[Epitome margaritae eloquentiae]
Contains digital mediaDetails
Type of record: Book
Title: [Epitome margaritae eloquentiae]
Other titles: Epitome margaritae castigatae eloquentiae
Classmark: BC Safe/TRA
Related people: Caxton, William; Higgin, Anthony
Publisher: William Caxton
Publication city: [Westminster]
Date(s): [after 21 January 1480]
Language: Latin
Size and medium: [34] leaves
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/118515
Printed items catalogue: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=44LEE_INST:VU1&docid=alma991008685959705181
Collection group(s): Incunabula
Description
Signatures: [a⁶ b⁴ c⁶ d⁶ e⁸ f⁴].
No printed signatures, catchwords or pagination.
With explicit but no colophon.
The author also appears in catalogues as Guillermus Saphonensis (the name used in the text).
Italian-made paper (Fabriano and Genoa), with watermarks of the scissors type.
Printed in Caxton's type 2* used between 1479 and 1481.
Printed with 29 long lines to a full page.
Initial spaces with guide-letters (except for leaf [a1r]).
The verso of the final leaf is blank.
Indexed in: ISTC no. it00427770.
Indexed in: J.E. Mortimer, The Library, 5th series, v.8 (1953), pp.37-42; R.H. Martin, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, v.16 (1971), pp.103-125.
Features
In black ink manuscript on the verso of the final leaf and the recto of an additional inserted leaf is a ballad with text and music, "A lytyll ballet mayde of ye yong dukes grace", concerning Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond and Somerset (d.1536).
Bindings
Twentieth-century binding of limp vellum with a smooth spine. The book was restored and bound by the British Museum in 1952 and each leaf protected with gauze on both sides. The item is preserved in a padded slip case. The case has a sheepskin spine with five raised bands. Stamped in black in the second panel are the words: Laurentius Gulielmus de Saona. Stamped in black at the base of the spine: Westminster Caxton c. 1480. Size: 285 x 205mm. Leaf size: 277 x 196mm.
Provenance
Formerly part of a composite volume bequeathed to Ripon Cathedral Library by Anthony Higgin in 1624. The remainder of that volume is now in the British Library, Add. MS. 50856. Anthony Higgin was Dean of Ripon from 1608-1624.
Sold at Sotheby's on 31 May 1960 and purchased by Messrs Quaritch on behalf of the Brotherton Collection for £12000. The purchase was made on the initiative of Dr B.S. Page, the University Librarian and Keeper of the Brotherton Collection, and was made possible by a gift of £2000 from Mrs D.U. McGrigor Phillips, Patron and Honorary Consultant of the Brotherton Collection, added to money from the Collection's own endowment fund.
Access and usage
Access
Access to this material is unrestricted.
On our website
Profile: Anthony Higgin (d.1624)
Biography of Anthony Higgin, who is associated with the incunabula held in Special Collections at Leeds University Library.
Online exhibition: Epitome Margaritae Eloquentia (printed by William Caxton, c1480)
This is a unique copy of a book printed by William Caxton, England's first printer. Epitome Margaritae Eloquentia ("Epitome of the Pearl of Eloquence") by Lorenzo Guglielmo Traversagni . One of the treasures of Special Collections of Leeds University Library.