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Eneydos.

Accession number
PML 782
Creator
Virgil.
Object title

Eneydos.

Published

[Westminster] : William Caxton, [after 22 June 1490]

Description

[86] leaves ; 26 cm (fol.)

Credit line
Purchased with the Amherst collection, 1908.
Notes
Title from Caxton's prologue (leaf A2r): After dyverse werkes made/ translated and achieved/ havyng noo werke in hand. I sittyng in my studye where as laye many dyverse paunflettis and bookys. happened that to my hande cam a lytyl booke in frenshe. whiche late was translated oute of latyn by some noble clerke of frau[n]ce whiche booke is named Eneydos/ made in latyn by that noble poete [and] grete clerke vyrgyle/...
Colophon (leaf L7r): ere fynyssheth the boke yf Eneydos/ compyled by Vyrgyle/ whiche hathe be translated oute of latyne in to frenshe/ And oute of frenshe reduced in to Englysshe by me wyll[ia]m Caxton/ the xxii. daye of Juyn. the yere of our lorde. M.iiii Clxxxx. The fythe yere of teh Regne of kynge Henry the seventh.
Printed in Caxton's type 6:120B.
Date based on Caxton's date of translation in colophon and paper stocks (see BMC).
Collation: A⁶; B-L⁸: 86 leaves, leaves A1 and L8 blank. Leaves signed "A1" and "A2" are conjugate; the final leaf of the quire (i.e., A6) signed "A3" (see BMC).
Paper format: Chancery folio
Translated by William Caxton from the French Livre des Énéides.
Printed lombard initials and Caxton device.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 25.5 x 17 cm.
Binding
Modern blind-stamped full green goatskin over paper boards (26.5 x 18 cm), sewn on 5 supports by Duprez-Lahey. Colored paper pastedowns and fly leaves with additional plain paper fly leaves; plain endbands; edges stained red.
Inscriptions/Markings
Hand decoration: Rubrication not required; printed initials and paragraph marks. Annotations: Contemporary English notations, mainly near beginning, and title: [?] Virgill hystoria Eneidos (leaf A2r). 18th-century foliation.
Provenance
Abraded signatures, 15th/16th century (leaf L7v); George Jackson, ex dono inscription, 6 Sept. 1721 (leaf A1r); Bryan Fairfax (1676-1749), his sale, Prestgate (London), 6 April 1756, lot 2021, entire library purchased prior to sale by: Francis Child (d. 1763), through inheritance to: Victor Child Villiers (1845-1915), 7th Earl of Jersey, Osterley Park sale, Sotheby's, 6 May 1885, lot 1935, to Bernard Quaritch for: William Amhurst Tyssen-Amherst, Baron Amherst (1835-1909), armorial bookplates (front pastedown), his sale, Sotheby's London, 3 Dec. 1908, lot 992, purchased prior to sale by: Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased with the Amherst collection, 1908.
Classification
Century
Department