Beschreibung:

AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius (Saint, 354-430). De civitate Dei . Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 2 October 1475. Chancery 2° (299 x 209 mm). Collation: [1-2 8 (1/1 blank, 1/2r table of rubrics, 2/8 blank); 3-31 10 (3/1r text, 31/8v colophon, 31/9-10 blank)]. 303 leaves (of 306, without blank leaves 2/8 and 31/9-10). 46 lines and headlines, double column. Types: 2:84G (text), 4:110R (headlines). 2- to 11-line initial spaces, most with printed guide-letters. Lombard initials, some pearled, a few florished, and paragraph marks supplied in red, capital strokes in yellow in early quires. Original manuscript quiring and many deckle edges preserved. Bound at end is a manuscript leaf on vellum from a 14th-century ?French manuscript of the Corpus juris canonici . (Staining to lower blank margins, worming in last 5 quires.) Early 20th-century English Arts-and-Crafts style russet morocco, flat spine lettered in gilt, binding perhaps by Katharine Adams for Dyson Perrins (spine faded, slight wear, hinges cracking). Provenance : Reverend Walter Sneyd (bookplate, sale Sotheby's, 16-19 December 1912) -- C.W. Dyson Perrins (bookplate and label with catalogue number from 1914 Catalogue ) -- [Bernard Quaritch, Ltd., collation note] -- Ned J. Nakles (sale Christie's NY, 17 April 2000, lot 96). Sixth edition, second Venetian edition. The present edition was issued a few months after Sixtus IV conferred upon the Frenchman the title of Count Palatine (announced in a letter printed at the end of the Decretales of March 1475). Following a three-year lull provoked by the crisis in the book trade, Jenson's press resumed the steady pace of the first two years of its activity, producing a total of 13 known editions. Variant settings are known of 1/2r, line 1 and for the colophon: this copy corresponds in both to the main entries of GW and BMC. A LARGE COPY. HC 2051 . ; BMC V, 175 (IB. 19686); CIBN A-682; IGI 972; Goff A-1235.