Beschreibung:

THOMAS AQUINAS (ca 1225-1274, Saint). Summa theologica, pars secunda: prima pars . Venice: Franciscus Renner, de Heilbronn and Petrus de Bartua, 1478. Chancery 2 o (266 x 190 mm). PRINTED ON VELLUM. Collation : a 1 0 (+1 blank) b-r 1 0 s 12 t-y 1-5 1 0 6 8 (-8 blank, probably moved to the first quire). 280 leaves. 37 lines and head-line, double column. Gothic types 3:150 (head-lines, names of books, first words of sections) and 4:81 (text). Initials and capital-strokes supplied in alternate red and blue. THREE-QUARTER FLORAL BORDER on first leaf [a1], incorporating initial O, illuminated in gold and colors by a contemporary North-Italian artist, wreath in lower margin empty, and 114 illuminated initials with floral marginal flourishes. (A few initials with pigment lightly rubbed, old marginal vellum repairs on 4/4 and 5/9, otherwise very fine.) Binding: contemporary Italian dark brown blind-tooled goatskin over thin wooden boards, sides divided into panels by quintuple fillets, decorated with a variety of angular and curved ropework tools forming an outer border of fleur-de-lys and scroll tool, an inner panel of repeated small hatched x tools, and an inner border of repeated interlaced tools, evidence of clasps, corner- and center-pieces, faint blind impressions of the hatched x tool along upper and lower sheet edges (rebacked in sheep, hinges cracked, some worming, few old repairs). Provenance : Henry Yates Thompson (1838-1928) noted collector of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books (bookplate; note on front flyleaf: "For the ornamental border on the opening page compare the illuminations on f. of my Pliny Jenson 1472, and also that on the [Cicero] Epistolae ad Atticum etc [IB.19603 or IB.19605] at the British Museum Jenson 1470. All three are very similar.") -- Estelle Doheny (morocco bookplate; purchased from A.S.W. Rosenbach, Philadelphia, 2 January 1943) -- donated to SMS 1943. A MAGNIFICENT COPY AND THE ONLY KNOWN COPY ON VELLUM of the second (first Italian) edition of the first part of the second part of Thomas's magnum opus . The highly influential Summa theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, composed ca 1266-1272, was divided into three parts, of which the first treated God, the second man, and the third Christ. The second part was itself subdivided into a first part, concerning the last end of man and human actions in general, and a second part, in which Aquinas discussed the virtues and vices and the states and kinds of life. Part II/1 of the Summa theologica was first printed in 1471 in Mainz by Peter Schoeffer (Goff T-203). The first complete edition of the Summa appeared in Basel in 1485 printed by Michael Wenssler (Goff T-194); two more complete editions were published before the end of the century. While ISTC lists numerous copies of the paper issue, THIS IS THE ONLY COPY RECORDED ON VELLUM AND IS PRESERVED IN ITS ORIGINAL BINDING. BMC V, 194 (IB.19863); HC *1448; Oates 1668, 1669; Pr 4142; Goff T-204.