Copy number: P-163(1)

Bound with:
1. Johannes Marius Philelphus, Novum epistolarium. Venice: Johannes Tacuinus, de Tridino, 6 Oct. 1492 (P‑281);
3. Gaius Caecilius Plinius Secundus, Epistolae. [Venice: Johannes Roscius, c.1492] (P‑381(3)).

A variant, wanting the preliminary sheet. By an error of imposition in gathering f, the text of 1^v has changed places with that of 7^v, and 2^r with 8^r. Fol. 45 is numbered 34.

Binding: Contemporary Italian (probably Venetian or Paduan, c.1500) blind- and gold-tooled brown goatskin over stiff pasteboards. Four pairs of ties lost. Rebacked in Italy in the eighteenth century. Corners repaired. Triple fillets form a triple frame. Outer corners mitred. Within the middle frame a diving-dolphin tool forms a border. The inner rectangle is decorated with a lozenge-shaped tool with concave sides massed at the centre and corners. Brown-edged leaves. Sewn on three double bands. Headbands, spine, and endleaves new. For the diving-dolphins tool see A. Hobson, Humanists and Bookbinders: The Origins and Diffusion of the Humanistic Bookbinding, 1459-1559 (Cambridge, 1989), 67-8.

Size: 217 × 155 × 53 mm.

Size of leaf: 210 × 150 mm.

A few marginal notes, mainly extracting key words, in a sixteenth-century hand.

Provenance: Of two seventeenth-century(?) inscriptions on the title-page one has been too thoroughly erased to be legible; the other, less drastically scored through, reads ‘di P . . . isto Francisco'. Ingram Bywater (1840-1914); Elenchus, nos 2469, 2450, 2583^a. Bequeathed in 1914.

SHELFMARK: Byw. R 1.15(2).

Copy number: P-163(2)

In gatherings f and h, sheets 1.8 and 2.7 are of a different setting. Last word on f1r: ‘Fortunatā'. Fol. 45 numbered 34. Wanting gathering [*].

Binding: Nineteenth-century half green morocco over marbled pasteboards; yellow-edged leaves.

Size: 222 × 155 × 17 mm.

Size of leaf: 216 × 143 mm.

‘23' in pencil on front endleaf and on a1r.

Initials, paragraph marks, and chapter heading underlining are supplied in red; capital strokes in red.

Provenance: Rebdorf, Bavaria, Augustinian Canons, abbey, S. Johannes Baptista; inscription on front endleaf: ‘Hic codex est Monasterii Sanctissimi Johannis Baptiste in Rebdorff ordinis canonicorum regularium diui Augustini episcopi. Eystetensis dyocesis'. Previously bound with a copy of Carolus Maneken, Formulae epistolarum, as indicated by a list of contents on the front endleaf, in the same hand. Purchased for £0. 4. 6; see Books Purchased (1858), 83.

SHELFMARK: Auct. 4Q 5.20.

Copy number: P-163(3)

A variant. The error of imposition in gathering f has been corrected. Folio 45 numbered 35.

Binding: Nineteenth-century paper boards with blue-edged leaves. ‘[ ]92' in brown ink at head of the spine.

Size: 190 × 148 × 19 mm.

Size of leaf: 186 × 140 mm.

On [*1r] in an early humanist hand: ‘[ . . .] D. Cardinalis de Columna per Jo. An. ca[ ] | Nec tu hoc despice quod vides sepulchrum | Seu sis aduena seu quiritum unus | Oßa sunt hic sita Prosperi Columne | Diuina probitate Cardinalis | Qualem nulla tulit fert nec etas | Que luxit Latium extulitque Roma | Et totus prope lachrimauit orbis | Ergo et tu quoque lachrima viator | Aut statim hinc fuge ne parum dolere | Tanto in funere Roma censeatur.' ‘Autographum melius quam chirographum'. ‘F[] 16458. Edition princeps', ‘N. 209', and ‘9' in pencil on front pastedown.

Large initials are supplied in blue with reserved white decoration and sometimes red-pen-work decoration. Other initials and paragraph marks are supplied in red or blue.

Provenance: ‘Lorenz Donner' in an early German(?) hand on [*1r]. Purchased for £0. 7. 0; see Books Purchased (1852), 72.

SHELFMARK: Auct. 6Q 6.43.