The game and playe of the chesse.

Accession number: 
PML 772
Author: 
Jacobus, de Cessolis, active 1288-1322.
Published: 
[Ghent?] : [David Aubert?, for William Caxton], 31 March 1474.
Description: 
[74] leaves ; 26 cm (fol.)
Credit Line: 
Purchased with the Amherst collection, 1908.
Notes: 

Collation: [1-8⁸ 9¹⁰]: 74 leaves, leaves [1]/1 and [9]/10 blank.
Date from colophon (leaf [9]/9r): Fynysshid of the last day of marche of the yer of our lord god .a. thousand foure honderd and lxxiiii.
GW dates as after 31 March 1474.
Paper format: Chancery folio
PML copy leaf dimensions: 25.6 x 18.1 cm
PML copy missing 2 leaves: [1]/1 and [9]/10 (blanks). Staining on leaves [1]/2 and [9]/8-9, affecting some text; damage erasing several words on leaf [7]/4r.
Printed in Caxton's type 1:120B.
Printing also attributed to William Caxton at Bruges.
Title from Prologue (leaf [1]/1r): To the right noble/ right excellent [and] vertuous prince George duc of Clarence Erle of Warwyk and of salisburye/ grete camberlayn of Englond [and] leutenant of Ireland oldest broder of kynge Edward by the grace of god kynge of England and of frau[n]ce/ your most humble servant william Caxton amonge other of your survantes sendes unto yow peas. helthe. Joye and victorye upon your Enemyes... Therefore I have put me in devour to translate a lityll book late comen in to myn handes out of frensh in to englisshe/ In which I fynde thauctorites. dictees. and stories of auncient Doctours philosophes poetes and of other wyse men which been recounted [and] applied unto the moralite of the publique wele as well of the nobles as of the comyn peple after the game and playe of the chesse...
Translated by William Caxton, from the French of Jean de Vignay.

Binding: 
Modern full brown blind-stamped goatskin over paper boards (26.5 x 19cm), sewn on 5 supports by Duprez-Lahey. Plain paper pastedowns and fly leaves; plain endbands.
Variant Title: 

The play of chess

Inscriptions/Markings: 

Hand decoration: Unrubricated, lombards unrealized. Annotations: Minimal contemporary English notations in text. Multiple inscriptions, including: "Jesus est amor mens et virgo Maria sit mihi ampliat[?]rum" (leaf [9]/9v). Dated 1490 (leaf [9]/9v).

Provenance: 
Anthony Trougton, inscription: "Iste liber pertenecie Ath. Trougton" (leaf [9]/9r; see also Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, McClean 134); multiple names: Nycolas Bardons, George Blanchard, Thomas Wause, Pette Thomas, Thomas Anyngton, George Lodfort, 15th-/16th-century (leaf [9]/9v); Robert James Petre, of Thorndon in Essex, bookplate (front pastedown), his sale, Puttick & Simpson, "From an old Essex Library," 16 Dec. 1886, lot 66, to Bernard Quaritch for: William Amhurst Tyssen-Amherst, Baron Amherst (1835-1909), armorial bookplate (front pastedown), his sale, Sotheby's London, 3 Dec. 1908, lot 181, purchased prior to sale by: Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased with the Amherst collection, 1908.
Classification: 
Century: 
Department: