Beschreibung:

"Give me chastity and temperance — but not yet!" Saint Augustine, 1475 AUGUSTINUS, Saint Aurelius (354-430). Confessiones. Milan: Johannes Bonus, 21 July 1475. The second edition of Augustine’s Confessions— “something quite new in literary composition” (PMM). Saint Augustine’s pervasive intellectual legacy is in many ways characterized by his Confessions , which marries painfully candid emotional autopsy with serious and deep theological considerations—all in a bright and sometimes quippy prose style. From the tales of his seedy, sinful life in Carthage where he prayed that God “give me chastity and temperance, but not yet!” to his intellectual journey to Christianity by way of Neo-Platonism, the Confessions has been a beloved and influential text for over a thousand years. Only four editions were printed in the fifteenth century; this second edition was published in the city of the author’s conversion and baptism by Saint Ambrose. Bod-inc A-536; Goff A-1251; GW 2894; ia01251000. See PMM 7 (first edition). Quarto (202 x 148mm). 164 leaves (of 164). Initials painted in red, signed in manuscript in red ink (fore-margin of first leaf and penultimate 4 leaves reinforced, final leaf laid down. 18th-century calf with morocco title label (some expert repairs to spine, piece missing from title label). Provenance : erased early marginalia – two numerical library labels, one manuscript and one printed – William H. Schab (1888-1975, an important Austrian-American book dealer, cat. 24, no. 21) – George S. Heyer Jr. (1930-2015, Texan theologian).