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BEAUTIFUL ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM FROM THE SCHOOL OF MINOR ILLUMINATORS ASSOCIATED WITH THE Bible of Borso d’Este
BOOK OF HOURS, use of Rome, in Latin. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [northern Italy, Ferrara, c. 1460] . 95 x 72 mm. FIVE 3-5 LINE ILLUMINATED INITIALS with leafy ornaments and extensions and marginal decoration; ONE 7 line HISTORIATED INITIAL with border. The decoration of the historiated initial belongs to the school of minor illuminators associated with the production of the magnificent Bible of Borso d’Este (see deer with photo of the Bible of Borso d’Este below) , other ornament and extensions more likely attributable to Guglielmo Giraldi and his associates. Rubricated, numerous 1-2 line gold initials throughout. Bound in a later blindstamped French binding, textblock partly loose, lacking class, some leather loss to part of rear board., still an attractive binding. Condition: Calendar worn, some rubbing and thumbing as usual., ff. 68 with partial loss and initial cut; one initial more seriously rubbed.; otherwise condition as depicted in photos. Contents: Calendar ff.1-11; f.12 blank ruled; ff. 13-115 Office of the Virgin, use of Rome; ff. 116-145 Penitential Psalms and Litany; ff. 146- 193 Office of the Dead, use of Rome; ff. 194-199 Hours of the Cross; ff. 200-220 variants from the Office of the Virgin; f. 220-222 blank ruled. [$37,000]
“THE FINEST EXAMPLE OF THE PRINTING ART IN COLONIAL AMERICA”- a copy in a contemporary binding
[FRANKLIN, Benjamin, printer (1706 -1790)]. CICERO, Marcus Tullius (106-43 B.C.). M.T. Cicero’s Cato Major, or his Discourse of Old-Age: with explanatory notes. Translated by James Logan (1674-1751). Philadelphia: Printed and sold by Benjamin Franklin, 1744. viii, 159 p. ; 21 cm. (4to) Translated & annotated by James Logan. VERY RARE FIRST STATE of two states of gathering D noted by Miller with the word “only” on p. 27, line 5, misspelled “ony.” COMPLETE. Rare in CONTEMPORARY BLIND-STAMPED PENNSYLVANIA BINDING. Slight separation to lower front board, front blank flyleaf detached but present, leaf v/vi with some loss to upper margin not touching text, smaller lower marginal loss to 21, some corner bumping, usual stains and spotting. Overall, a Very Good unrestored and unsophisticated copy. Contemporary ownership inscription of James Alinby, 1751 with sketches of Union Jack and chicken. Early manuscript Pennsylvania promissory note to rear flyleaf for the sum of eight pounds Pennsylvania currency from James Forrest to Robt. Spencer. Other fascinating historical tidbits include an annotation to flyleaf that Benjamin Condy (c. 1735-1798), the famed nautical mathematical instrument maker of Philadelphia “drowned this man [likely, James Alinby]” Most importantly, from the standpoint of publishing historians, is the rare and important annotation of the original price paid in 1751 for the book in colonial currency “3/9” (3 shillings, nine pence). Modern Provenance: The book comes with colorful provenance- photocopies of the newspaper articles describing how it was found for 5 cents and valued at $2000 in 1949! [$14,000]
“Only once did [Franklin] publish an original, full-sized book at his own expense, James Logan’s translation of Cicero’s Cato Major. He printed it in large type on creamy paper to flatter the Quaker grandee and to show off his own prowess as a printer” (Benjamin Franklin In Search of a Better World, p. 79) “The Library of Congress calls this “A Masterwork of Printing…Franklin’s personal favorite from his press, is considered to be the finest example of the printing art in colonial America. Furthermore, this work by the Roman philosopher statesman Cicero is the first classic work translated and printed in North America.” [Ref: Library of Congress Exhibit]
Bibliography Ref: Miller, C. William BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S PHILADELPHIAPRINTING, 1728-1766 A DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY American Philosophical Society Philadelphia 1974 4to., cloth, dust jacket. xc, 583 pages.
This classic image, from the Golden Age of Children’s Illustration, is taken from a limited edition (1 of 550) 1907 copy of Rackham’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” Its complex, beautiful, and sinuous execution gives it a worthy place on this blog, but it is also quite apropos to post a work that is a fair metaphor of our current economy. The past decade has truly been a period Alice-in-Wonderland accounting and regulation. It is interesting to note that Rackham only seriously pursued an artistic career after working as a statistician in an insurance company – a 19th century ‘financial engineer’. Perhaps that can be a small inspiration for the newly unemployed looking for a career change. One small difference, of course, was that Rackham never racked up huge bonuses in the insurance business during his employment but had to be settle for a “meager income.”
A NEWLY DISCOVERED COPY: THE 1691 BOSTON FIRST EDITION OF COTTON MATHER’S BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN ELIOT, BOUND IN A CONTEMPORARY TREE-BARK BINDING WITH A MANUSCRIPT MOTHER GOOSE RHYME: A FASCINATING DISCOVERY FOR THE EARLY HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NURSERY RHYMES
An American Incunable in a wonderful “tree-bark” binding.
Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728. The triumphs of the reformed religion in America. The life of the renowned John Eliot, a person justly famous in the church of God, not only as an eminent Christian and an excellant minister among the English, but also as a memorable evangelist amoung the Indians of New-England : with some account concerning the late and strange success of the Gospel in those parts of the world which for many ages have lain buried in pagan ignorance – written by Cotton Mather. Boston : Printed by Benjamin Harris and John Allen for Joseph Brunning …, 1691. [8], 148 of 152 p. [- 2 lvs.; M2-M3, likely never bound]. Small 8vo., 15 x 9 cm., Contemporary calf over tree-bark, boards with expected warping, light dampstain throughout. Poor presswork, resulting in slight lower marginal loss to 148-149, as well as binder’s error with the exclusion of M2-M3, numerous spelling errors, printing ink smears and typographical problems, demonstrating the difficult colonial conditions under which it was printed. Still, a remarkable, newly discovered surviving copy, UNWASHED AND UNSOPHISTICATED in its contemporary colonial tree-bark binding. Provenance: Robinson family with annotations and signatures; primarily, (likely) Increase Robinson (b. 1642 – 1699) – Taunton surveyor, liquor customs official and juror. Surviving copies of Mather’s work in contemporary boards are very rare, given the harsh conditions of colonial New England and the tendency of well intentioned 19th century bibliophiles to wash, trim and rebind American incunabula in lush morocco. [$28,000- SOLD]
The “Triumphs of the reformed religion in America” is the short title given to the First American Edition of Cotton Mather’s biography of John Eliot, the Puritan missionary instrumental in the conversion of Massachusett Indians. Eliot’s famous Bible (the “Eliot Indian Bible”), in the Natick dialect of the region’s Algonquin tribes, was printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, between 1660 and 1663 and was the first complete Bible printed in the Western Hemisphere. Beyond its his well known historical importance and consideration as a piece of American incunabula, a fascinating aspect of the work for sale here, and certainly one worthy of further scholarly investigation, is the short contemporary manuscript inscription on the lower margin of pg. 87 : “A man of Words and not of Deeds is Like A Garden ful[l] of weads.” This rhyme was eventually incorporated into the canon of Mother Goose. This Puritan couplet, casually penned in the margin of this Boston imprint, is certainly among the earliest extant manuscripts of an American Nursery Rhyme .
The rare and unusual inscription is especially important in light the controversy regarding the American origins of Mother Goose. “When Boston widower Isaac Goose, or Vergoose, married Elizabeth Foster (1665-1758), he already had ten children. The couple then proceeded to have six more and eventually numerous grandchildren. To entertain this large brood, Elizabeth would recite rhymes that she had learned in the past or created herself. Eventually, according to family tradition, Elizabeth’s son-in-law, printer Thomas Fleet, compiled them into a book, Songs for the Nursery or Mother Goose’s Melodies for Children, allegedly published in 1719” Thus, despite earlier uses of the term Mere L’Oye (Mother Goose) in French literature by Charles Perrault et al., and the consequent French claim on the origin of Mother Goose, this inscription supports the view that if not the very name Mother Goose, then the canon of nursery rhymes itself under that name, may have come together in Puritan Massachusetts. It is plausible that Elizabeth Vergoose may have appropriated the befitting “Mere L’Oye” for her collection from Perrault’s very popular Histoires ou contes du temps passé (1697) as a pun on her own name. [Ref: Opie, Iona. The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1951; Baring-Gould, William S., The Annotated Mother Goose. New York, C.N. Potter, 1962]
This rhyme is also inextricably linked to Puritan religious dissent and political rebellion. According to Percy B. Green in “A History of Nursery Rhymes (1899)” “[in] a copy of rhyming proverbs in the British Museum, written about the year 1680, occurs the following Puritan satire on Charles II’s changeability”…
“A man of words and not of deeds Is like a garden full of weeds And when the weeds begin to grow It’s like a garden full of snow And when the snow begins to fall It’s like a bird upon the wall And when the bird away does fly It’s like an eagle in the sky And when the sky begins to roar It’s like a lion at the door And when the door begins to crack It’s like a stick across your back And when your back begins to smart It’s like a penknife in your heart And when your heart begins to bleed You’re dead, and dead, and dead indeed.”
