Moller, Paradisar likell, Skálholt, 1686, contemporary Icelandic calf

Moller, Martin

Paradisar likell. Edur Godar bæner gudrækelegar huxaner... Skálholt: Hendrick Kruse, 1686

8vo (158 x 92mm.), additional woodcut title-page, letterpress title printed in red and black, woodcut initials, head- and tailpieces, letterpress music, CONTEMPORARY ICELANDIC BINDING of blind-tooled calf over wooden boards with two clasps (incorporating manuscript waste as endpapers, see footnote), occasional light soiling, quire P becoming loose

The text is a translation into Icelandic of Moller's Meditationes sanctorum patrum (written in the 1580s), by Guthbrandur Thorláksson, together with a translation of Thomas Kingo's Psalms by Stefán Olafsson.

The manuscript leaf at the back of the volume used as binder's waste contains the copy of two letters in Latin by "Thorlacius Theodori", i.e. Þorþur Þorláksson, bishop of Skálholt from 1674 to 1697, who also wrote the preface to the book. Beneath one of the signatures is written "manu propria", "in his own hand", but these are most likely clerical copies. Þorþur was instrumental in moving the printing press from Hólar to Skálholt in 1685.

LITERATURE:

BL Scandinavian Books M265

PROVENANCE:

Arne Sveynsson, inscription at end dated 1706; William Reynolds, of Streatham, letterpress booklabel; D.L. Cumming, signature on title-page