Valerius Maximus, Gaius: Facta et dicta memorabilia.
[Strassburg: Johann Mentelin, not after 15 June 1470].
Fol. [1-1610]. [160] leaves, the last probably blank.
ISTC iv00022000; GW M49166; Goff V22; BMC I 55 (IB. 520); Bod-inc V-006; CIBN V-14; BSB-Ink V-10.
| GIP number: | V3 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian By.2.13 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Note: | Printer's pin-holes visible in lower margins. |
| Provenance: | Guillaume de Rochefort (1433-1492), Chancellor of France: on 1/1r the painted coat of arms of the House of Rochefort: d’azur semé de neuf billetes d’or (4, 3, 2), au chef d'argent chargé d’un lion passant de gueules (the lion almost completely obliterated with oxidized silver). Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: Gaignat sale, 1769; lot 3520 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 51 livres; see 'Dessain-Hunter correspondence' (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 26r). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark “At.2.2”. |
| Binding: | France, 18th-century red goatskin decorated with triple gold fillets, a small gold fleuron at each corner; gold-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves; turquoise silk bookmark; rear flyleaf has watermark “L BEAURE LIMOSIN” and front flyleaf has watermark of a bunch of grapes (cf. Heawood 3259, 3260). Size: 308 x 220 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 297 x 208 mm. |
| Annotations: | Single early marginal annotation on 1/5r. |
| Decoration: | Five-line initial “O” on 1/1r supplied in pink and purple on a square blue ground decorated with white tracery and edged with black and gold, from which there extends into the top half of the inner margin an illuminated floral border, and in the body of the initial “O” is the painted coat of arms of the House of Rochefort (see Provenance above); other principal initials supplied in gold either on a rectangular purple ground with the initial filled-in with blue (both ground and infill decorated with tracery), or with the two colours reversed; the same illuminator is responsible for the illuminated initials in another Hunterian incunable owned by Rochefort (Aristoteles, Ethica ad Nicomachum. [Strassburg: Johann Mentelin, before 10 Apr. 1469]); other initials and paragraph marks throughout supplied in red (the initials sometimes with marginal flourishes); capital strokes throughout in red. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the final blank(?) leaf. |
