Tractatus de imitat[i]one Christi cu[m] tractatulo de meditatione cordis.

Accession number: 
PML 128540.7
Uniform title: 
Imitatio Christi.
Published: 
Argentine impressus : per Martinum Flach, anno domini .M.cccc.lxxxvij [1487].
Description: 
[4], I-LXXXI, [1] leaves ; 21.5 cm (4to)
Credit Line: 
Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2001.
Notes: 

On the attribution to Thomas à Kempis see A. Ampe, L'Imitation de Jésus-Christ et son auteur (Roma, 1973) and R.R. Post, The Modern Devotion (Leiden, 1968) pp.520-536 (CIBN).
Title from half-title page, leaf a1r.
Imprint from colophon, leaf l9r: Tractatul[us] venerabilis m[a]g[ist]ri Ioh[ann]is Gerson de meditat[i]o[n]e cordis. Arge[n]tine imp[re]ssus p[er] Martinu[m] flach anno domini .M.cccc.lxxxvij. finit feliciter.
Printed in Flach's types 1:175G and 5:80G.
Signatures: a⁴; b-k⁸ l¹⁰: 86 leaves, leaf l10 blank.
Paper format: Chancery quarto.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 20 x 14 cm.
PML copy missing leaves: c1-2.7-8 replaced in contemporary manuscript.

Binding: 
15th/early 16th-century Salzburg blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards (21,5 x 15 cm), sewn on 2 supports by the bindery at the Benedictine monastery of St. Peter, Salzburg (EBDB w002790, aka Salzburg St Peter IV, active second-half of the 15th century-1564). 1 clasp. Manuscript title label on top board, with second label, perhaps former shelfmark, missing. Manuscript waste of early liturgical book with heighted neumes as binding reinforcement and quire guards.
Inscriptions/Markings: 

Hand decoration: Contemporary rubrication, red initials, paragraph marks, capital strokes, and underlining. Annotations: No marginal notations in text.

Provenance: 
Unidentified shelfmarks: H.2.83 and I.A.23 (front pastedown); abraded inscription (leaf a1r of Speculum anime); Bernard M. Rosenthal, Inc. (cited in Goff Supplement); Walter Goldwater (1907-1985), his sale, Swann Galleries, part II, 5 Dec. 1985, lot 121 for $84,000; Helmut N. Friedlaender (1913-2008), booklabel (front pastedown), his sale, Christie's NY, part I, 23 April 2001, lot 119, to: Pierpont Morgan Library, purchased (via HP Kraus) on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2001.
Classification: 
Incunable Collection
Catalog Link: 
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Department: 
Printed Books