Biblia pauperum.
Xylographic blockbook.
[Netherlands: ca. 1460]. The date refers to the cutting of the blocks.
Fol. [1-202]. [40] leaves signed a-v, .a.-.v. Printed, in brown ink, by a rubbing process, from twenty double-page blocks.
Schreiber, Manuel, IV, 1-89; CIBN BB-6; J. Cooper, 'Biblia Pauperum', Transactions of the Scottish Ecclesialogical Society, II.2 (1907-8), pp. 216-61; R. Donaldson, ‘Two block-books in the Hunterian Library, University of Glasgow’, The Bibliotheck, 3 (1961), pp. 103-4; N.R. Thorp, The glory of the page (London: 1987), no. 132.
Schreiber distinguishes ten editions of the Netherlandish, 40-plate Biblia pauperum blockbook, of which this is edition IV. To Schreiber’s ten editions Renate Kroll has added an eleventh (see ‘Beobachtungen zur Ausgabenfolge der 40blättrigen Biblia pauperum’, in Blockbücher des Mittelalters: Bilderfolgen als Lektüre, ed. Gutenberg-Gesellschaft and Gutenberg-Museum (Mainz: 1991), pp. 289-310.
| GIP number: | B71 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Ds.2.4 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Provenance: | Anthony Askew (1722-1774), physician and classical scholar: Askew sale, 13 Feb. 1775 onwards; lot 1937 in Bibliotheca Askeviana … (London: Baker & Leigh, 1775). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Askew sale for £16.0.0 according to the partially annotated copy of the Askew sale catalogue in University of Glasgow Library (shelfmark Mu36-c.8). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “Az.2.2”. |
| Binding: | England, 18th-century gold-tooled lightly-diced calf; covers have a triple-roll gilt border, the outer roll being divided from the two inner (both of which are identical) by a single fillet; marbled endpapers; all leaves trimmed to the frame of the woodcut and then mounted; two front flyleaves have a fleur-de-lys watermark and countermark “I V”; mounts and flyleaves gilt-edged; restored and rebacked by Douglas Cockerell & Son, Nov. 1965; binder’s note tipped-in at rear; fragment of old lettering piece and spine panel mounted on inside of rear board. Size: 318 x 242 mm. |
| Leaf size: | Plate 10, block frame (undamaged at edges): 260 x 191 mm. Plate 10 (including mount): 310 x 236 mm. |
| Annotations: | Plates numbered in top outer corner of mount “2-3, 5-7, 9-24, 33-34” in black ink in an 18th-century hand. |
| Decoration: | Uncoloured copy. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting 17 plates: a, d, h, .e.-.m., .p.-.v. (i.e. 1, 4, 8, 25-32, 35-40 of Schreiber’s enumeration); most plates show signs of damage at one or more of their edges. |
