Priscianus: Opera.

Edited by Benedictus Brognolus.

[Venice:  Vindelinus de Spira], 1470.
Fol.   [1-410 5-78 8-1010 11-1212 1310 14-158 16-2110 228 23(23/4+1) 24-258 264 27-2810 298 3010].   [287] leaves, the first blank.
Illuminated woodcut initials - see F.R. Goff, ‘Illuminated woodcut borders and initials in early Venetian books (1469-1475)’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1962) pp. 380-389.
ISTC ip00960000;  Goff P960;  BMC V 156;  Bod-inc P-449.

Contents:  De octo partibus orationis;  De constructione;  De duodecim carminibus;  De numeris;  De ponderibus et mensuris;  De versibus comicis;  De declinationibus.   Add:  [Pseudo-] Priscianus:  De accentibus.   [Pseudo-] Hermogenes:  De praeexercitamentis rhetorices.   Rufinus Antiochensis:  De metris comicis;  De litteraturis;  De compositione et metris oratorum.   Dionysius Periegetes:  De situ orbis.   Translated by Priscianus.

Shelf-mark: Sp Coll Hunterian Bf.2.14 (see main library entry for this item)
Note: This copy collates as BMC, not as Bod-inc.
Note: Printer's pin-holes visible.
Provenance: Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV:  Gaignat sale, 1769;  lot 1394 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 123 livres 1 sou;  see 'Dessain-Hunter correspondence' (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen 36, f. 23r).
University of Glasgow:  Hunterian bequest, 1807;  Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “Aw.1.5”.
Binding: France, 18th-century red morocco decorated with triple gold fillets, a small gold fleuron at each corner;  gold-tooled spine;  marbled endpapers;  gilt-edged leaves;  turquoise silk bookmark.   Size:  318 x 231 mm.
Leaf size: 309 x 218 mm.
Annotations: Occasional pages with marginal annotations in a humanist hand (mainly extracting keywords) - some washed out;  spaces for Greek words filled-in in manuscript in gatherings 1 and 2 - thereafter spaces left blank;  early manuscript signatures (some cropped by binder).
Decoration: Seven-line woodcut initial “C” decorated in gold on 1/2r and embellished with white vine decoration defined in crimson, green and blue with white dots, the decoration extending into the inner and upper margins;  fourteen other similarly decorated woodcut initials (though not all with marginal extensions);  smaller initials added in red or blue throughout;  paragraph marks supplied in red or blue throughout.
Imperfections: Wanting the first blank leaf.

 

Illuminated initial and decoration in Priscianus: Opera