Hrabanus Maurus, Commentaria in Hieremiam, Basel, 1534, pigskin binding, Passau-Munich provenance

Hrabanus Maurus and Ralph of Flavigny

Two early sixteenth-century biblical commentaries in a near-contemporary pigskin binding, comprising:

HRABANUS MAURUS. Commentaria in Hieremiam prophetam. Ita cum Apostolicis literis consentientia... Iam primum in lucem edita. Basel: Henricpetri, (March 1534), woodcut device on title-page and final verso (otherwise blank), woodcut initials

RADULPHUS FLAVIACENSIS. In mysticum illum Moysi Leviticum libri XX. Cologne: Eucharius Cervicornus for Petrus Quentell, 1536, woodcut device on title-page, woodcut initials, with final blank leaf

2 works in one volume (Hrabanus bound second), folio (303 x 200mm.), later sixteenth-century blind-stamped pigskin over wooden boards, small panel stamps of Justitia on upper cover and Lucretia on lower cover, blue edges, a few small wormholes in text and in binding, lacking both clasps

For another work by Hrabanus Maurus, see lot 152. The author of the commentary on Leviticus was Ralph of Flavigny, a twelfth-century Benedictine monk. The text survives in numerous manuscripts and this is the first printed edition.

LITERATURE:

VD16 B 3784 & B 3019

PROVENANCE:

Joannes Wolferma(?), pastor of Falkenstein, inscription at foot of title-page dated 1592 with price 3-5; Monastery of the Observant Franciscans, Passau, inscription on title-page; Duplicate from the Royal Library in Munich, inscription on verso of flyleaf; Rev. Richard Wilson, Carlton Hill, Leeds, inscription dated 1856; Clifford Baylis, bookplate; by family descent