Fine & Important Manuscripts & Printed Books: Catalogue Two Hundred & Thirteen

177 Pages·2015·6.917 MB·English

by  Jonathan A. Hill Bookseller

catalogue two hundred & thirteen
jonathan a. hill · bookseller
a
silhouette
jonathan a. hill · bookseller
Fine & Important
catalogue two hundred & thirteen
Manuscripts &
new york city
Printed Books
mmxv
item 3. Leonardo Bruni, Histoire de la Première Guerre Punique, in the French
translation of Jean Lebègue. Illuminated manuscript on vellum. France, Paris, ca. 1450.
Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller
jonathan a. hill megumi hill
Mobile: [phone] Mobile: [phone]
e-Mail: [email protected] e-Mail: [email protected]
I
or [email protected]
t has been a very busy year and many important books
325 West end avenue, apt. 10b
and manuscripts have passed through our hands, including
neW York, neW York 10023-8143
several hundred which never appeared in our catalogues.
telephone: [phone] Fax: [phone]
Of these, apart from one highly important illuminated
home page: www.jonathanahill.com
manuscript about which I cannot give details, perhaps the
most notable item sold was G.H. Hardy’s annotated set of
a
Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica (1910-12-
member: International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, 13). It is hard to imagine a more perfect association copy.
Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America & As usual with these bigger catalogues, many of the books
Verband Deutscher Antiquare
and manuscripts are not in their obvious sections. Manu-
scripts are found in Parts I, III, and V; natural history may
terms are as usual: Any book returnable within five
also be found in Part VIII; music books are in Parts II and
days of receipt, payment due within thirty days of receipt.
VIII; etc. Therefore, please refer to the subject index at the
Persons ordering for the first time are requested to remit
with order, or supply suitable trade references. Residents end which is designed to help guide you. Most of the books
of New York State should include appropriate sales tax. and manuscripts are more fully illustrated on our web-page.
jonathan & megumi hill
New Year’s Day 2015
Subject index at end
additional illustrations of ManY of these books
can be found on MY Webpage
Table of Contents
part i
Early Books & Manuscripts (Items 1-15)
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part ii
Science, Medicine, & Natural History (Items 16-65)
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part iii
“Modern” Manuscripts (Items 66-68)
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part iv
Bibliography & Calligraphy (Items 69-101)
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part v
Japanese Books & Manuscripts (Items 102-141)
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part vi
Books from the Library of Moritz Johann Nepomuk,
Prince of Dietrichstein (1775–1864) (Items 142-163)
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part vii
A Few Books with Photographs (Items 164-169)
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part viii
Books on Many Subjects (Items 170-185)
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PART I
Early Books & Manuscripts
AUGUSTINE, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. Confessiones. With 1
Pseudo- Augustine, Sermones ad fratres suos heremitas and Epistola
beati Valerij ad Augustinum. Illuminated manuscript on vellum,
Italy, perhaps Tuscany, Florence (?), ca. 1425-1450.
$270,000.00
255 x 185 mm. (justification 172 x 115 mm.), 166 leaves, on vellum. Col-
lation: I-XVI10, XVII6. Catchwords and marks of leaves as part of the
quires present in lower corner. Ruled in brown ink for 2 columns, writ-
ten in an Italian humanistic hand, with the final text added by a second,
more cursive, hand. Numerous two- to three-line initials alternately in
red or blue with simple pen-flourishes. Illuminated with 15 large gold
initials on painted grounds. Small vellum clavicula still present, some
humanist notes. Binding: ca. 1900, with the gilt stamp of “L. Broca,”
red morocco over pasteboard, upper and lower cover with gilt double
fillet borders enclosing a gilt central medallion; five raised bands on
spine, compartments repeating gilt motif; edges and turn-ins gilt. On
spine: “Augustini Sermones et Confessiones, m.s. 1400.” The master
binder Lucien Broca came to London from France to work for Antoine
Chatelin. In 1890 he started working under his own name, labelling
himself an “Art Binder.” He was recognized as a superb finisher, and
Marianne Tidcombe has confirmed that he actually did the finishing
work for most of Sarah Prideaux’s bindings from the mid-1890s on-
wards. In a navy blue morocco fleece-lined slipcase.
provenance:
1. Presumably made in Italy, perhaps Tuscany, Florence (?), ca. 1425-1450.
2. 16th-17th (?) century inscription erased (fol. 1).
3. Bookplate Michael Tomkinson (his sale Sotheby’s, July 1922, lot 1027).
4. Bookplate Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, J.R. Ritman, Amsterdam.
5. European private collection.
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contents:
1. Fols. 1-70v: Sermones beati Augustini ad fratres suos heremita. Sermo
de vita hermetica. Earlier attributed to Saint Augustine but in the 17th
century identified as apocryphal (in total 57 sermons).
2. Fols. 71r-165r: Retractatio Augustini in libros confessionum … Aurelius
Augustinus Episcopi, Confessiones. Liber primus Feliciter Incipit … Deo
gratias. Explicit liber XIIIus Aurelij Augustini.
3. Fol. 166v: Epistola beati Valerii Yponensis episcopi ad Augustinum
episcopum et ecclesie catholice exhimium doctore … ex greco in latinum
traducta … Litteris tuis … pro me deum ora.
The first text discussed here is the second but most important in
this manuscript: at the time he was 40 years old (397-398), Augus-
tine of Hippo wrote his Confessiones, an autobiographical text about
his regrets having led a sinful and immoral life. In his Confessions,
Augustine has given us “the touching story of his soul.” Divided into
thirteen books, the text was composed for reading out loud, each
book being one unit. The work outlines Augustine’s sinful youth and
his conversion to Christianity. It provides a record of his develop-
ment of thought, featuring spiritual meditations and insights. The
first nine books are autobiographical — on his sexual sins, follow-
ing Manichean religion, on astrology and the influence of Ambrose
in his conversion to Christianity. The last four books contain reflec-
tions — on the value of confession, on the working of memory, on
the meaning of time, on the language used to explain the Creation,
and exploring the meaning of Genesis and the Trinity. These very
influential Confessiones, used in education over many years, is often
seen as the first Western autobiography ever written and shows us a
man seeking and finding his rest in God.
The first text contains sermons attributed to Augustine, but could
not have been completed before 1332 although they were already
much copied and widespread by 1350. Two of the earliest collections
of Sermones ad fratres in eremo were found in Jordan of Quedlin-
burg’s Collectanea Sancti Augustini and in Robert de Bardis’ Collec-
torium Sermonum Sancti Augustini; the original author, however, is
still unidentified. Both collections give evidence of the priority of
the Hermits in their controversy with the Canons over Augustine’s
first monastic order, a subject of debate throughout the later Middle
Ages. An original collection of 22 or 23 sermons later grew to include
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76 sermons (see Saak 2012). The earliest manuscript tradition is at- the eternal struggle between good & evil
tributed to the Augustinian monastery in Toulouse.
2
AUGUSTINE, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. De Civitate Dei.
The third and last text is a letter written by Valerius, Bishop of
Hippo (Algeria), who ordained Augustine to the priesthood in 391, Illuminated manuscript on vellum, decorated in the style of Fran-
and four years later appointed him co-adjutor, vicar bishop of the see cesco d’Antonio del Chierico. Italy, Florence: ca. 1460.
of Hippo. After his death in 396, Augustine was elected to the same $375,000.00
see. He was then 42, and was to occupy the see for 34 years (d. 430). 220 x 158 mm., 347 leaves, on vellum. Collation: I-II8, III-XXXIV10,
XXXV8, XXXVI4-1. Foliated as 1-343 (omitting fols. 34bis, 114bis,
illumination:
145bis, & 238bis). Justification 159 x 95 mm., ruling invisible, 2 col-
The manuscript with its fine wide margins is handsomely but mod-
umns of 42 lines, written in dark brown ink, rubrics in red, in a small,
estly decorated. Throughout the book we find initials, alternating in
rounded Italian book hand. Running titles in alternately red and blue
red or blue, filled in and surrounded by simple pen-flourishes. The
letters, all catchwords present. Decorated initials throughout, 3 lines
opening of the Sermons, the Retractatio and all books of the Confes-
high and often more to a page in red and blue with decorative pen-
sions are decorated by, in all, 15 large initials painted in gold, on a
flourishes extending into the margins, 22 large (6 lines high) illumi-
blue, purple and/ or green ground with fine tracery in white. This
nated initials, painted on burnished gold panel grounds infield with
style of decoration is found in Italian manuscripts of the first half
gold and colors with fine tracery in white and yellow and with scroll-
of the 15th century and are too general to offer an indication of the
ing colored “leafy” marginal extensions with clusters of gold bezants
localization of the origin of the manuscript.
within pen-flourishes; one large (7 lines high, 25 x 28 mm.) histori-
ated initial and two-sided border (fol. 17r) enclosing the head and
shoulders of St. Augustine. Lower margin of the opening leaf of De
Civitate (fol. 17r; perhaps formerly holding a coat-of-arms) cut away
and replaced by blank vellum. Some early reader’s marks (Notabilia)
in a humanistic hand, slight damp-stains in upper margins at end,
some pages a bit rubbed, but generally in fine condition. Binding:
ca. 1700, Italian, brown-red morocco, triple fillets tooled in blind to
a double frame, in the four corners & in the centre flower motives.
Cover slightly rubbed, flyleaves renewed.
provenance:
1. Florence, ca. 1460, however, the coat of arms of the original patron is lost.
2. Lucca, Biblioteca Minutoli Tegrini (dissolved in 1871). Its stamp “Di
casa Minutoli Tegrimi” erased but earlier deciphered and identified by
comparison with Alexander & De la Mare 1969, pl. XXII and p. 53; a
list of other Minutoli-Tegrimi manuscripts in England on p. 55, no. 2.
The collection of Conte Eugenio Minutoli-Tegrimi of Lucca was sold
in 1871.
3. London, School of Jewish Studies (Sotheby’s, June 20, 1995, lot 71).
4. European private collection.
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text
A complete manuscript copy of De Civitate Dei, the most important
work written by Saint Augustine (354-430), one of the four great
Fathers of the Latin Church.
Fols. 1-15r: List of chapter headings per book
Fol. 15rb-va: Interea cum Roma Gothorum irruptione
Fol. 16r-v: blank
Fol. 17: Incipit liber primus: Gloriosissimam Civitatem Dei … Book II (fol.
30v), III (fol. 41), IV (fol. 54), V (fol. 66), VI (fol. 80), VII (fol. 88v),
VIII (fol. 101v), IX (fol. 114v), X (fol. 122), XI (fol. 138v), XII (fol. 150v),
XIII (fol. 162v), XIV (fol. 173), XV (fol. 187v), XVI (fol. 204v), XVII
(fol. 224v), XVIII (fol. 239), XIX (fol. 263v), XX (fol. 279v), XXI (fol.
301v), XXII (fol. 319v).
Fol. 342v: Explicit liber XXII beati Augustini episcopi De Civitate Dei
Saint Augustine (354-430), designed this text as a great apolo-
getic treatise in vindication of Christianity and the Christian Church.
The City of God was written between 413 and 426 and represents
the first Christian philosophy of history. “The impulse to the writing
of the 22 books of the ‘City of God’, which was spread over several
years, arose out of the fall of Rome to Alaric in 410. The event had
caused consternation throughout the civilized world, and Augustine,
who himself was profoundly moved, conceived the book as a reply to
pagans who maintained that the fall of the city was due to the aboli-
tion of the heathen worship. It led him to deal with the fundamental
contrast between Christianity and the world, and has made it the
supreme exposition of a Christian philosophy of history.”–Cross, F.L.,
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 107.
“The first five books deal with the polytheism of Rome, the sec-
ond five with Greek philosophy, particularly Platonism and Neo-
Platonism (which are seen as leading inevitably to Christianity in
which their problems are finally resolved), and the last twelve books
with the history of time and eternity as set out in the Bible. History
is conceived as the struggle between two communities — the Civitas
coelestis of those inspired by the love of God, leading to contempt
of self, and the Civitas terrena or diaboli of those living according to
man, which may lead to contempt of God. This struggle of the two
conceptions of life had dominated Augustine’s personal life and is
here transferred to the wider field of world history. Both these pow-
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ers fighting for the allegiance of the human soul are inextricably in-
termingled in society’s earthly institutions; but history is understood
as a continuous evolution of the divine purpose and all forces work
towards redemption of man by God’s grace, the central feature of St
Augustine’s theology. It is for this reason that he is considered as
the founder of a new science, to which Voltaire assigned the name
‘philosophy of history’. For the first time a comprehensive survey of
human history is presented …
“In economics Augustine praised labour as a means towards mor-
al perfection; interest charges on money were not allowed under his
system, but trade could be carried on, if selling was done honestly
and a ‘just price’ was charged and paid. Many of the medieval regula-
tions about commerce and prices were derived from these ideas, and
his contrasting description of a just ruler (imbued with piety, humil-
ity, fairness) and the tyrant or Antichrist (impiety, craving for glory)
powerfully influenced Renaissance thought …
“‘The City of God’ pervaded the whole Middle Ages … The book
remained authoritative until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
… The idea of international law was partly derived from the book.”–
Printing & the Mind of Man 3–(1st printed edition: Subiaco, 1467).
illumination:
22 large illuminated initials, painted on burnished gold panel grounds
infield with gold and colours with fine tracery in white and yellow
and with scrolling coloured “leafy” marginal extensions with clusters
of gold bezants within pen-flourishes.
On fol. 17r one large historiated initial and two-sided border en-
closing the head and shoulders of the author of the text, St. Augus-
tine dressed as bishop with mitre and crozier on a gold panel with
foliate and floral border along the inner and upper margins with gold
bezants and brown penwork.
The painted decoration throughout the book, including the histo-
riated initial and border decoration on the opening page (fol. 17) is in
the style of Francesco d’Antonio del Chierico, who ran a workshop in
Florence which was active from ca. 1452 until 1484. His production
was vast and varied, illuminating theological, literary, historical, and
devotional books. This influential text is presented here in a very
professional, clearly written book well preserved with wide margins.
Preserved in a morocco-backed box.
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