Bible - photo 1
Bible - photo 2

Bible

Starting price
£ 25 000
Auction dateClassic
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 470095
Lot 120 | Bible
Bible

Biblia Latina c.1480

BIBLIA LATINA. With the Glossa Ordinaria ascribed to Walafrid Strabo and the interlinear glosses of Anselmus Laudunensis. [Strasbourg: Adolf Rusch, in part for Anton Koberger, not after 1480].



First edition of the Latin Bible with the Glossa Ordinaria, the chief exegetical commentary of the Middle Ages. A glossed edition of the entire Bible was a huge undertaking; earlier manuscripts had consisted of individual parts. While the types used to print this edition belonged to Johann Amerbach at Basel, contemporary evidence demonstrates that it was printed by Adolf Rusch at Strasbourg, financially supported in part by Anton Koberger of Nuremberg. Letters from Rusch to Amerbach discuss Rusch retaining types; a contemporary inscription in a copy at Strasbourg names Rusch as printer; Rusch is congratulated on having completed an edition of the Bible in a poem by Rudolf von Langen, which was published in 1486 (HCR 9894). The edition is dated not after 1480 on the basis of contemporary inscriptions dated 1480 in two copies (at Cambridge and Sion College); two other copies (Budapest and Munich) contain inscriptions dated 1481. The suggestion that the highly unusual signing of quires with repeated letters a-h may be press figures rather than quire signatures is supported by the more usual quiring by a contemporary hand, still visible in part. (See F. Geldner, ‘Amerbach-Studien,’ Archiv für die Geschichte des Buchwesens 23, 1982, particularly pp.684-8; C. de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible, London: 1984). With the first two type-settings as noted in GW. HC *3173; GW 4282; BMC I, 92; Goff B-607; Polain(B) 682, 682A; ISTC ib00607000.



4 volumes, imperial folio (451 x 320mm). Collation as in GW, but with Hebrews bound at the end of the New Testament, and quires containing I Corinthians 8-15 reversed in binding with Romans XV-I Corinthians VII, with contemporary note in red directing the reader 8 leaves forward or back. 1210 (of 1211, without final blank) leaves. Initials, paragraph marks and capital strokes in red, initial B opening Psalms in vol. II with a painted miniature of David playing the harp, illuminated in silver (oxidized) and gold, initials in vol. IV in red and blue, many with Maiblumen decoration. (Occasional light dampstaining, upper blank margin of first leaf cropped, damp affecting first and final upper corners of volume I without loss of text, small wormtracks in final quires of vol. II affecting some letters, small wormholes in vol. IV touching some letters.) Not uniformly bound: vols. I, III: contemporary blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, green edges (lacking clasps), later spine labels and oval onlay with gilt arms of Marie-Augusta de Sulzbach; vol. II: contemporary blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, vellum MS pastedowns and quire-guards, leather index tabs, traces of chain staple (darkened, somewhat worn, wormed); vol. IV: early 16th-century pigskin over wooden boards, roll-tooled (lacking clasps); stamps not in Kyriss or Schunke Schwenke-Sammlung. Provenance: vols. I, III: Molsheim, Jesuit college (inscription dated 1581), neat contemporary marginal annotations; Marie-Augusta de Sulzbach (1721-1794, binding); II: Munich, Franciscans (17th-century inscription); IV: 2-leaf MS canon table at end, with corresponding notations in margins; Claudius Aichel, canon of Landshut (16th-century inscription).

Category:Incunabula, Religious book
Auction house category:Books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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United Kingdom
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09.12.2020 – 09.12.2020
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