Speculum humanae salvationis.

Accession number: 
PML 3785
Uniform title: 
Speculum humanae salvationis.
Published: 
[The Netherlands] : [Prototypography], [approximately 1474-1475]
Description: 
[64] leaves : illustrations (woodcut) ; 28 cm (fol.)
Credit Line: 
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1904.
Notes: 

Title and imprint from ISTC.
PML Checklist identifies printer as "Printer of the Speculum" and dates as [1471].
Printed in Dutch Prototypography type 1:111G.
Date based on paper research A.H. Stevenson (BMC). P. Needham suggests that the paper-stocks could indicate printing in 1473 (in The Woodcut in Fifteenth-century Europe, ed. P. Parshall (New Haven, 2009) p.89 n.118).
Collation: [1⁶; 2-4¹⁴ 5¹⁶]: 64 leaves, leaf [1]/1 blank.
Paper format: Chancery folio.
The text is printed from movable type with the exception of 20 leaves: signs. [2]/1-2.13-14 and 4-6.9-11; [3]/2-3.13-14 and 7.8; and [5]/4.13 (i.e. leaves 7, 8, 10-17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 32, 33, 52, 61), on which the text is produced in woodcut copied from the type-printed text of the first Latin edition. Xylographic text printed on bifolia.
Printed on one side of the sheet only.
Morgan copy is 3 leaves: signs. [4]/5, [4]/10, and [5]/5 (leaves 39, 44, and 53) only, pasted to boards as previously part of a binding. Leaves are pasted printed side down and paper is heavily darkened so that text and image are only visible through photographic enhancement.
Morgan copy leaf dimensions: 27.4 x 20.5 cm.

Binding: 
Not bound; in box. Previous box shelved with PML 3774-84.
Inscriptions/Markings: 

Hand decoration: Rubrication not required.
Watermark: fol. 44. Gothic letter "Y" with heart at base of tail, see Watermarks of Incunabula Printed in the Low Countries (https://watermark.kb.nl/), WM I 60219 and 60220.

Provenance: 
Unidentified inscription in black ink on leaf 44, when used as board pastedown: “Hic liber pertinent ad me Henric D[???ilei],” 16th century; Samuel Leigh Sotheby (1805-1861), part of his extra-illustrated copy of his Principia Typographica (with material partially collected by his father, Samuel Sotheby (1771-1842)); sold Sotheby's London, Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts, property of W.H. Stewart and others, 2 June 1898, lot 757 for £131 to Sotheran, sold to: J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), purchased from Sotheran, July 1904.
Classification: 
Department: