Aurelij augustini de ciuitate dei primi libri incipiunt rubrice

Description

Signatures: [a-b⁸ c-z¹⁰ A-H¹⁰].


Colophon reads: Aurelij Augustini opus de ciuitate dei feliciter explicit: confectum uenetijs ab egregio [et] dilige[n]ti magistro Nicolao ienson: Petro mo[c]enicho principe: anno a natiuitate domini mile simo quadringe[n]tesimo septuagesimo quinto: sexto nonas octobres.


The headline on [c1r] includes the printer's name: Nicolaus Jenson gallicus.


Printed in two columns with 46 lines to a full column.


Printed headlines giving the number of each book.


Initial spaces with guide-letters.


Leaves [a1], [b8] and [H9-10] are blank.


Indexed in: ISTC no. ia01235000.


Indexed in: Hain 2051 (counting 301 printed leaves); BMC V 175; Goff A1235.

Features

Very occasional marginal annotations and a manicule, late fifteenth-century or early sixteenth-century, slightly cropped.


Major initials supplied and decorated in red and blue.


Other initials and paragraph markers supplied in red and blue.


Capital strokes supplied in yellow.


Wanting blank leaves [a1] and [H9-10].


Bindings


Binding of full green goatskin, nineteenth-century. There is evidence of the book having previously been half bound. Pastedowns of green paper with a pattern of small squares, circles and diamonds. Both the upper and lower covers are blind-tooled with a simple border of twisted strands. The spine has been replaced and the newer pale brown spine is smooth. On the spine is a pared dark brown leather lettering piece on which words are gold-tooled between double fillets: Augustinus - De civitate Dei - Jenson 1475. Further down the spine is the Brotherton Collection stamp in gold. Several pages have watermarks with a horned bull surmounted by a staff and flower, and a scales enclosed within a circle. Size: 290 x 208mm. Leaf size: 279 x 192mm.

Provenance

Ink manuscript inscription, late fifteenth-century, at the head of [a2r]: Liber monasterij S. Adrianj marlyzis apud Gerard... enses. This copy probably belonged to the Benedictine Abbey of St Adrian in Geraardsbergen (Grammont), eastern Flanders.


Cutting from a sale catalogue on the front free endpaper referring to another copy of this edition. Written on the cutting in black ink manuscript: Pickering & Chatto 1904. The price given is £16.16s.


Bookplate on the front pastedown: Ex libris E. Crawshaw.


Pasted on the front free endpaper are notes in black ink manuscript, twentieth-century, describing the edition and commenting on provenance.


Note in pencil manuscript on the back free endpaper: Perfect. (Foll 1, 305, 306, all blank, cut away and foll. 117 and 126 supplied from a smaller copy). Bernard Quaritch... 14.iv.1925.


Coloured armorial bookplate of Sir Edward Allen Brotherton on the front free endpaper. The book was most likely acquired before 17 June 1929 when Brotherton was created Baron Brotherton of Wakefield.

Access and usage

Access

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