[Opera]

Description

Signatures: a¹⁰ b-p⁸.


Imprint from colophon.


Colophon on p6r reads: Hoc opus impressum Venetiis arte & ingenio Antonii de Strata Cremonensis. Anno salutis.M.cccclxxxviii. octauo calendas nouembres.


Edited by Victor Pisanus.


The Phaenomena is richly illustrated with woodcuts depicting thirty-seven constellations.


The woodcuts of constellations, in part reversed copies of those in the 1485 Hyginus of Ratdolt, are apparently from blocks previously used by T. de Blauis. See BMC V 295.


Contents include: Dionysius Periegetes: De situ orbis, translated by Avienus; Avienus. Ora maritima; Aratus. Phaenomena, translated into Latin by Germanicus; Phaenomena, translated into Latin by Cicero; Quintus Severus Sammonicus. Liber medicinalis.


Printed with 38 long lines to a full page.


Initial spaces with guide-letters.


Leaves 1, 58, 121 and 122 are blank.


Indexed in: ISTC no. ia01432000.


Indexed in: Hain 2224.

Features

Leaf numbers supplied in ink manuscript at the top right of rectos.


List of contents supplied in ink manuscript by J. Henryson on the recto of the fourth front flyleaf.


In pencil manuscript beneath the list of contents is the word Preserve, probably an instruction to binders Riviere & Son.


On the verso of blank leaf 121 (p7v) is an unfinished ink manuscript drawing of the zodiac in an early hand.


Alternative leaf numbers supplied in pencil manuscript beneath the text at the bottom left of rectos.


Leaf h7 is supplied in black ink manuscript complete with an illustration of the constellation of Arctophylax.


This copy is wanting the blank leaves 1, 58 and 122.


Bindings


Late nineteenth-century English binding of full pale brown calf by Riviere & Son whose name is printed in black at the bottom of the verso of the front free endpaper. The upper and lower covers are decorated with a border of three gold-tooled fillets with round ornaments at each corner. The spine has five raised bands. The second and third panels contain pared dark red leather lettering pieces gold-tooled with the author, title and date: Avienus Opera 1488. The remaining panels are decorated with gold-tooled lozenges, stars and stylised foliage. The board edges and the turn-ins are gold-tooled wth a repeating pattern of stylised foliage. The pastedowns are of marbled paper featuring a combination of the curl and spot patterns in brown, blue, yellow, grey and white. The book has gilt edges. Size: 214 x 155mm. Leaf size: 207 x 146mm.

Provenance

Armorial bookplate of James Alexander Henryson-Caird on the recto of the third front flyleaf with the motto: Virtus sola nobilitat.


Autograph of J. Henryson in black ink manuscript at the top of the verso of the fourth front flyleaf.


Cutting from a sale catalogue on the front pastedown with a description of the book, possibly originating from Auction catalogue, books of James A. Henryson Caird...[et al.], 13 to 15 November 1922, London: Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge, 1922.


Bookplate on the front pastedown with the initials A.L.S. [André Louis Simon] and the motto: Beatus homo quem tu erudieris, Domine.

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