Berchorius, Petrus: Liber Bibliae moralis.
Deventer: Richardus Pafraet, 1477.
Fol. πA-πB10 πC-πE8 a-z10 aa-hh10 ii12 A-B10 C-H10 I6 K-L8. [468] leaves (πA1, a1, ii12, L8 blank).
ISTC ib00338000; Goff B338; BMC IX 112 (IB. 47501); GW 3864; CIBN B-238.
| GIP number: | B28 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll BD7-c.2 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Variant: | πA2v, col. 2, line 13: ‘... Seqiutur Tabula.’ as CIBN, not ‘... Sequitur Tabula.’ as GW. |
| Provenance: | George Offor (1787-1864), literary editor and book collector: pencil note with price code on πA2r “Offor’s sale ... bh/-”; lot 177 in Catalogue of the important and valuable library of the late George Offor ... which will be sold by auction, by ... Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge ... on ... 27th of June, 1865 ... (London: 1865); sold to the London bookseller Edward Knight for £6.10.0 according to the digitised annotated copy of the Offor sale catalogue in the Bodleian Library. Edward Knight (fl. 1857-1874), bookseller, Islington, London: sold book to William Euing. William Euing (1788-1874), insurance broker, Glasgow: purchased from Knight 27 Feb. 1866 according to Euing’s pencil annotation on πA2r “27. 2. 66 Knt” together with Euing’s pencil inventory number “No 2626” on same page and a superseded inventory number “No 113 Old Sheets”; source confirmed in Euing’s acquisitions inventory (University of Glasgow Library MS Euing 49). University of Glasgow: presented by Euing in 1872 according to University Library bookplate on front pastedown. |
| Binding: | Scotland, 19th-century dark blue/black grained goatskin over wooden boards, decorated with blind fillets and a separate floral tool; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves; binder’s ticket “J. Carss & Co. Bookbinders, 31 Argyle Street, Glasgow” on verso of front free endpaper; binder’s pencil date and price “Oct. 10/67 22/6” on rear free endpaper; binder’s job number(?) “181/8” in pencil on πA2r . The Offor sale catalogue describes the binding as “... very fine copy in the original oak boards, recovered with blue morocco, and edges gilt ...” - which raises the question as to why a completely new binding should have been commissioned from Carss of Glasgow only two years later in 1867. A possible explanation is that the book (which sold on the first day of the Offor sale) remained in the auction rooms and was damaged but successfully salvaged from a disastrous fire, which took place on the third day of the sale when much of Offor’s library was lost (cf. De Ricci, A census of Caxtons, 10:14, for an Offor sale book which was burnt but salvaged). Size: 308 x 213 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 289 x 200 mm. |
| Annotations: | None. |
| Decoration: | Nine-line initial “C” on a2r supplied in red and blue with reserved white, the body of the initial containing a quatrefoil design of orange, yellow and reserved white defined in blue, with red pen-work and blue ornamentation extending into the four margins; numerous principal initials supplied in red and reserved white (a preliminary pen-and-ink sketch underneath the completed initial “Y” is visible on cc10v); smaller initials, capital strokes, and paragraph marks supplied in red; names of books of the Bible supplied in red as running headings on rectos from quire a onwards. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaves πA1, ii12, L8. |
