Accession number
PML 703
Object title
Myrrour of the worlde.
Uniform title
Image du monde. English (Middle English)
Published
[Westminster] : William Caxton, [about 1489-1490]
Description
[88] leaves : illustrations (woodcuts) ; 28 cm (fol.)
Credit line
Purchased with the Bennett collection, 1902.
Notes
Gossuin or Gautier de Metz was named as author in some of the manuscript sources.
Dates based on device and paper evidence.
Collation: a-l⁸: 88 leaves.
11 woodcuts and 27 (with repeats) woodcut diagrams. Woodcut initials, printed lombards and paragraph marks.
Paper format: Chancery folio
Printed in Caxton's type 6:120B.
Title from incipit of tabula (leaf a1r): Here begynneth [th]e table of the rubrices of this presente volume named the myrrour of the world or thymage of the same.
Translated by William Caxton between 2 January and 8 March 1480/81.
Translator from Caxton's Prologue (leaves a3v): ...And now at this tyme rudely translated out of frensshe in to Englissh by me symple persone Wyll[ia]m Caxton. at the request. desire coste [and] dispense of the honourable and worshipful man Hugh Bryce alderman and Cytezen of londen/ entendyng to present the same unto the vertuous noble [and] puyssau[n]t Lord Wyll[ia]m lord hastynges lor Chamberlayn unto the most Crysten kynge/ kynge Edward the fourthe kynge of England [and] of Fraunce [et]c. ... And emprysed by me right unable [and] of ytil connyng to translate [and] brynge it in our maternal tonge [th]e second day of the moneth of Janyuer the yere of our sayde lord .M.cccc.lxxx/ in thabbay of Westmestre by londen...
Caxton's device on leaf l8v.
In most copies sheet k2.7 is a cancellans (see BMC).
PML Checklist enters this under: Vincentius Bellovacensis. Imago Mundi. In English.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 27 x 18.4 cm
PML copy with leaves a4.5 and k1.8 repaired in gutter or cancellans.
Dates based on device and paper evidence.
Collation: a-l⁸: 88 leaves.
11 woodcuts and 27 (with repeats) woodcut diagrams. Woodcut initials, printed lombards and paragraph marks.
Paper format: Chancery folio
Printed in Caxton's type 6:120B.
Title from incipit of tabula (leaf a1r): Here begynneth [th]e table of the rubrices of this presente volume named the myrrour of the world or thymage of the same.
Translated by William Caxton between 2 January and 8 March 1480/81.
Translator from Caxton's Prologue (leaves a3v): ...And now at this tyme rudely translated out of frensshe in to Englissh by me symple persone Wyll[ia]m Caxton. at the request. desire coste [and] dispense of the honourable and worshipful man Hugh Bryce alderman and Cytezen of londen/ entendyng to present the same unto the vertuous noble [and] puyssau[n]t Lord Wyll[ia]m lord hastynges lor Chamberlayn unto the most Crysten kynge/ kynge Edward the fourthe kynge of England [and] of Fraunce [et]c. ... And emprysed by me right unable [and] of ytil connyng to translate [and] brynge it in our maternal tonge [th]e second day of the moneth of Janyuer the yere of our sayde lord .M.cccc.lxxx/ in thabbay of Westmestre by londen...
Caxton's device on leaf l8v.
In most copies sheet k2.7 is a cancellans (see BMC).
PML Checklist enters this under: Vincentius Bellovacensis. Imago Mundi. In English.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 27 x 18.4 cm
PML copy with leaves a4.5 and k1.8 repaired in gutter or cancellans.
Binding
18th/19th-century gilt- and blind-stamped English blue, straight-grained morocco over paper boards (28 x 19.5 cm), sewn on 5 supports possibly by Roger Payne, with the Blandford crest in the center of each board. Plain paper doublures and fly leaves; decorative endbands; gilt edges.
Inscriptions/Markings
Hand decoration: No rubrication required. Annotations: Diagrams not labeled in manuscript (as Edition I). No notations in text.
Provenance
Richard Farmer (1735-1797), signature (fourth fly leaf verso) with his notes on the sale of other copies (fifth fly leaf recto); his sale, March 1798, lot 6223, (to Thomas Payne?); Michael Wodhull (1740-1816); his sale, Sotheby's London, 24 March 1803, lot 1030; George Spencer Churchill (1766-1840), Fifth Duke of Marlborough and Marquess of Blandford, crest on binding; his sale (White Knights Library), Evans, 23 June 1819, lot 2978, to Triphook for Hibbert for £55.13.0; George Hibbert (1757-1837); his sale, Evans, 16 March 1829, lot 5663, to Pickering; Rev. John Fuller Russell (1814-1884), armorial booklabel (front pastedown); his sale, Sotheby's, 26 June 1885, lot 806, to Quaritch for £265; Bernard Quaritch, catalogue VI (1887), no. 37906; Richard Bennett (1849-1930), armorial bookplate (front pastedown) and bibliographical notes: No. 134, 22/4/96 and price code rlm/-/- less 10% +com (front fly leaf verso); Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased with the Bennett collection, 1902.
Classification
Catalog link
Century
Department