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Speculum sapiencie Beati Cirilli Episcopi, alias, Quadripartitus apologieticus [sic] vocatus : in cuius quidem prouerbijs omnis et tocius sapiencie speculum claret.

Accession number
PML 26742
Object title

Speculum sapiencie Beati Cirilli Episcopi, alias, Quadripartitus apologieticus [sic] vocatus : in cuius quidem prouerbijs omnis et tocius sapiencie speculum claret.

Uniform title
Speculum sapientiae.
Published

[Basel] : [Michael Wenssler], [about 1475]

Description

[61] leaves ; 30 cm. (fol.)

Credit line
Purchased in 1929.
Notes
Title from incipit caption, leaf [1]/1r.
Imprint from ISTC.
Printed in Wenssler's type 1:121G.
Collation: [1-3¹⁰ 4⁶(6+1: In secundus rebus factus) 5-7⁸]: 61 leaves. Another issue collates [a-c¹⁰ d-g⁶·¹⁰]: 62 leaves and includes numerous minor textual variants. Cf. BM 15th cent. (IB. 37057).
Paper format: Chancery folio.
1 column, 34 lines. Capital spaces, without guide letters.
Attributed in this ed. (as in all mss. and early eds.) to a Cyrillus Episcopus, variously identified with Saint Cyrillus, Bishop of Jerusalem; Saint Cyrillus of Thessalonica; or Cyrillus de Quidenon. Cf. J.G.T. Grässe's Die beiden ältesten lateinischen Fabeldichtungen des Mittelalters, 1880, p. 285-290. GW enters under Pseudo-Cyrillus. Attributed by T. Kaeppelli in Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, 1970, #699, to Boniohannes de Messana.
The Speculum sapientiae is a collection of 95 Latin prose fables that appeared in the first half of the 14th cent.; handed down in more than 150 Latin manuscripts. Cf. Sebastian Münster, Spiegel der wyssheit, c1996, p. 9.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 28.4 x 20 cm.
Binding
Modern half brown goatskin with marbled paper sides over paper boards (29.5 x 21 cm.), sewn on 5 supports by Sanford & Clarke. Plain paper pastedowns and fly leaves; decorative endbands.
Variant title
Quadripartitus apologieticus vocatus
Inscriptions/Markings
Hand decoration: Contemporary Germanic rubrication, red lombards, paragraph marks, and capital strokes. Annotations: No marginal notations in text.
Provenance
Unidentified owner, initials "A. H." added to lombard initial (leaf [1]/1r); George Dunn (1864-1912), Woolley Hall, Maidenhead, booklabel and armorial booklabel: 3 stars and fox ermine (front pastedown, without typical bibliographic/purchase notes); his sale, Sotheby's, 22 Nov. 1917, lot 986 to Erhard Weyhe (Weyhe Gallery of New York) for £4.5.0; Pierpont Morgan Library, purchased from Wilfred Voynich, July 1929.
Classification
Century
Department