Vincentius Bellovacensis: Speculum doctrinale.
[Strassburg: The R-Printer (Johann Mentelin and Adolf Rusch), between 1477 and 11 Feb. 1478]
Fol. [110 26 3-78 810 9-218 226 23-288 296 30-358 36-376 388 39-438 4410 45-518]. [404] leaves (1/10 and 51/8 blank).
ISTC iv00279000; GW M50558; Goff V279; BMC I 65 (IC. 679); CIBN V-184 (B).
Note: Distinguishable from the R-Printer’s other edition of this work by the word ābulet in the final line on 51/7r. Imprint date from Torchet, no. 933.
| GIP number: | V29 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Ferguson Ap-x.1 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Provenance: | John Ferguson (1837-1916), Professor of Chemistry, University of Glasgow: source unknown. University of Glasgow: Ferguson collection purchase, 1921. |
| Binding: | 16th-century pigskin over wooden boards; covers tooled with a single fillet to form a St Andrews cross design spread over three concentric rectangles; evidence from nail holes of four corner-pieces and a centre-piece on each board (all now lost); further evidence from nail holes of two clasps (both lost); manuscript title within a horn window secured by two brass strips at top of front board; spine now detached - revealing fragments of parchment manuscript spine strengtheners; manuscript title on paper added to spine, and at foot of spine is a 19th-century printed label “Jnc.c.a.”; front pastedown is a parchment manuscript bifolium, with text in two ruled columns, of St Augustine, Enarratio in Psalmum 108, 17-18; rear pastedown is a parchment manuscript bifolium, in the same hand, containing the text of Ezechiel 20:32-43 and Ezechiel 23:32-43; the manuscript text of the front pastedown has a capital letter “Q” decorated with a human face, and the text of the rear pastedown has a similarly decorated capital letter “L”; parchment manuscript guard strips visible in the middle of each quire. Size: 506 x 337 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 474 x 331 mm. |
| Annotations: | Occasional evidence of numbering of quires in red ink on first recto leaf in a 15th/16th-century hand e.g. “47” on 47/1r (f. 365r); final verso of each quire numbered “1”-“51” in pencil in a 16th-century hand; very occasional “nota” marks. |
| Decoration: | On 1/2r a twelve-line initial “Q” is supplied in red and blue with reserved white and embellished with elaborate red and blue pen-work decoration, which extends into the inner and upper margins; other principal initials supplied with similar decoration throughout, some with human faces incorporated into the pen-work; smaller initials throughout supplied in alternate red and blue, often with reserved white and marginal flourishes; capital strokes in red; paragraph marks in alternate red and blue throughout; running book numbers and running headings supplied in red. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaves 1/10 and 51/8; substantial excisions in the lower margins of 2/6, 22/5, 34/4-5, 37/2-5, 44/6 (ff. 16, 175, 266-267, 286-289, 344). |
