Pius II, Pont. Max: Epistolae familiares et in Cardinalatu editae.
[Louvain: Johann Veldener, 1477]
Fol. [1-910 108 11-1610 17-188 196]. [180] leaves, the first blank.
ISTC ip00715000; GW M33703; Goff P715; BMC IX 213 (IB. 49107); Bod-inc P-315; CIBN P-409.
| GIP number: | P54 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Bf.3.15 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Note: | Engraving of Pius II mounted on third front flyleaf. |
| Bound with: | The first of two incunabula bound together. Bound with: Liber, Antonius, Familiarium epistolarum compendium. [Cologne: Johann Koelhoff, the Elder, ca. 1482]. |
| Provenance: | Unidentified Carthusian house - probable owner: partially read inscription (under ultraviolet light) on a2r of second item in volume “[...] Carthus[...]”. Unidentified sale at Malines (Mechelen) in 1770 (so dated in N.R. Ker, 'William Hunter as a collector of medieval manuscripts' [1983], p. 15). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter as lot 4162 at the above sale through his agent, Peter Molini, for 4 florins 15 sous according to Molini’s undated bill to Hunter; see University of Glasgow Library, Hunter Papers, H204. University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “Av.5.16”. |
| Binding: | 18th-century calf, covers decorated with a double gold-fillet border with fern-tip edge and with an acorn in gold at each inner corner; gold-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; red-edged leaves; green silk bookmark; first front flyleaf has watermark initials “G C” (or perhaps “C C”) and second front flyleaf has watermark initials “P I B”. Size: 290 x 214 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 280 x 204 mm. |
| Annotations: | Very occasional marginal annotations and underlining in a 16th-century hand; evidence of early signatures; on the blank verso of 10/8 (f. 98v), and continuing onto the recto and verso of an inserted parchment leaf, is a contemporary copy of a panegyric by Petrus de Rivo, Professor of Theology at the University of Louvain, on the marriage in 1477 of Maximilian of Hapsburg, son of the Emperor Frederick III, to Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, beginning “Relatio seu p[ro]positio cora[m] maximiliano louanij r[e]se[r]ata in p[ri]mo introitu terrar[um] sponse sue per elegantissimu[m] P[etrum] de Riuo ...”; for another manuscript version of this panegyric, see 'Bibliotheca Hulthemiana: ou catalogue méthodique de la riche et précieuse collection de livres et de manuscrits delaissés par M. Ch. van Hulthem', vol. 6, Manuscrits (Gand: 1837), item 787, no. 5; loosely inserted at the front of the book are two sheets of paper containing notes in an 18th-century hand on a letter of Pius II to Charles VII of France. |
| Decoration: | On 1/2r a six-line initial “E” is supplied in blue with reserved white on a square ground of red pen-work which extends into the inner margin; on 11/1r (f. 99r) is a similarly decorated three-line initial “E”; and on 11/8r (f. 106r) a six-line initial “D” is supplied in red on a square ground of blue pen-work which extends into the inner margin; other initials throughout supplied in alternate red and blue; capital strokes in red throughout; the same hand has decorated the second item in the volume. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the first blank leaf. |
