Ovidius Naso, Publius: Opera.
Edited by Johannes Andreas de Bussis, bishop of Aleria.
Rome: Conradus Sweynheym and Arnoldus Pannartz, [not before 18 July 1471]
Fol. Part I: [1-1710 188]. [178] leaves, the last blank; Part II: [1-310 46 58 610 78 86 9-1510 168 17-2410 25-268 27-3110 32-338]. [308] leaves, the first blank.
ISTC io00127000; Goff O127; BMC IV 14; Bod-inc O-038.
Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Be.1.7 (see main library entry for this item) |
Provenance: | Edward Harley (1689-1741), Lord Harley; from 1724 2nd Earl of Oxford: see Binding. Thomas Osborne (d. 1767), bookseller: purchased all the Harleian printed books; Osborne’s price in pencil “£5-5-0” in top right-hand corner of first front flyleaf (which does not have the top corner excised); no. 3848 (“Metamorphosis & Fasti”) in Osborne’s 'Catalogus bibliothecae Harleianae', vol. 1 (London: 1743). Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: Gaignat sale, 1769; lot 1645 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 30 livres 5 sous; see 'Dessain-Hunter correspondence' (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 24r). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “AK.2.7”. |
Binding: | England, 18th-century gold-tooled red morocco, bound for Lord Harley by Jane Steel. On both covers triple fillets form a frame, within which is a deep border made up of separate tools (though none is amongst the Jane Steel tools illustrated in Nixon, ‘Harleian bindings’, pl. 10); both covers have a lozenge-shaped centre-piece, made up of several individual tools, one of which (an acorn-shaped tool) is Nixon, ‘Harleian bindings’, pl. 10, Steel no. 3. The head and foot of the spine are decorated with Nixon, ‘Harleian bindings’, pl. 10, Steel roll 2, and a roll not illustrated by Nixon; the spine compartments are decorated with several individual tools including Nixon, ‘Harleian bindings’, pl. 10, Steel nos 1a and 1b; edges and turn-ins decorated with Steel roll 2; marbled endpapers. Size: 347 x 242 mm. |
Leaf size: | 332 x 225 mm. |
Annotations: | Fairly frequent marginal annotations (mainly extracting keywords) in Part I in more than one 16th-century hand, together with occasional underlining and “nota” marks; very occasional marginal annotations (extracting keywords) and underlining in the Fasti of Part II. |
Decoration: | In gatherings 1-3 of Part I a few initials supplied in red (with guide-letters visible in brown ink), together with paragraph marks, occasional running book numbers and selected capital strokes - no further decoration thereafter in Part I and none in Part II. |
Imperfections: | Part I containing the Metamorphoses is complete; Part II contains the Fasti only i.e. wanting all before gathering 27 (ff. 1-242). |