Incunabula and Manuscripts
Josephus. Jewish Antiquities and the Jewish War (Latin). Augsburg: Johann Schüssler, 1470. Bound with Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History (Latin manuscript). Füssen, 1462.
Pigskin binding tooled in blind with brass catches & clasps, central bosses & corner pieces, ca. 1473, for the Benedictine monastery of St. Magnus at Füssen im Algäu, Bavaria. The binding may be the work of Johann Schüssler, who sold his five printing presses in 1473 to become a bookbinder.
Acquired at auction in 1964.
Cat. no. 1.1.
Book of Hours, Use of Rome (Latin). Venice: Nicolas Jenson, 1475.
A rare miniature incunable by a renowned typefounder and printer. The binding design is inspired by a 1540s Parisian binding by Jean Picard for Jean Grolier. It was created in Paris by Théodore Hagué for Ambroise Firmin-Didot, in the 1870s. Hagué would later become notorious for his forged re-creations of “medieval” and “Renaissance” pastiche bindings foisted upon the unwitting. This binding, however, is an honest homage to a Renaissance master.
Gift of Jane Elizabeth Crane Andrews, 1930.
Cat. no. 5.25.
Gregory the Great. Letters (Latin). [Augsburg: Günther Zainer, not after 1476].
Brown calf blind-tooled in a panel and saltire pattern, with catches & clasps and five brass bosses on each cover, 1476 or later. The binding was created for the Benedictine abbey at Mount St. George (Georgenberg) in the Austrian Tyrol. The front cover is also decorated with a variety of small tools, some attributed to South German shops in the early 1480s. The binding is in strikingly well-preserved condition.
Gift of David Wolfe Bruce, July 1894.
Cat. no. 1.3.
Book of Hours, Use of Tournai (Latin manuscript). Lille, 1465–1500.
The binding of brown velvet over wooden boards is a rare survivor from the last third of the 15th century. Bindings in such fabrics as linen, silk, velvet, or tapestry were once common, especially for books of private devotion, like the present example, but did not wear well and were almost universally replaced with leather. Even in its worn state this is an uncommon witness from medieval France. The goatskin spine is a 19th-century replacement.
Gift of Daniel B. Fearing, 1905.
Cat. no. 1.5.
Gregory the Great. Moralia in Job (Latin manuscript). France, early 12th century.
The binding is English from the 1830s. The panels affixed to the covers, however, have been saved from a French ca. 1500 binding of tan calf, with repeated roll-tool floral patterns that saw substantial favor over the final decade of the 15th and the first decade of the 16th century. They are probably Parisian, and their very generous size (imperial folio) is not the least of their qualities.
Gift of Archer M. Huntington, 1912.
Cat. no. 1.9.