[VIEXMONT, Claude de and Pedro de SOTO].

Methodus Confessionis, hoc est, Ars, sive Ratio, & Brevis quædam via confitendi, in qua peccata, & eorum remedia plenissimè continentur. Ad hæc XII. Articulorum fidei cum pia, tum erudita explanatio. Hæc omnia recens nunc recognita, ...Dillingen an der Donau, Sebald Mayer and Christopher Schick, 1560. 12mo. With 4 figural woodcut initial letters (plus 2 repeats). Contemporary blind-tooled calf over wooden boards with the binder’s and owner’s initials, and with decorated brass clasps.

      (15), 308, (1 blank) ll. Karlsruher Virt. Kat. (3 copies); Haebler I, p. 475, roll 3 (not seen);cf. Adams S-1512 (1577 Antwerp ed.); NUC (1 copy each of 5 other eds.); OLCL WorldCat (1 copy of 1559 Venice ed.); not in BMC STC German; De Backer & Sommervogel; Gumuchian. Rare second Dillingen edition of Viexmont’s popular Methodus Confessionis , a schoolbook for teaching Latin grammar through confessional and penitential prayers and one of the earliest books printed in Dillingen, here in a contemporary binding with the initials of the binder and owner.First published at Paris c. 1531 under the title Libellus de Institutione Puerorum and intended for students at the Collège de Navarre, the book appeared under the title Methodus Confessionis from its second edition in 1532 and with the present sub-title from at least the Venice edition of 1545. It was perhaps at this date that it was revised by Pedro de Soto (d. 1563, probably the Jesuit of that name, active c. 1548-1558) though earlier editions are sometimes ascribed to him as well. Dozens of editions appeared in France, the Low Countries, Germany and Italy within a half century of the first edition, some of them abridged. The dedicatory epistle of the present edition is dated April 1553 at Dillingen (an der Donau, in Schwaben), where Sebald Mayer set up the town’s first printing office in association with the Catholic University established there in 1552. The 1553 edition of the present work may have been his first book, and his printing office published the only four German editions we have traced. Such schoolbooks were rapidly worn out with use, so that all editions are very rare.The binding is decorated with a single blind-tooled roll (205 x 24 mm) bearing the binder’s initials “BW” and four portraits with attributes and mottos: Jesus, the Apostle Paul, King David and the Apostle John. It is no doubt the roll recorded by Haebler, though it appears to have “APARVIT” with one rather than two Ps (not having seen it, Haebler gives no dimensions and no example, merely citing Husung, Bucheinbände ... Preußischen Staatsbib. , p. 23). It has here been impressed in four parts (two side by side on each cover) each showing slightly more than half the roll and together omitting nothing. Above the rolls on the front cover are the owner’s initials “TG.” The brass catches and catch-plates are also decorated. With an early ownership inscription on the title-page and an early twentieth-century bookplate, both from the Kapuziner Bibliothek in Immenstadt (Schwaben), and with their paper labels on the spine. Other brief inscriptions on the front pastedown and the final blank leaf. The Schwabian printer and provenance suggest that the binder BW and first owner TG may also be Schwabian, but we have not identified them.In very good condition, only slightly trimmed and with a few deckles intact, and with only one or two minor marginal tears, holes, smudges or water stains, not affecting the text. With some words of the title "rubricated" in yellow-green and some underlining in the prelims. In a few sheets the inexperienced printer centred the press points (as in an 8vo, 4to or folio) so that their point-holes appear in the foredge margin of leaves three and four of their eight-leaf gatherings. The binding is rubbed but still good, with the head and foot of the backstrip gone, and with a small lacuna in the leather of the front cover, affecting an ornament (?) between the owner’s initials T and G. The decorated brass clasps have survived very well, with their leather straps and decorated brass catch-plates, lacking one of the two small undecorated strap-plates. A rare Schwabian religious schoolbook, with a Schwabian provenance and a contemporary binding with binder’s and owner’s initials.