Illustrated with 22 engraved plates (each with protective tissue guard), an added engraved title-page (in color), and in-text engravings used as chapter tail-pieces. Text printed within an engraved decorative border, repeated throughout.

•  Publisher's full red morocco, elaborately stamped in gilt. Spine with raised bands, gilt center devices and lettering in spine compartments. Front cover bears a gilt image of the Blessed Virgin framed in an oval, with “Mary A. Dunigan” stamped in gilt beneath it; back cover bears a gilt-stamped crucifix within an oval. All edges gilt. Rubbing at edges and joints. Front joint starting and weak. Scratch-marks. Some spotting to plates and tissue guards. Very light waterstaining in margins of later pages. Chip at top margin of two leaves, only. Very good condition, without ownership markings.  (14268)

Osiander adds to the polemical debate building on the question of baptism and the Anabaptists. The work is printed in gothic type, of course, and is densely printed on the page. One passage has elicited a marginal, Latin reply by an early reader.

Not common.  NUC Pre-1956 and OCLC locate the same two copies in the U.S., one of which is this now deaccessioned copy; and VG16 locates only six copies in Europe.

•  VD16 O1279.   Recent boards covered with a leaf from a printed gradual, with music and printed in black and red. Red leather spine label. Clean complete copy.  (24857)

Both this and the first edition are scarce. Searches of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 find only seven U.S. institutional holdings of the 1677 printing.

•  Barbier, Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes, IV, 213; BM STC French, 1601–1700, R1083. Contemporary speckled calf, spine gilt extra; leather slightly acid-pitted, with edges and joints rubbed and unobtrusive number inked on back cover, spine with gilt a bit rubbed and paper shelving label in uppermost compartment. Front pastedown with inked ownership inscription dated 1737.

•   Sabin 58295; Medina, BHA, 1245; Peeters-Fontainas 1029; Palau 209622. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine gilt extra, with gilt-stamped leather title-label; corners, spine, and spine extremities a touch rubbed, otherwise pleasingly fresh. Front free endpaper with early inked inscription, front fly-leaf with early inked “Acto de contricion” affixed. Lacking additional engraved title-page. Final third of text block starting to pull away from spine, sewing still holding. Pages age-toned, with some instances of spotting and offsetting. All edges mottled to match binding.

Preceding the Decachordum Christianum is the De Jesu Christi stigmatibus, a discussion of the wounds of Christ as found on the shroud of Turin, composed by Alfonso Paleotti (1531–1610) archbishop of Bologna. His discussion of the shroud is interspersed with a more forensic analysis of the sufferings endured by Jesus, by Daniel Mallonius, an Italian Hieronymite priest. This was first published separately in 1606.

This 1607 edition of the Historia admiranda is apparentlythe first joint publication of these works under this title, and it was followed by a 1616 edition. In this edition the De Jesu Christi stigmatibus opens with an engraved title-page and has16 full-page engravings illustrating the shroud of Turin from both front and back, as well as the wounds of Christ and the instruments of the Passion. The Decahordum christianum has10 full-page engravings showing scenes from the life of Christ, that of the Annunciation being strikingly beautiful. Though continuous in pagination, the supplementary De excellentia instrumentorum Dominicae Passionis by Vigerio has its own sectional title-page incorporating a striking engraved vignette of Christ as the man of sorrows. Both volumes are printed withwoodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, and sidenotes.

Allison & Rogers report European holdings of this, but we tracednone in the U.S.

The volume begins with a half-title, followed by an added engraved title-page that is printed from one very large plate (signed by Kilian). The main and each of the divisional title-pages has a large printer’s device of a lion with bees and the motto “De forti dulcedo” (Joannis Posuel, the Lyonnaise printer?). There are woodcut head- and tailpieces. The text is printed in double-column format.

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, III, 1398; also VI, 130. Contemporary vellum over paste boards, round spine, raised bands; covers ruled in blind with a double-fillet to form concentric compartments; center of each cover with a large blind-stamped medallion of interwoven design. Front joint open along the bottom two spine compartments; some soiling and stains. Title-page of pars I torn and crumpled along inner area of upper margin, tear repaired from verso; area of tear with slight crumpling. Foxing. scattered throughout, sometimes very noticeable; some ink blots; also browning from interaction of printer’s ink with impurities in paper at time of manufacture.

The work was first printed in English in 1657, as Les provinciales: Or the Mysterie of Jesvitisme. The present edition is illustrated with an oversized, folding plate depicting prominent Jesuits.  The second section (the “Additionals”) has a separate title-page.

Our caption is the first title's epigraph.

•  ESTC R5437; Wing (rev. ed.) P641 & 642; Lowndes 1208; PMM 140 (on the first edition).   Period-style mottled calf, covers framed and panelled in gilt rules with gilt-stamped corner fleurons, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Frontispiece (Moses delivering the law), a few preliminary leaves, and final advertising leaves lacking; text complete despite skip in pagination and fold-out plate present. Title-page with early inked numerals and institutional rubber-stamp. Light waterstaining to outer and lower page portions; otherwise, the odd spot only.  (24874)

•  Sutro 756 ("19p." being a typographical error for collation given here); not in Steele, Independent Mexico: A Collection of Mexican Pamphlets in the Bodleian Library. Folded and never sewn or bound; as issued.

Single-click the image for an enlargement.

•  ESTC T98695. On Roger de Weseham, see: The Dictionary of National Biography,LX, 297–98. On Samuel Pegge, see: The Dictionary of National Biography, XLIV, 233–35. In recent marbled wrappers. Uncut copy with nice wide margins; deckle edges with some soiling and a few chipped or dog-eared corners with no loss of impression. Paper lightly age-toned.

Despite this strongly worded treatise against persecution (which argues that all men should be able to make a free and open choice of faith and worship), the statutes remained in place for many years to come.

•  Wing (rev.) P1298A; ESTC R12742. Recent marbled paper–covered boards. Title-page with tiny, unobtrusive numeral inked in upper outer corner, first text page with numeral stamped in lower margin (no other markings). Title-page and first text page with moderate foxing, others clean.

Extremely uncommon. Searches of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 locate just three institutional holdings, only one in the U.S.

•  18th-century quarter sheep with speckled paper–covered sides, rubbed and abraded; front joint open and back joint starting, leather cracking and gilt lettering to spine all but lost. Front pastedown with pencilled notations and institutional bookplate, front fly-leaf and title-page rubber-stamped, front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription dated [18]45. Pages untrimmed. Moderate foxing; some leaves with red staining along inner margin, not approaching text. Two leaves with small portion of lower margin excised; separate title-page for second work with small portion of outer margin excised and replaced some time ago with a scrap of paper bearing an early inked annotation.

The text is written in one column of 50 lines on the recto and 51 lines on the verso. The leaf is faintly ruled in lead on the verso only, the impression of the ruling showing on the recto, the top line of text being above the top line of ruling; on the right edge of the page are double rules enclosing the first letter of each line. On the outer edge are prickings for the ruling. The left edge of the recto has directions to the rubricator, the explicits of each section being done in darker ink in a different hand. One line on the verso has been crossed out with a single thin line of ink. At the bottom of the verso is the quire number VIII and remnants of a catchword can just be seen at right on the bottom edge. English manuscripts from this period are rare.

Provenance: Ex–Zion Research Foundation (later known as the Endowment for Biblical Research); very likely to Zion from Ege.

•  Judith, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular, 18, f. 9. A small hole in the lower margin. Parchment a little soiled, especially on the hair side, as is not unusual with English vellum. Traces of adhesive from mounting on the corners of the verso.