Bernardus Claravallensis, Sermones super Cantica canticorum, Strassburg, 1497, modern wooden boards in period style

Bernardus Claravallensis

Sermones super Cantica canticorum; Gilbertus de Hoilandia: Sermones super Cantica canticorum. Strassburg: Martin Flach (printer of Strassburg), 1497

Chancery folio (301 x 214mm.), 201 leaves (of 202, without final blank), [2-6]¹⁰ a⁸ b-d⁶ e⁸ f⁶ g⁸ h-r⁶ s⁸ [et]⁴ A⁸ B-I⁶ K-L⁸, double column, 52 lines plus headline, gothic type, with blank leaf s8, modern binding in period style, half tooled leather over wooden boards with two clasps, a few early annotations, leaf 3 repaired at head, wormholes in text (with loss of some words in the second part)

A wide-margined copy of the sermons on the Song of Songs by Bernard of Clairvaux and Gilbert of Hoyland. Gilbert was a twelfth-century Cistercian abbot in Lincolnshire, and he continued Bernard's series of sermons after the latter's death in 1153. They were popular throughout the medieval period and first printed in 1485.

LITERATURE:

ISTC ib00430000

PROVENANCE:

Sale, Sotheby's, 10-11 December 1951, lot 588, £8-10 to Thorp