Vita et Fabulae.

Accession number:

PML 20555

Uniform title:

Aesop's fables. Latin.

Published:

[Basel] : [Jacobus Wolff, de Pforzheim], [not after 1489]

Description:

[116] leaves : woodcuts: illustrations, initials, portrait ; 28 cm (fol.)

Credit Line:

Purchased by J.P. Morgan, Jr., 1919.

Notes:

Title from Goff.
Printed in Wolff's type 9:93G and Nicolaus Kesler's type 9:140G.
Doubtfully assigned to Furter by BMC and Polain.
Dated by CIBN from inscribed copies with date 1489 in Munich and Prague. Goff dates about 1492 (cf. C.C. Rattey in The Library, V, 12 (1957) pp.119-20); GW and Polain date after 1500?. Frieder Schanze, "Wer druckte den deutschen 'Äsop' (GW 363) und den Basler 'Brandan' von 1491 (GW 5005?," Gutenberg-Jahrbuch (1998), 105-10, esp. 106 suggests 1487/88 for publication date.
Signatures: a-o⁸/⁶ p⁸ q¹⁰: 116 leaves, leaves q9-10 blank.
Paper format: chancery folio.
1 column, 42-44 lines. Printed initials. 193 woodcuts.
Compiled by Heinrich Steinhöwel and originally published ca. 1477 (Ulm, Zainer) Cf. Steinhöwel's Äsop, hrsg. von H. Österley, 1873 (Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, 117).
Contains Vita, translated by Rinuccio; Fabulae, books 1-4 in the prose version of Romulus, books 1-3 also in the metrical version of the Anonymus Neveleti; Fabulae extravagantes; Fabulae novae, translated by Rinuccio; Fabulae, by Avianus; Fabulae collectae, by Petrus Alfonsi, Poggio, and others.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 27.5 x 18.5 cm.
PML copy missing 2 leaves: q9-10 (blanks). Leaf a1 mounted.

Binding:

Modern full brown goatskin over boards (28 x 20 cm.), sewn on 5 supports by Duprez-Lahey. Plain paper pastedowns and fly leaves; plain endbands; gilt edges.

Inscriptions/Markings:

Hand decoration: Rubrication not required. Annotations: No marginal notations in text.

Provenance:

Henry Huth (1815-1878), inherited by his son: Alfred Henry Huth (1850-1910), Ex Museo Huthii booklabel (front pastedown); Huth sale, Sotheby's, part I, 15 Nov. 1911, lot 54(?); J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), purchased via Quaritch, Jan. 1919.

Classification:

Incunable Collection

Catalog Link:

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Genres:

Goatskin bindings (Binding)

Century:

15th century

Department:

Printed Books