CONTINENTAL BOOKS CATA LOGU E 1448 MAGGS BROS LTD 1 continental books & manuscriPts MAGGS BROS ltd 2 1 ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ST De laudibus beatae virginis Mariae. [Cologne, Ulrich Zell, not after 1473]. Folio (274 x 200mm) 165 leaves (of 166, lacking final Sacramentum mundi, ed Karl Rahner, 1975, p 903.) blank). Gothic type, 36 lines, double column. 2-4 line Only relatively recently has Albertus Magnus’ Maggs Bros Ltd, 50 Berkeley Square, London W1J 5BA initial spaces, alternating spaces filled in red, red authorship been challenged, see A Fries, Die unter Tel 020 7493 7160 paragraph marks, underlining and capital strokes. Single dem Namen des Albertus Magnus überlieferten Fax 020 7499 2007 pinhole visible in the lower margins. Early 19th-century mariologischen Schriften (1954) pp5-80, 130-131, Email [email protected] ochre paper boards, red spine label lettered in gilt, red and A Kolping, in Recherches de théologie ancienne Opening hours Monday to Friday 9.30am–5pm edges (spine darkened, a little soiled and marked). £15,000 et médiévale 25 (1958) pp 285-328 (Sack Freiburg). By 1473, it was rare for a pinhole to still be Bank account Allied Irish (GB), 10 Berkeley Square, London FIRST EDITION. A fine wide-margined copy with visible in the lower inner margin as found here. In W1J 6AA deep impressions of the types on remarkably 1466 and 1467 all of Zell’s books had four Sort code 23-83-97 fresh paper, printed by the prototypographer of pinholes on each page but this was soon reduced Account no 47777070 Cologne, Ulrich Zell. As noted by BMC the copy to two and generally by 1470 they disappear IBAN GB94AIBK23839747777070 at the University Library of Uppsala is dated from the visible part of the page. (See: Martin BIC AIBKGB2L 1473 by the rubricator. Boghardt, ‘Pinholes in Large-format Incunabula’, VAT no GB239381347 The works ascribed to Albertus Magnus led The Library s7, vol 1 (2000), pp263-289). him to be considered to be the greatest Mariologist Provenance: Bibliothecae J[ohann Heinrich © Maggs Bros Ltd 2011 of the Middle Ages. A product of the mid-13th Joseph] Niesart (1766-1841), pastor in Velen Design and production by Cat’s Pyjamas Publishing century and a hugely influential work in Marian 1816, with his manuscript inscription on first www.catspyjamaspublishing.co.uk scholarship, ‘the Mariale represents the first leaf and his bibliographical notes on a loose Printed and bound by Connekt Colour systematic theology of Mary, inasmuch as all inserted leaf. Inner margin of first leaf lightly assertions about Mary are reduced to one single soiled otherwise extremely fresh. Front cover: 20, Cats (Jacob), page 28. Inside front cover: 64, Plutarch, page 80. principle, that of the all embracing fullness of H460. GW 678. BMC I, 192. BSB-Ink A185. Back cover: 2, Albertus Magnus, St, page 6. Inside back cover: 20, Cats (Jacob), page 28. grace.’ (Encyclopedia of theology: a concise Goff A271. Bod-inc A119. 5 2 ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ST Sermones de tempore et de sanctis. [Speyer, Peter Drach, not after 1475]. [Bound with:] GUILLERMUS PARISIENSIS Postilla in evangelia et epistolas. [Speyer, Peter Drach, c1476]. Two works in one volume. Folio (293 x 211mm). I 240 copy of either book sold in Anglo-American leaves (including f 144 blank). Gothic type, 40 lines, table auctions since 1934. in double columns. 2 to 6-line initials, headlines, paragraph This is the second edition of the Albertus marks and capital strokes in red, rubricator’s guide- Magnus’ Sermones, first published the previous letters and quiring sometimes visible. II 170 leaves (last year in Cologne. Albertus Magnus (1193/1206- blank). Gothic type, 40 lines. Rubricated uniformly with 1280), Dominican preacher, Bishop of Ratisbon, the above but without the headlines, manuscript quiring saint, and Doctor (‘Doctor Universalis’) of the often visible. Contemporary blindstamped pigskin over Catholic Church, was the leading intellectual wooden boards, covers panelled by fillets into a double figure of his time and wrote encyclopedically on frame with lozenge shaped compartments inside, each theology, philosophy and the sciences. He applied containing a round tool of an eagle or a clover leaf or a Aristotelian methods and principles to revealed square tool with a rosette (two different stamps), also doctrine and was, therefore, the pioneer of the with lettered scrolls ‘Jhesus’ and ‘Maria’; 5 brass bosses scholastic method elaborated by his pupil, St on each cover, clasps and catches, remains of paper labels Thomas Aquinas. on front cover (expert restoration to joints). £25,000 The second work, the Postilla, first published by Zainer in Augsburg 1472, was one of the most A SUPERB EXAMPLE OF TWO RARE INCUNABLES FROM THE popular works of the 15th century and justly 1470S, PUBLISHED BY THE SAME PRINTER, AND BOUND described by Goff as one of the earliest ‘best sellers’. TOGETHER SOON afTER. The tall, fresh, rubricated The supposed author, Guillermus, was a copies with strong impressions of the types and Dominican monk and professor of theology at some deckle edges are bound in a fine contemporary Paris who compiled this work in 1437 ‘expressly binding with the ten brass bosses, as well as the for the clergy and for those desirous of clasps and catches, still intact. The small stamps understanding the excerpts from the Epistles and used to decorate the covers are not found in Kyriss the Evangelists, more commonly called lessons, but point to a Rhineland origin, probably monastic. which are read at appropriate services throughout The two undated works are catalogued in the the church year. It obviously filled a most pressing BMC as the earliest impressions from the press of need.’ (Goff, ‘The Postilla of Guillermus Peter Drach at Speyer. The first not after 1475 as a Parisiensis’, in Gutenberg Jahrbuch 1959, pp73- copy at München BSB has a buyer’s date of that 77). Much of the collection has also been attributed year and the second assigned to the following year. to Johann Herolt (see Die Deutsche Literatur des ISTC lists few copies of either printing outside Mittelalters Verfasserlexikon (Bd 3, 1124, 8). Germany, for example, the only copies of Drach’s Provenance: Some contemporary annotations. Sermones de tempore... and Postilla in the UK are Early inscription ‘Pertinet ad Fabricam/BMVF’ on at the British Library, only an imperfect copy of the front pastedown. Book label of George Dunn first work and one of the second in France, and no (1865-1912), Woolley Hall (his sale Sotheby’s 2nd copies of either in Belgium or the Netherlands. The February 1914, lot 702). USA fares somewhat better with six locations for I HC*469. GW 772. BMC II, 488. BSB-Ink the first work and three for the second. They are A213. Goff A328. II HC*8226. GW 11924. BMC also extremely rare on the market with no other II, 488. BSB-Ink H134. Goff G648. 6 7 4 APULEIUS (ULISSE) Metamorphoseos, sive lusus Asini libri IX. Floridoru[m] IIII. De Deo Socratia I. De Philosophia I. Asclepius Trismegisti dialogus eode[m] Apuleio i[n]terprete... (Graece: Alcinoi philosophi ad Platonis dogmata introductio). (Venice, in aedibus Aldi, et Andreae Soceri mense maio, 1521). Sm 8v (160 x 95mm) 266, [28]ff. 18th-century vellum during the Middle Ages (eight medieval over paste-boards, blue marbled edges, ink title on manuscripts survive, ie Brussels, Bibliothèque spine (small split to spine). £2,500 Royal 10054-10056, Ms on vellum, 10th-11th- 3 ALDROVANDI (ULISSE) Serpentum et draconum historiae libri duo... century). The Asclepius has been described as Bologna, apud Clementem Ferronium, (1639) 1640. FIRST ALDINE EDITION OF THE COLLECTED WORKS the single most important revelation of Hermes OF APULEIUS including the Metamorphoses (also and it guaranteed the continuation of the Engraved title by Io. Baptista Coriolanus and the reading of classical texts, such as Pliny, and known as the Golden Ass), the sole Latin novel Hermetic tradition prior to the rediscovery of numerous woodcuts, many full-page, of snakes, the secondhand accounts related by merchants that survives in its entirety, with a prefatory the Corpus Hermeticum in the mid-15th mythical serpents and dragons. and adventurers. letter from Asulanus to Francesco Rubrio, century. The text is quoted by amongst others The Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi French legate of Francis I at Venice. The OCD Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis, Albertus Folio (355 x 235mm) [5]ff 427pp [15]ff. Contemporary (1522-1605) was and one of the major figures in describes the Golden Ass as, ‘A delightful work, Magnus, Roger Bacon and Thomas vellum with early rebacking in vellum, title and the Renaissance movement that placed a renewed imaginative, humorous, and exciting, it tells the Bradwardine. Although the magical and shelf-mark lettered on spine (upper joint split). £2,500 emphasis on the study of the nature. He was the adventures of one Lucius who, being too curious Egyptian elements in the text were objected to first professor of natural sciences at the University concerning the black art, is accidentally turned by St Augustine in De Civitate Dei they were FIRST EDITION OF ALDROVANDI’S POSTHUMOUSLY of Bologna and one of the first great specimen into an ass, and thus disguised, endures, sees, held in high regard by later philosophers such as PUBLISHED AND BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED collectors, he regularly organized expeditions and hears many strange things. He is at last Ficino and Giordano Bruno. HISTORY OF SERPENTS AND DRAGONS. In this across Italy for that purpose. He was also heavily restored to human shape by the goddess Iris. The final section of 28pp has its own title- work he combines detailed descriptions of real involved in the founding of the Bologna’s Many stories are embedded in the novel, the page and is printed entirely in Greek.