De Civitate Dei.

Descripción:

Folio (266 x 209 mm), a8 b10; a-z10 aa-dd10, 298 leaves, a1, b10, dd10 blank, (this copy wanting the three blank leaves), 43 lines to the page, spaces for initials with printed guide-letters, a wide-margin copy, a few wormholes at beginning and end, 4 leaves repaired in margins just reaching text, nineteenth century blue polished calf, embossed in blind within gilt roll-tooled border, spine elaborately gilt in six compartments, a nice copy. Floral border on the inner margin on (2)a1 recto at the beginning of the text of Book I, with flowers in blue and dark pink, green leaves, extended with gold balls. Eight-line Initial I in gold on a squared background of pink and blue with small white penwork decoration. The beginning of each of the 21 following books is marked with a 6-line initial in gold with infills in pink, blue or green, all with white penwork decoration. The gold initial marking the beginning of Book XXI (aa 5 verso) is not filled in with colour. The painted initials are protected with tissue paper, probably inserted at the time of the present binding. Within the books each chapter is marked with a 3-line plain initial, alternating in red and blue. Comparison with other work by Mathias Moravus yields strong arguments for assuming that the illumination and decoration were carried out in his printing house. (see below). Some early notes, partly erased or washed. There are no marks of early ownership. After the colophon the figures '7,1 - 6 -' are written in a hand of the nineteenth, possibly late eighteenth century. This is probably the notation of a price in pounds, shillings and pence, indicating the presence of this volume in the British Isles at this time. The elegant binding does not contradict this. On the verso of the first fly-leaf the bookplate of Charles and Mary Lacaita and their children, Selham, Sussex. Charles Carmichael Lacaita, Liberal MP for Dundee and botanist (1853-1933) was the only son of Sir James Philip Lacaita (1813-95), a Neapolitan lawyer and statesman, for a long time living in exile in England (ODNB). The elder Lacaita was a scholar and had a reputation as an excellent bibliographer. Presumably he was the buyer of this book associated with his home-town, and it was later owned by his son and his family. On several points the present book, its printer, its type, as well as its illumination are remarkable witnesses to the movement of craftsmen, their materials, and their stylistic traditions over Europe in the first decades after the invention of printing. Such movement existed already in the world of scribal traditions, but was exponentially accelerated once books were multiplied in print. Book production became a veritable melting pot of influences: printers and artists adapted to new environments while at the same time maintaining skills and styles brought from elsewhere. This can well be shown in the present volume. The text, St Augustine's De Civitate Dei, was, and still is, one of the most widely read patristic texts; the plain text was ten years earlier printed at the Benedictine abbey of Subiaco among the first books printed in Italy, and this version was steadily reprinted in Rome and Venice. The present edition is the eighth in this sequence, and both the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke and BMC note that it is a page-for page reprint of the edition printed in Venice in 1475 by Gabriele di Pietro. Meanwhile a version with the commentary of Thomas Waleys was printed from 1468 in Strasbourg, Mainz and Basel. The Naples edition does not follow the layout of its exemplar, which was printed over two columns, but by printing it with long lines the book was given a more humanistic character. The type, however, resembled that used for its model, and also a type Mathias Moravus had used himself for the two books he printed in 1474 in Genoa before moving to Naples. It is a 'fere-humanistica' appropriate for this kind of texts and for classics, and economical in use. After Moravus used it in Napl. N° de ref. de la librería 25976

Librería: Forest Books, ABA-ILAB
Dirección: Redmile, NOTTS, United Kingdom

Librería en AbeBooks desde: 23 de mayo de 1997
Valoración librería:

Condiciones de venta: TERMS OF SALE: All books are offered subject to prior sale. Any item found unsatisfactory may be returned within seven days of receipt. I accept credit/debit cards - Visa, Mastercard, Maestro. Payment by cheque is also accepted - pounds Sterling only - payable to Forest Books. Telephone contact William Laywood - on (44) 01949 842360 for debit card payments or if you prefer to contact me personally. postal address: 1 Belvoir Road, Redmile, Notts. NG13 0GL. Libraries can be billed. Postal charges ... [Más información]

Condiciones de envío: Orders usually ship within 2 business days. Shipping costs are based on books weighing 2.2 LB, or 1 KG. If your book order is heavy or oversized, we may contact you to let you know extra shipping is required. Please call on 01949 842360 to check availability.