Jacobus de Voragine: Legenda aurea sanctorum, sive Lombardica historia.

[Cologne]:  Conrad Winters, de Homborch, 8 Nov. 1476.
Fol.   [1-510 6-98 10-2910 308 31-3210 336 348 3510 36-378 3810 3912].   [372] leaves (1/1 blank).
Woodcut printer’s device.
ISTC ij00086000; GW 13981;  Goff J86;  Polain(B) 2186;  Bod-inc J-029.

GIP number: J6
Shelf-mark: Sp Coll Hunterian Bx.2.21 (see main library entry for this item)
Variant: 1/3v, col. 2, line 27 begins ‘alio noīe ...’ - cf. Polain’s transcription omitting ‘noīe’;  39/12r (f. 372r), lines 2 and 3 of colophon read ‘... profu||tura ...’ cf. Polain’s transcription ‘profi=||tura’ and his variant note ‘profu=||tura’.
Provenance: Paris Jesuits:  ‘Collegij Parisiensis Soc. Iesu’ on 1/2r;  sale (1764), lot 3929;  sold for 24 livres according to the the priced copy of the sale catalogue in Glasgow University Library.
Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV:  Gaignat sale, 1769;  lot 2777 in Guillaume de Bure, Bibliographie instructive:  supplément ... ou catalogue des livres de feu M. L.J. Gaignat, 2 vols (Paris:  1769).
William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist:  purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 36 livres 1 sou;  see Dessain-Hunter correspondence (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 23v).
University of Glasgow:  Hunterian bequest, 1807;  Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “Au.5.13”.
Binding: France, 18th-century blue goatskin;  covers decorated with a triple gold-fillet border, a small gold fleuron at each corner;  gold-tooled spine;  marbled endpapers;  gilt-edged leaves.   Size:  294 x 222 mm.
Leaf size: 284 x 212 mm.
Annotations: Occasional single word corrections and nota marks;  traces of early manuscript signatures in several quires;  leaves foliated in an early hand from 1/4r onwards but with erasures and deletions after “294”.
Decoration: A four-line initial ‘U’ on 1/2r is supplied in blue with reserved white and set on a square ground of pen-work decoration in red, blue and green which extends into the margins;  a similarly decorated five-line initial ‘A’ on 1/3v;  other initials, capital strokes, paragraph marks supplied in red.
Imperfections: Wanting the blank leaf 1/1.

 

Penwork decoration in Jacobus de Voragine: Legenda aurea sanctorum, sive Lombardica historia