Beschreibung:

HORAE, Latin, use of Salisbury -- Hore Marie Virginis secundum usum Sarum . Paris: Simon Vostre [c. 1512].
HORAE, Latin, use of Salisbury -- Hore Marie Virginis secundum usum Sarum . Paris: Simon Vostre [c. 1512]. 4 o (221 x 141mm). PRINTED ON VELLUM. Collation: a-p 8 . 120 leaves. Bâtarde type, 30 lines. Illustrations and borders are all metalcuts or woodcuts first employed in earlier Pigouchet/Vostre editions: 7 large octavo cuts (publisher's device, anatomical man, Holy Trinity, Tree of Jesse, Adoration of the Shepherds, Uriah and David, Job), surrounded by borders; 13 FULL-PAGE QUARTO CUTS (Poisoned Cup, Betrayal, Annunciation, Visitation, Crucifixion, Nativity, Annunciation to the Shepherds, Adoration of the Magi, Circumcision, Flight into Egypt, Coronation of the Virgin, David, Job), attributed to JEAN PERRéAL; 24 small text cuts (including the Evangelists, Pilate and other passion scenes, St. Barbara). All text pages surrounded by multiple-block ornamental and pictorial border cuts (including hunting scenes, zodiac signs, monsters, Life of the Virgin, Biblical stories, Sybils, Apocalypse, Dance of Death). ALL ILLUSTRATIONS ILLUMINATED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND IN LIQUID GOLD AND COLORS, but not the borders (except those around the octavo cuts). Small illuminated initials throughout. (Horizontal strip cut from title-leaf, presumably in order to remove evidence of provenance, and replaced with blank vellum, affecting text on either side; lower margin of d7, perhaps with inscription, replaced but no text or border affected; a few small marginal repairs.) BINDING: contemporary red velvet over wooden boards (rejointed, vellum endleaves and flyleaves replaced). Provenance : HENRY VIII, KING OF ENGLAND (autograph calligraphic inscription below the annunciation cut in the lower margin of c6r: I pray you pray for me your / lovyng cousin Henry R ) -- Rev. Gerard Charles Fenwicke, Blaston Rectory, Uppingham, Leicestershire (1872 pencil inscription) -- Bertram, 4 t h Earl of Ashburnham (red shelf-mark, Sotheby's 6 December 1897) -- Bernard Quaritch, booksellers 1930 (cat. 436, no. 879) -- Lucius Wilmerding (bookplate, Parke-Bernet Galleries, part II, 1951, lot 314) -- Louis Rabinowitz (d. 1957, bookplate of his daughter Hannah) -- Acquired from Scribner's 1970. Henry VIII was a reader, writer and bibliophile, with a special fondness for velvet bindings. He collected extensive libraries at Westminster, Hampton Court, Greenwich and Richmond. Apart from substantial holdings in the British Library, individual manuscripts and printed books of his may be found dispersed in American and European libraries, but in private hands they are EXTREMELY RARE. Surviving catalogues and inventories, often giving the briefest of entries, have been edited by James Carley in The Libraries of King Henry VIII (British Library 2000). The King's autograph supplication in this Sarum Book of Hours by Vostre does not denote ownership, but more likely his isolated use of it or a gift. Presumably because of the removal of an ownership inscription from the title, but without further evidence, it has been speculated (Quaritch and Wilmerding catalogues) that the original owner was Henry's cousin once removed, Margaret Pole countess of Salisbury, lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon and governess to Princess Mary. Her son, Cardinal Reginald Pole, broke with the King over the divorce, and in 1541 Margaret was executed in the Tower for treason. A number of other plausible candidates among the King's first, second and third cousins could be found for this inscription, including several of his future wives. This Vostre edition for the English market, containing some English prayers and an English table of contents, is not recorded in Lacombe, BM STC, Adams, etc. Fact and Fantasy 16.