Provenance:  Ownership inscription of “Conventus Gamundiani,” a Capuchin Order convent at Schwäbisch Gmünd near Wurttenburg, dated 1484 on front free endpaper and another date of “1479" on the first blank; ownership inscription of Johannes Meyer dated 1509; 19th-century library bookplate.

Evidence of readership: Five pages of contemporary manuscript notes and an index in red and brown ink, signed in two places “Johannes Meyer predicator (preacher)” and dated 1509; some 15th-century marginal notes in a very clear hand; early manicules; 19th-century notes pasted to front free endpaper.

ISTC and Goff combine to locate ten copies in U.S. institutions and two in private collections. One of the institutional copies has recently been deaccessioned and one of the private copies was sold long ago.

•  HCR1254; Proctor 4160; Goff A-867; GKW 2195; BMC, V, 192; ISTC ia00867000; Bibliotheca Apostolicae Vaticanae Incunabula A-363.   Binding as above; abraded, rubbed, and unevenly toned due to removal of clasps, bosses, and other “furniture”; numerous pinhole-type wormholes with board corners somewhat damaged. Some tiny worm holes in last few leaves and in the bottom blank margins of a few leaves; one natural paper flaw in one margin causing a hole, not near text; expectable, really minimal varieties of staining. A very stout if pillaged binding which has its charm and surroundsa fine very wide-margined copy of its landmark text.  (30138)

The volume is printed with the original language and spelling preserved, and is illustrated with a woodcut frontispiece of a fisherman taken from de Worde's 1518 edition that is cited as the earliest known depiction of an angler fishing with a rod, as well as with six woodcuts (provided at the back of the volume in the form of four plates) showing types of poles, hooks, etc. As the title-page proclaims, the work was printed with the types of John Baskerville, making it one of the last such printings done in England. A later hand has helpfully added pencilled marginalia clarifying archaic or obscure terms and suggesting subject headers.

•  NSTC 2B20037; Keynes, Pickering, 42.   Later half calf and marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label, gilt-decorated raised bands, and gilt-stamped fishing creel devices in compartments; spine label with small edge chips and mild rubbing to paper. Pencilled annotations as above, pages and plates otherwise pleasingly clean.  (28566)

The recto of leaf a1 is blank, the text of the prefatory matter beginning on the verso.

Provenance: Signature of “John Webb” in a 17th-century hand twice in margin of k3r.

Uncommon beyond the Continent: ISTC and Goff locate only two copies in the U.S. and ISTC locates only two copies in the U.K. (one incomplete), but there is a third copy at the British Library.

•  ISTC ic00601000; Goff C601; HC 5274*; IGI 2910; Pr 4942; BMC, V 400; GKW 6954.   Full modern walnut calf old style: Spine with raised bands, accented with gilt and blind rules, the latter extending onto covers to terminate in trefoils with blind double fillets beyond. Gilt center devices in the spine compartments. Red leather spine label lettered in gilt, and date in gilt at base of spine. Lacking two leaves (b4–5). Upper corners of leaves in gatherings & and [con] damaged with loss of paper. Lower corner of i1 torn with loss of text of both sides of leaf. Waterstaining and old dampstaining variously, this often faint and never really worse than moderate (worst at beginning/end); some age-toning and dustsoiling. Though an imperfect copy, a rarity; indeed, with its manuscript enhancements, a “uniquum.”  (25766)

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.

•  Copinger, II, 6452; ISTC ij00122000; Proctor 618; BMC, I, 138; Goff J122. Deep walnut full calf old style: Round spine with raised bands, accented with gilt rules, fillets extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils and covers framed in blind double fillets; very plain with date and place of publication only gilt on spine. 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! (12378)

This book is “around” in libraries; ISTC locates 12 U.S. copies.But on the market, it is a different story!

•  Goff S222; H 14436; HC(+ Add) 14439; Audin 126; CIBN S-107; IGI 8739; Sallander 2430; Pr 6361; BMC, VI, 684; GKW M40472; ISTC is00222000.   20th-century grey boards, lightly discolored, with caramel-color leather label on front one. Text very clean.  (27042)

Savonarola wrote this painful document in prison, completing it on or before 8 May 1498. Significantlyone of the most widely read and reprinted of Savonarola's works, it was in its original Latin version immediately distributed in Florence and quickly translated into Italian, this particularly early version at the instance of “certain devoted women” (our translation, f. [1]r). Indeed Giovannozzi lists a total of 32 printings in four languages from 1498 to 1581, ISTC noting of this one that it is “printed in a later state of the type associated with the Printer of the Caccia di Belfiore, who is identified as Lorenzo Morgiani and Johannes Petri by A. Tura, in La Bibliofilia 101 (1999) pp.1–16.” A neat, handsome incunable production.

Provenance:  Probably from Lathrop C. Harper (its binding style, see below).

ISTC locates 8 copies in libraries in the U.S., 5 in Britain, 15 on the Continent, and 1 in Australia.

•  Goff S216; BMC, VI 695; IGI 8737; ISTC is00216000; HR 14428; HC 14429?; Audin 145; CIBN S-104; GKW M40538; Pr 6305; Giovannozzi 104 (“S.n.t [sec. XV]”); Ridolfi, I, 389, & II, 220.   20th-century grey boards, lightly discolored, with caramel-color leather label on front board. Text very clean.  (27045)