Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

De imitatione cristi.

Accession number
PML 510
Object title

De imitatione cristi.

Uniform title
Imitatio Christi. French.
Published

Imprime a Paris : par Jehan Lambert, xvi. iour de novembre. Mil cccc.quatrevi[n]g[t]s et treze [16 November 1493].

Description

[1], ii-Cx, [4] leaves : illustrations (woodcuts) ; 21 cm. (4to)

Credit line
Purchased with the Bennett collection, 1902.
Notes
Title from half-title page, leaf a1r. Incipit, leaf a2r: Cy co[m]mence le Livre tressalutaire Intitule De limitacion nostreseign[eu]r Iesncrist [sic]: et p[ro]faict conte[m]pnement de ce present miserable monde.
Imprint from colophon, leaf o6r: Cy finist la livre de imitatione cristi Et de contemptu mundi. Translate de latin en francois. Et imprime a Paris par Jehan Lambert. Le xvi. iour de novembre. Mil cccc.quatrevi[n]g[t]s et treze.
Printed in Lambert's type 1:95G.
Signatures: a-i⁸ K⁸ l-n⁸ o⁶; .:⁴: 114 leaves. Printed foliation with mistakes.
Woodcuts.
On the attribution to Thomas à Kempis see A. Ampe, L'Imitation de Jésus-Christ et son auteur (Roma, 1973) and R.R. Post, The Modern Devotion (Leiden, 1968) pp.520-536 (CIBN).
De contemptu mundi attributed to Saint Bernard or Jean Gerson in incipit, leaf a2r.
PML copy on vellum.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 20 x 13.4 cm.
PML copy missing 2 leaves: a1 and e8.
Binding
18th-century calf over paper boards (21 x 14 cm.), sewn on 4 supports, with the gilt armorial of Foucault. Marbled paper pastedowns and endleaves, with plain paper endleaves; gilt edges.
Variant title
De l'imitacion nostre seigneur Jesu crist
Inscriptions/Markings
Hand decoration: Contemporary French rubrication, gilt initials and paragraph marks on red ground, yellow capital strokes. Wooducts illuminated, with alterations to printed scene. Annotations: No marginal notations in text.
Provenance
Nicolas Joseph Foucault, marquis de Magny (1643-1721), armorial binding; Richard Bennett (1849-1930), armorial bookplate (front pastedown) and bibliographical notes: No. 19, 8/5/96 and price code: yl/-/- +com (front endleaf 1 verso); Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased with the Bennett collection, 1902.
Classification
Century
Department