Early Printing & Manuscripts / 15th Century

ARDUINO, Sante. [Incipit:] Incipit liber de venenis ...
(Colophon: Venice, Bernardino Rizzo, 1492). Folio (42 x 28 cm). Set in in 2 columns in 2 sizes of rotunda gothic types, with spaces left for numerous 3-line and 4-line and a few larger initials (with printed guide letters), none filled in. Modern black- and gold-tooled calf. [4], 101, [1] ll. Full description

AUGUSTINE of Hippo (Saint AUGUSTINE). De la cita d'Dio.
[Venice?, Antonio di Bartolommeo Miscomini, ca. 1477? (not after 1483)]. Folio. Printed in two columns, each 47 lines, with spaces for 3-6 line initials left blank. Early 19th-century gold-tooled calf. [1 blank], [322], [1 blank] ll. Full description

ALVERNUS, Guillelmus (William of AUVERGNE). Libri ... de fide et legibus.
[Augsburg, Günther Zainer, ca. 1475/1476]. Small folio. Set in a hybrid roman type with gothic elements (a single column of 43 lines per page plus running heads), with the first 3 lines, including the title, in a slightly larger rotunda gothic. With all initials supplied in manuscript in red, rubricated throughout. Contemporary, richly blind-tooled vellum over wooden boards, two brass clasps, blue edges, "Nr. 56" in red ink written at the foot of the spine. [139] ll. Full description

[ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT - BOOK OF HOURS (DIOCESE OF UTRECHT)]. [Incipit a1r:] Wi aenbeden di christi en ghebendien di want du overmits dijn heilighe cruus die werlt verlosset hebste ...
[North-Holland (Haarlem?)], ca. 1450/70]. Small 8vo (ca. 11 x 8 x 3.5 cm). Manuscript book of hours in Dutch, written in black ink on vellum (leaf ca. 11 x 7.5 cm; text block ca. 7 x 4.5 cm) in two clear and attractive gothic hybrida hands (21 lines/page for the first hand, 18 lines/page for the second hand and 17 for the calendar). 18th-century half calf, brown sprinkled paper sides, gold-tooled spine, black morocco spine label with title ("Oud getydenboek M.S.S.") in gold, 18th-century endpapers. [240] ll. Full description

BREYDENBACH, Bernhard von. [Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam].
(Colophon: Mainz, printed by Erhard Reuwich, 11 February 1486). Chancery folio (33 x 22.5 cm). With a woodcut frontispiece, a woodcut female figure with the Henneberg arms below the colophon, 3 (of 7) double-page and larger folding plates with large woodcut views; 5 (of 7) woodcut illustrations and 5 (of 6) woodcut alphabets of exotic languages; all woodcut views on the integral leaves and one folding plate coloured by a contemporary hand. With about 110 spaces left for initials, filled in with red "Lombardic" uncials; rubricated throughout. Lacking 4 plates and 1 printed integral leaf, and with 2 other (uncoloured) plates added from other copies (one from a later edition). Contemporary panel-stamped and blind-tooled calf over wooden boards. [132 (of 133)] ll. plus 3 (of 7) woodcut plates. Full description

[DAMASCUS – VENETIAN TAXES]. [Promissory note for Venetian customs taxes on goods from Damascus].
Venice, 22 Feb. / 5 March 1488. Italian notarial document on vellum (44.5 x 16 cm; text block ca. 27 x 14 cm). Written in two fine cursive hands. Full description

DAVID KIMHI (KIMCHI, QIMHI). Sefer ha-shorashim.
(Colophon: Naples, [Azriel ben Joseph Ashkenazi Gunzenhauser], Elul [5]250 [= August/September 1490]. Small folio (25.5 x 20 cm; most leaves 25 x 19 cm). Set in 2 sizes of sephardic meruba Hebrew (without points) and with shoulder notes in a semi-cursive (Rashi) Hebrew of a smaller face (but cast on the same body as the meruba of the main text). Lacking 11 leaves, but with the first two replaced in manuscript at an early date, including a manuscript title-page not in the printed edition (with an elaborately decorated architectural border) on the recto of the first manuscript leaf (which had been blank in the printed book), including an imprint incorporating information from the colophon. The other 9 leaves that are lacking supplied in lithographic facsimile. Loose leaves in a 20th-century paperboard wrapper and slipcase. [266] of [1 blank], [287] pp. + [4] pp. in manuscript. Full description

DUNS SCOTUS, John; Gratianus BRIXIENSIS (ed.). [Quaestiones in quattuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi cum textu].
[title-page of part 5]: Tabula Scoti.
[title-page part 1:] Primus sententiarum doctoris subtilis Scoti.
[title-page part 2:] Secundus sententiarum doctoris subtilis Scoti.
[title-page part 3:] Tertius sententiarum doctoris subtilis Scoti.
[title-page part 4:] Quartus sententiarum doctoris subtilis Scoti.
[colophons of parts 1-4:] Venice, Bernardinus Rizus, Novariensis, 17 July 1490 (part 1), 3 March 1490 (part 2), 21 April 1490 (part 3), 3 November 1490 (part 4).
With: (2) DUNS SCOTUS, John. Quodlibeta doctoris subtilis Scoti.
Including: Tractatus primum reru[m] principiu[m] ... [ = De primo principio]
[Venice, Bernardinus Rizus de Novaria, 1490]. 2 works in 2 volumes, the 1st in 5 parts in 2 volumes with the 2nd work bound at the end of volume 2. Folio. Title-pages set in a rotunda gothic type, the main texts in three sizes of rotunda type. Richly decorated and highlighted in gold, with many (decorated) initials and some coloured drawings in the foot margin, especially on the first text-pages of every part or work, with exception of part 5 (the "Tabula") and the first page/opening of the De primo principio.
The Quodlibeta opens with a blue 9-line initial on a green field with a red and yellow border, with a bear drawn in the lower margin decorated with gold. Part 2 contains 3 woodcut diagrams showing a geometrical figure and 2 astronomical woodcut figures, showing the orbits of planets. Also with many red and blue smaller and larger lombardic initials of different size throughout the text, and an occasional lombardic duplex (red and blue) initial. Later half calf, red cloth sides, with three blind-tooled ornamental stamps on the spine. With the contemporary red-brown leather fore-edge tabs for every part of the Quaestiones and also for the Quodlibeta and the De primo principio. [28]; 16, [20 blank], 184, [1 blank]; 136; 208; 102; 62 ll. Full description

HONORIUS AUGUSTODUNENSIS (HONORIUS OF AUTUN). [Incipit:] ... de ymagine mundi.
[Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 1472(?)]. Folio (31 x 22 cm).Rubricated throughout and about half of the spaces left for initials filled in by hand in red ink. 19th-century red sheepskin. [46], [1 blank] ll. Full description

IBN SINA (AVICENNA). Canon medicinae [= al-Qanun].
Lyon, Jean Trechsel & Johann Klein, 24 December 1498. 2 volumes. Folio (ca. 31 × 42 cm). With a diagrammatic woodcut.Contemporary blind- and gold-tooled calf over wooden boards, sewn on 4 double supports, one volume with 2 brass clasps (and traces on the other volume). 379; 357 ll. Full description