Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea sanctorum, [Augsburg, not after 1475], contemporary pigskin

Property from the Brooklyn Museum, sold to support Museum Collections

Jacobus de Voragine

Legenda aurea sanctorum. [Augsburg: Günther Zainer, not after 1475]

folio (295 x 200mm.), 398 leaves (of 400), [_*² a–z A–Q¹⁰ R⁸], 43 lines plus printed foliation, gothic type, woodcut Maiblumen initials and illustrations ALL WITH EARLY HANDCOLOURING, red initial-strokes, two lines of text supplied in contemporary manuscript at the foot of fol. ccxxi (also recorded in the Fairfax Murray copy), contemporary German blind-ruled pigskin over square cut wooden boards, two clasps, remains of a paper label on upper cover containing a black fleur-de-lys(?), vellum manuscript fragments used as sewing guards, manuscript inventory number 46 on spine, some ink offsetting in margins (also visible in other copies), lacking index [_*²] at beginning, small tear in gutter of fos iii and ccxxv, paper flaw in fol. ccxxxviii, occasional light water-staining, textblock split before final 9 leaves (some of which have been reattached), small defect at head of upper cover

A FINE COPY OF THE GOLDEN LEGEND, AN EARLY ILLUSTRATED EDITION, with coloured illustrations and with Voragine's text complete. The woodcuts were previously used for the German text edition printed by Zainer in two parts in 1471-72, attributed to the Boccaccio-Meister and the Bämler-Meister, and are considered the first Augsburg book illustrations; indeed, they are among the earliest series of book illustrations anywhere, preceded only by Pfister in Bamberg.

This edition is rare on the market, particularly with the text complete and in a contemporary binding.

PROVENANCE

Zentralstelle f. Denkmalsschutz im Bundesministerium f. Unterricht [Vienna], export stamp with the date 8 October 1937; Brooklyn Museum

LITERATURE

ISTC ij00084000; Fairfax Murray, German 431