Click either image for an enlargement.

•  Vellum over paste boards; spine with tan label, gilt-lettered and ruled. Ex-library: Rubber stamps, including on front pastedown and all edges of closed book, spine with call number label and inked-out area. Paper clean and crisp. All edges marbled red.

For more INQUISITION material,  click here.

Click the images for enlargements.

The text is printed in double-column format in English gothic type. The printer, Wynkyn de Worde (a.k.a., Jan van Wynkyn) was England's first typographer and worked with William Caxton, England's first printer. In 1495, he took over Caxton's print shop, but only after a difficult three-year litigation following Caxton's death in 1491.

Provenance:  Sold by Dauber & Pine (NY), the firm having dismembered an incomplete copy of the work and offered the individual leaves each with a letter-press leaf serving as ad hoc title-page.

English incunable leaves with woodcuts are increasingly difficult to obtain. That this Golden Legend leaf bears the image at the heart of its matter makes it a particularly desirable one.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 24876; ESTC S103597; Duff 411; Copinger 6475; Goff J-151.   Irregular in the margins and the recto of the leaf with old ink crossing out. The page with the woodcut in very good condition.  (24601)

This is an uncommon edition in the U.S. though heavily held in Europe; Goff and ESTC locate only two U.S. copies — this being one of them, deaccessioned.

The text is printed in double-column format in gothic type. In this copy, virtually all of the initials are nicely accomplished in red or blue.

•  Copinger, II, 6452; ISTC ij00122000; Proctor 618; BMC, I, 138; Goff J122. 19th-century quarter German calf with black mottled paper sides. Various waterstaining throughout, with other stray stains; copy missing first two and final two leaves of text, and the leaves at front and back remargined (with some others repaired). Priced according to faults, not pleasures!

•  ESTC T74897; NCBEL, II, 662. Removed from a nonce volume, now in a Mylar folder. Upper corners dog-eared. One correction inked in an early hand; pages otherwise clean.

Click the image to the right
for an enlargement.

•  Cf. Wickersham, 1050, for another title by Jetté with the same imprint. Not in Evans; not in Banks. Original stiff cloth wrappers. Pages very slightly age-toned, otherwise fine.

Binding: Contemporary calf over heavy boards, panelled and framed in blind with floral, geometric, and armorial blind-tooling within panels; a pencilled note on the front free endpaper says, “Richardson binding.” There once were clasps, now lost.

Provenance:  Title-page with small inked inscription, dated 1836, of Charles Nice Davies (1794–1842), a Welsh linguist, librarian at the Congregational Library, and divinity tutor at Brecon College.

•  STC (2nd ed.) 14600.5; ESTC S112182.   Bound as above, rebacked preserving original spine; leather cracked, edges and extremities rubbed, clasps now lost, hinges (inside) reinforced some time ago. Institutionally rubber-stamped on lower closed page edges, front pastedown, and first contents page. Title-page provided in early pen and ink facsimile, with inscription as above; last text page with commentary on the book's age, dated 1724 and 1913. Early inked underlining and marks of emphasis throughout; occasional marginalia, two pages dealing with women and the Church having extensive annotations. Pp. 675/76 lacking. One leaf with tear from upper margin extending into three lines of text, without loss; one leaf with large chip from lower margin, not affecting text. Scattered spots of staining only — a clean, strong volume.  (24511)

Uncommon: ESTC, OCLC, and NUC Pre-1956 find only 9 U.S. holdings.

•  ESTC S107911; STC (2nd ed.) 14831.   Period-style calf framed and panelled in gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Lacks initial blank leaf, as is the case with virtually all copies. Two leaves with tattered outer edges, one leaf with small hole affecting a few letters; pages with some moderate offsetting, a few browned.  (25084)

Bound with Lancellotti's work is a summary of titles of chapters of canon law compiled by Thomas Naogeorg (1508–63). Naogeorg's wanderings took him from being a Dominican to being a Lutheran to being a Calvinist. Along the way, during his Lutheran phase, he studied canon law for a year (1551) at Basel, during which time he compiled and published this work, likely as a student's guide. He is better known for his plays, in which he sharply attacks the Papacy.

The two works here were first published by the firm of Guillaume Rouillé, in 1587 and 1588 respectively, and may have been intended to be bound together, as witnessed by the Library of Congress copy. The title-page transcriptions of the earlier editions (except for the date and "hæredes"), and their signatures, pagination, and arrangement, match those of these present 1614 editions. There are italic shouldernotes, and woodcut headpieces and initials.

•  On Lancellotti, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 356. 17th-century calf; covers gilt-ruled; gilt spine. Abraded, corners bumped with leather lost, joints opening—yet this is a perfectly sound volume. All edges speckled brown. Bouquiniste's paper label on front pastedown and front free endpaper lacking. Two words inked long ago in two margins, and one page with old pencilled underlining.

•    Later 19th-century half toffee-brown calf over salmon cloth boards; gilt-lettered red leather spine-labels (title, volume, editor); gilt-accented raised bands, date in gilt at base. Slight rubbing to joints and extremities, one label with a streak of discoloration, vol. II with small chip at head of spine and lower corners rubbed. Pages toned. One leaf with edge nicks. Lower outer portion of pp. 211/212 chipped, with loss of outermost letters of bottom four lines and detached piece laid in; aforesaid pages also creased down the middle, brittle, and all but separated in two (still, present). Top edge gilt, others deckle. A pleasing and attractive binding; a volume internally clean. (21256)

Click the image for an enlargement.

Uncommon and important: OCLC locates only seven American libraries holding copies.

•  Medina, Mexico, 10477; Garritz 764.   Removed from a nonce volume; inner margins a little irregular.  (24913)

•  Sabin 12115. Sewn, now in a Mylar folder. Light spots of foxing, more pronounced to first and last few leaves; edges untrimmed and a bit ragged. (19753)

•  Palau 108151. Recent neat vellum over light boards, spine lettered in black. Paper cockled with light to moderate waterstaining and small spots of soiling, not impeding legibility. Some marginal chipping with tissue paper repair on front fly- and title-leaf, a few shallow marginal tears elsewhere, and a wormhole in lower inner margin of final 22 leaves and rear fly-leaf; rear fly-leaf with some holing. Overall actually in very good condition.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Francesco Sestini’s Il Moderno Maestro di Camera has a separate title-page, dated 1698; the first title-page bears the printer’s crowned salamander device and the second a vignette of Minerva. The collation here matches descriptions of other copies.

Uncommon: Searches of OCLC and RLIN locate only three copies in U.S. libraries.

Provenance: Late 18th-century private collector’s booklabel — “Ex Biblioth. Hamburg. Wolfiana”; also with a 19th-century bookplate.

•  Contemporary vellum, spine with early hand-inked title; binding with small spots of light discoloration, spine title a bit scuffed. All edges speckled blue. Front pastedown with bookplates as above; front free endpaper with early inked shelving number. First gathering, including title, a cancel. Title-page reinforced at inner margin. Pages clean.