Early Printing & Manuscripts / 15th Century

MAGNI, Jacobus [Jacques Legrand]. Sophologium.
[Strasbourg, R-printer (Adolf Rusch), ca. 1468]. Folio (21 × 28.2 cm). With the text set in 35 lines, spaces for initials show tiny guide letters, rubricated throughout, with 3- and 5-line blue or red Lombardic initials. 18th-century gold-tooled red morocco, gilt edges, marbled endpapers. 217 (of 218) ff. (lacking the final blank).Roman type, Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - ARABIC]. AL-SAMARQANDI, Najib Al-Din. [Arabic title in red]. [Fi-qawanin tarkib al-adwiyat al-qalbiya, minkalam Mawla-na Najib ad-in al-Samarqandi = Rules for the making of heart drugs from the words of our Revered Master Najib ad-Din al-Samarqandi].
[Iran/ Iraq?], (colophon:) 11 Rabi ath-Thani 894 AH [= March 1489 CE]. 8vo. Arabic manuscript written in black ink, rubricated throughout, in a small and neat naskh Arabic hand (19 lines per page with corresponding blind ruling visible in the paper). 18th-century(?) sprinkeled brown calf with a gold- and red-tooled arabesque center-piece on both boards, modern reddish-brown calf spine. [4] pp. Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - CALENDAR]. [Calendar for calculating the date of Easter].
[Auxerre, France?], [ca. 1400?]. Small 4to. Latin manuscript in red, brown and black ink on paper, written in an upright French gothic semi-cursive hand with short texts in a textura hand, with 6 round diagrams for calendrical calculations containing text and 2 more with no text filled in. Leaves A4-A6 (6 pages) written in two columns contain 12 tables for the 12 months (January to December) providing data for each day of the month, and the manuscript includes further data for calendrical calculations in several more rectangular tables. The final blank leaf has holes pricked to form a circle, but no diagram has been drawn using them. Sewn through 3 holes in a (ca. 1550?) paper wrapper, the whole in paperboards lined with printed waste paper from a (17th-century?) Latin Breviary. [18], [2 blank] pp. (pp. 2 & 5 also blank). Full description

[MANUSCRIPT - PRAYER AND HYMN BOOK - LATIN]. [Devotionarium].[Incipit leaf 2r:] Or[ati]o deuota q[ue] debet dici[t] i[n] ficem diei ante dormitione[m].
[Northern Germany(?), 15th century]. 8vo. Written in Latin on relatively thin parchment (leaf 11.5 x 8.5 cm, text block 7.8 x 5.2 cm), in a gothic hand in one column of 17 lines per page using black/dark brown ink. The manuscript is rubricated throughout, with a 3-line red and blue initial at the start of each part, and 2- or 1-line lombards, alternating in red and blue, at the start of each smaller section, ruled in pencil. Early 19th-century(?) gold-tooled vellum showing a gold-tooled floral frame on both boards, with a leather closing tie on the front, gold-tooled board eges, gilt edges. [131] ll. Full description

NIDER, Johannes. Preceptorium divine legis [preceded by] Prologus in expositionem decalogi [= Praeceptorium divinae legis, sive expositio decalogi].
[Colophon:] Ulm, Johann Zainer the elder, [1478/79]. Chancery (Foolscap) folio. Set in a rotunda gothic type, the preliminaries in two columns, with spaces for manuscript paragraph marks and initials, filled in in red ink, the initials Lombardic, one with interior decoration. Contemporary richly blind-tooled calf over square-edged wooden boards (from an Augsburg bindery active 1473-1494: Eindbanddatenbank workshop w002141), sewn on 3 double supports. Further with a brass catchplate on the front board and a brass anchor plate on the back board. The anchor plate still secures remnants of the leather strap that would have had a brass clasp. [246] ll. Full description

OTTO VAN PASSAU. Boeck des gulden throene of der xxiiij ouden.
Utrecht, "tC", (30 March) 1480. Folio. With 24 illustrations in text (ca. 9 x 6.2 cm), printed from 1 complete woodcut (plus 4 repeats) and 15 components assembled in different combinations, all rubricated and with architectural frames. Each of the 24 chapters begins with a large manuscript initial, 11 with two or more colours and others with interior white decoration. A smaller initial with penwork opens the book's first page and there are numerous further 1-line and 2-line initials. Woodcut printer's device at the end. Contemporary (Utrecht?) blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, each board in a panel design; rebacked. [4], 197 ll. Full description

OTTO VON PASSAU. Boec des gulden throe[n]s of der xxiiij. ouden en[de] hoemen elke[n] vinden mach en[de] va[n] hoerre leringhen die si leren om te comen totten ewighen leven.
(colophon: Haarlem, [Jacob Bellaert], 25 October 1484). Folio (29 x 21.5 cm). With large woodcut printer's device (142 x 82 mm) on verso of last leaf (with the arms of the city of Haarlem above an eagle holding a larger blank shield, here filled in by a contemporary owner); 4 woodcut illustrations and 20 repeats, representing the 24 elders, each showing one of the male elders, standing, teaching a female novice kneeling before him. Further with spaces left for initials, all filled in with uncials by hand, about 25 with penwork decoration in 1 or 2 additional colours: 1 blue 6-line initial with decorations in red and violate extending far into the margin, about 24 red 3 to 9-line (mostly 7-line) initials with lavendar penwork (1 with 2 green dots), some extending into the margin, and more than 70 2-line red initials without penwork decoration; a few spaces left for ¶-marks, also filled in in red; capitals rubricated throughout. Set entirely in Baellart's textura (99 or 100 mm/20 lines or about 14.5 point). Lacking leaf 137 (the second to last text leaf) and the final blank. Modern sheepskin. [1 blank, 3], "136" [= 135 (of 136)], [1] ll. Full description

PERSIUS FLACCUS. Satirarum opus [= Satyrae/Saturae].
(Colophon: Venice, Dionysius de Bertochus & Pelegrinus de Paschalibus Bononienses, 10 September 1484). Small folio (29.5 x 21 cm). With the verse text surrounded on three sides by Fonzio's prose commentary, Bertochus and Pelegrinus's woodcut device next to the colophon on the last printed page, with spaces left for manuscript initials without guide letters (not filled in). Set in 2 sizes of Venetian-style roman type (110 and 83 mm/20 lines) with an occasional Greek letter. 19th-century(?) sheepskin parchment. [1 blank], [54], [1 blank] pp. Full description

POLIZIANO, Angelo. Omnia opera Angeli Politiani, et alia quaedam lectu digna, quorum nomina in sequenti indice vedere licet.
Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1498. Folio. Early 18th-century (?) polished calf, spine richly gilt in compartments with red morocco title label, both sides with triple gilt fillets along the edges and large gilt oval coat-of-arms in the centre, inner dentelles, marbled endpapers. The coat of arms is of Henri-Louis Loménie, comte de Brienne (1658-1743), son of Louis Henry Loménie de Brienne. [452] ll. Full description

[POST-INCUNABLE - ROOKLOOSTER - WINDESHEIM]. Ordinarius divini officii pro ordine Canonicorum Regularium, Capittuli sive Congregationis Wyndesemensis. Anno Domini. M.CCCCC.XXI.
Deventer, Albert Pafraet, April 1521.
With: (2) [POST-INCUNABLE]. Statuta capituli Windeshemensis. - Incipiunt statuta capituli de windesim. impressa amstelredammis Et primo de elecione intronisatione & confirmatione novi prioris.
Den Hem (near Schoonhoven), Regular canon Frater N., 1508.
(3) [MANUSCRIPT - LATIN]. Forma inclusionis.
[Rooklooster, after 1480 (ca. 1490)].
4to. Ad 1: With the title set within a magnificent woodcut frame consisting of four pieces. Further with two smaller woodcuts in the text, woodcut initials and a full-page woodcut illustration at the end. All illustrations are beautifully coloured by a contemporary hand. The text is set in roman type (with some occasional Gothic type), rubricated throughout. Ad 2: With a large handcoloured woodcut beneath the two lines of the title, the text is set in Gothic type, rubricated throughout. Ad 3: Latin manuscript written in a neat littera hybrida with the titles written in a littera textualis, rubricated throughout. In a beautifully and richly paneled original and signed binding of the famous Rooklooster (the "Red monastery"), the Augustinian Abbey of St. Paul in Oudergem (Auderghem) in the "Soniënbos" (Forest of Zonia) near Brussels: contemporary polished calf over wooden boards with (on both sides) two borders of three lines with rolls in between and a stamp of the Holy Lamb in the four corners and lozenge-shaped floral ornaments in the centre divided by three lines with a little floral double-rose stamp on the crossings; below the central panel on the front side a stamp "Roedencloester" flanked by eight little stamps of a star within a circle; one brass clasp and catch at the fore edge, brass strips at the edges of the corners; vellum pastedowns. [16], LXXIV; 63; 17 ll. Full description