Boecius de consolacione philosophie.

Accession number:

PML 23578.2

Author:

Boethius, -524.

Published:

[Westminster] : William Caxton, [about 1478]

Description:

[94] leaves ; 28 cm (fol.)

Credit Line:

Purchased in 1926.

Notes:

"Epitaphiu[m] Galfridi Chaucer. per poetam laureatu[m] Stephauu[m] [sic] surigonu[m] Mediolanense[m] in decretis licenciatu[m]", in verse, leaf [12]/6.
An English translation by Geoffrey Chaucer, who is named on [12]/5v. Includes a portion of the original Latin text.
Caption title, leaf [1]/2r.
Caxton is named on leaf [12]/5v; publication date from Needham.
Collation: [1-11⁸ 12⁶]: 94 leaves, leaf [1]/1 blank.
Paper format: Chancery folio
PML copy formerly bound with John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady ([Westminster]: William Caxton, [1483]), ISTC il00409000, leaves [1]/3.6 (PML 23578.1, ChL 1786). Lydgate leaves removed in June, 1982 to Broadside leaf box 2.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 28 x 20.8 cm
PML copy leaves [5]/4.5 only.

Binding:

Late nineteenth-century quarter-leather and corners (29.3 x 22.2 cm) with gilt decoration on spine by D. Dillworth, Newcastle, Staffordshire, binder's label (front pastedown). Binding filled out with blank paper.

Inscriptions/Markings:

Hand decoration: Rubricated, red lombards, paragraph marks, and underlining in red (likely in Caxton's workshop, see BMC XI 346). Latin quotations with L-bracket underlining ending in clover-leaf finials; C-type paragraph marks with extended upper stroke.

Provenance:

William Blades, who gave this bifolium to W.H. Dutton in June 1879 (on other leaves dispersed from his copy, see De Ricci, Census of Caxtons, 8.29-30); William Henry Dutton (1827-1897), of Hewcroft, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, bookplates (front pastedown and front fly); his sale, Sotheby's, 8 Dec. 1903, lot 177, to Quaritch; Quaritch, 1905, cat. 243, lot 159; W.C. Van Antwerp; his sale, Sotheby's, 22 March 1907, lot 26, to Tregaskis; Tregaskis, July 1908, cat. 652, lot 98; Pierpont Morgan Library, purchased from Gabriel Wells, May 1926.

Classification:

Incunable Collection

Catalog Link:

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Genres:

Incunabula

Initials (Provenance)

Quarter binding (Bindings)

Department:

Printed Books