Scriptores rei rusticae.
Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1472.
Fol. [114 2-310 48 5-710 88 96 10-1110 12-278 2812 29-308 31-3410]. [302] leaves, 15, 86, 87, and 242 blank.
ISTC is00346000; GW M41065; Goff S346; BMC V 173 (IB. 19660); Bod-inc S-122; CIBN S-174; BSB-Ink S-232.
Contents: Marcus Porcius Cato: De re rustica. Marcus Terentius Varro: De re rustica. Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella: De re rustica (edited by Georgius Merula). Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius: De re rustica (edited by Franciscus Colucia). Preliminaries: Georgius Merula: Enarrationes vocum priscarum in libris De re rustica.
| GIP number: | S21 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Bg.2.17, 18 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Note: | Bound in two volumes as follows: vol. I: 10/2-28/5 (ff. 88-239); vol. II: 28/9-34/10 (ff. 243-302), 1/2-1/14 (ff. 2-14), 2/2-9/5 (ff. 16-85). |
| Provenance: | Christoforus (early 16th century): washed-out inscription on 9/5v (f. 85v) partially legible under ultra violet lamp “Iste liber est nobilis viri Xofori de buro(?) [...] 1527 [...]” Unidentified Dutch owner (early 18th century) - see Binding. Louis Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: Gaignat sale, 1769; lot 1031 in Guillaume de Bure, 'Bibliographie instructive: supplément ... ou catalogue des livres de feu M. L.J. Gaignat', 2 vols (Paris: 1769). William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased by Hunter at the Gaignat sale through his agent, Jean-Baptiste Dessain, for 126 livres 6 sous; see 'Dessain-Hunter correspondence' (University of Glasgow Library, MS Gen. 36, f. 24r). University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplates and book labels on front pastedowns, with former shelfmarks “Ab.9.19, 20”. |
| Binding: | Netherlands, early 18th-century gold-tooled red goatskin; covers of both volumes decorated to a two panel design; the inner panel, which is formed by a roll resembling a chain, has an ornament at its four outer corners; the frame of the outer panel is formed by an anthemion and fleur-de-lys roll; gold-tooled spines; gilt-edged leaves; green silk bookmarks; crowned arms of city of Amsterdam watermark with counter-mark ‘R Jardel’ on flyleaves of both volumes - see W.A. Churchill, 'Watermarks in paper in Holland, England, France, etc in the XVII and XVIII centuries and their interconnections' (Amsterdam: 1935), 20. For this and a group of over 70 similar bindings, see Mirjam M. Foot, ‘An eighteenth-century incunable collector in The Hague’, in M. Davies, 'Incunabula: studies in fifteenth-century printed books presented to Lotte Hellinga' (London: 1999), 371-87, Appendix no. 16. Size: 276 × 203 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 268 x 194 mm. |
| Annotations: | Frequent marginal annotations in a humanist hand (heavily washed out and cropped); frequent underlining and “nota” marks; volumes have consecutive foliation (heavily washed out) in an early hand; occasional evidence of washed-out guide-letters in spaces for principal initials; vol. 2 has “tom II” in ink in an 18th-century hand on front flyleaf. |
| Decoration: | None. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaves 2/1, 9/6, 10/1, and 28/8 (i.e. ff. 15, 86, 87, and 242) and the printed leaves 1/1, 28/6, and 28/7 (ff. 1, 240, and 241). |
