Incipit ep[isto]la sancti Hieronymi ad Paulinu[m] p[re]sbyte[rum]: d[e] o[mn]ibu[s] di[ui]ne histo[r]ie libr[is]. Cap[i]t[ulu]m I.
Saint Jerome (circa 347-420)
Category
Books
Date
1475
Materials
Place of origin
Venice
Collection
Blickling Hall, Norfolk
NT 3069926
Summary
Bibliographic description
[455] leaves ; fol. Running number: 6938. Wanting first blank leaf. Stub showing between fols. 447 and 448 (i.e. sigs. [V3] and [V4]). Contemporary or sixteenth-century manuscript foliation throughout, not taking blank leaf into account, i.e. fol. [2] is numbered 1, etc. Illuminated: fourteen-line initial "F" on fol. 1r supplied in blue on a square gold ground edged with black, the letter embellished with pink, green and blue floral decoration; in lower margin of fol. 1r is a painted coat of arms on a gold escutcheon on a pink ground decorated with curling flourishes, framed in a green laurel wreath held by two winged cherubs each carrying a cornucopia over their shoulders, the cherubs drawn in black ink and painted in pink; seventy-three six- or eight-line initials at beginning of each book of the Bible in gold on square dark red grounds decorated with curling flourishes. Other initials throughout supplied in alternate red and blue. Guide-letters for initials in pencil in outer margins up to the end of Psalms, none thereafter. Quire signatures written in ink on bottom right corner on recto of first half of each quire (some cropped). Contemporary fifteenth-century or early sixteenth-century manuscript marginal notes, markings and manicules sporadically throughout, written in pink, black or (in Proverbs, Hosea, Amos and Maccabees II) purple ink, probably in two separate hands; Psalms partially renumbered and with paragraph marks added to printed text in pink ink. Small vellum page marker on which is written in ink "Biblia" inserted between [317] and [318]. Provenance: unidentified illuminated coat of arms painted on lower margin of fol. 1r: half eagle impaling a tree[?], charged with in chief a cross patty fitchy, above a red cardinal's hat with ten tassels. Library of Sir Richard Ellys (1682-1742) of Nocton, Lincolnshire. Manuscript former shelfmark or inventory number on front pastedown: "I [or J] 4: 55 [or SS]". Manuscript initial on front fly-leaf: "M." [i.e. catalogue code of John Mitchell (ca. 1685-1751), librarian to Sir Richard Ellys]. Pencil codes (twentieth-century?) on front fly-leaf: "B.L 3" (crossed-out) and "B.1.". Manuscript inscription in late fifteenth-century hand on rear pastedown: "Emi Venetijs 1475 in mense Iulij p[er] duratus[?] ... [illegible] duratus[?] unus p[er] ligatura bolig.[?] 40". Binding: original fifteenth-century Venetian binding of blind-tooled thick brown goatskin over wooden boards; sewn on three supports; blind-tooled framework of intersecting triple fillets with knotwork/ropework ornamentation, typical of Venetian bindings of the time; outer frame plain except for twelve knots (three on each side) each made from four impressions of two individual tools (one straight, one curved); middle frame filled with ropework made from repeated impressions of the straight and curved tools; centre frame divided by intersecting triple fillets into nine panels, corner panels blank, side panels with ropework, central panel with three knots (six knots on lower board); remains of four clasps on upper board (two on fore-edge, one at head, one at tail) clasps catching on to lower board (catches missing, though some metal rivets remain); spine divided into four panels each blind-tooled with triple fillets in a cross and saltire pattern; red and blue mottled textblock edges. Leather rubbed, worn and stained; spine cracked, repaired at head and tail with brown goatskin. Pencil inscription in the hand of Cecil Clarabut (the National Trust's first Libraries Adviser) on front pastedown: "Repaired at Cambridge, 1955".
Makers and roles
Saint Jerome (circa 347-420), translator Franz Renner (fl. 1471-1483), printer Nicolaus, von Frankfurt, printer