviate. John Penn, Thomas Penn, and Richard Penn, esqrs; plaintiffs: Charles Calvert esq; Lord Baltimore in the kingdom of Ireland, defendant : for the plaintiffs
[London, 1742] • Call number (Ex) 1212.675f • Quartich catalogue entry tipped into this book.

Riviere binding

Posted on by
Bound by Riviere & Son.
Goodall, Charles, 1671-1689. Poems and translations, written upon several occasions, and to several persons. By a late scholar of Eaton … London: Printed for Henry Bonwicke … 1689.Call number: Ex 3756.53.1689. Gift of Robert W. Patterson. Accessioned June 11, 1907. Priced in pencil on front free endpaper  10/10/-  (that is, 10 guineas).

Author prohibitus • Bale

Posted on by
Fore-edge of:
Bale, John, 1495-1563.
Illustrium Maioris Britanniae scriptorum, hoc est, Angliae, Cambriae, ac Scotiæ summariu[m], in quasdam centurias diuisum, cum diuersitate doctrinaru[m] atq[ue] annoru[m] recta supputatione per omnes ætates a Iapheto sanctissimi Noah filio, ad annum domini. M.D.XLVIII. Autore Ioanne Balaeo SudouolcaGippeswici [Ipswich]: per Joannem Overton, 31 July 1548.
With this is bound Contarini, G.P. Historia de bello nuper Venetis à Selimo II. Turcarum Imperatore illato : liber unus Basileae: Perna, 1573.
Call number: (Ex) 3616.7.349