De senectute.

Accession number: 
PML 682
Author: 
Cicero, Marcus Tullius.
Published: 
[Westminster] : William Caxton, 12 August 1481.
Description: 
[120] leaves ; 28 cm (fol.)
Credit Line: 
Purchased with the Bennett collection, 1902.
Notes: 

Collation, Part I): 1⁶; a⁶; b-h⁸ i⁴; Part II): 2a-f⁸: 120 leaves, leaves 1/1, a6, and i4 blank.
Colophon (leaf i3r): Thus endeth the boke of Tulle of olde age translated out of latyn in to frenshe by laurence de primo facto at the comaundement of the noble prynce Lowys Duc of Burbon / and enprynted by me symple persone William Caxton in to Englysshe at the playsir solace and reverence of men growyng in to olde age the xii day of August the yere of our lord .M.CCCC.lxxxi:
Copy 2 of De amicitia and De senectute.
De senectute is thought to have been translated by Stephen Scrope, and his text may have been revised by John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who also translated De amicitia and De nobilitate (BMC).
Paper format: Chancery folio
PML 682 is incomplete: contains only leaves 2a1-b8 of De amicitia and leaves c1-c8 of De senectute; it formerly also contained De nobilitate, but that was removed and accessioned separately as PML 3827 (ChL 1772 (Copy 1)). Leaves c2 and c8 damaged, paper repaired.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 26.5 x 17.4 cm, trimmed.
Printed in Caxton's types 2*:135B and 3:135G.
Title from Prologue (leaf 1/2r): Here begynneth the prohemye upon the reducynge, both out of latyn as of frensshe in to our englyssh tongue, of the polytyque book named Tullius de senectute.

Binding: 
Modern English full brown goatskin over paper boards (28 x 20 cm), sewn on 5 supprts by Riviere & Son. Plain paper pastedowns and fly leaves; decorative endbands; gilt edges.
Variant Title: 

Cato maior, sive de senectute

Inscriptions/Markings: 

Hand decoration: Rbrication unrealized. Annotations: No notations in text.

Provenance: 
De amicitia and De senectute: Lord Chancellor Philip Yorke (1690-1764), Earl of Hardwicke (then also bound with Caxton's Myrror of the World, 1481, see De Ricci, Census, 94.33); Hardwicke sale, 29 June 1888, no. 116, to Quaritch; Richard Bennett (1849-1930), armorial bookplate (front fly leaf recto) and bibliographical notes: No. 263, 22/4/96 and price code wy/r/r (front fly leaf recto), purchased from Quaritch, Bennett bound together the De amicitia and De senectute with the De nobilitate he acquired at the Ashburnham sale (now PML 3827); Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased with the Bennett collection, 1902.
Classification: 
Century: 
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