HIERONYMUS.

EPISTOLAE.

      Basel: Nicolaus Kesler, 8 August 1489 - 214 278 leaves the final leaf in each part blank (folios 8-213 in the first part numbered I-CCVIII [i.e. CVI]; folios 7-277 in the second part numbered I-CCLXXI). Double column 56 lines and headline per page gothic type. Two parts in one volume. QUITE PLEASING CONTEMPORARY CALF OVER THICK WOODEN BOARDS panelled covers decorated with floral and trefoil stamps each cover with four elaborate brass cornerpieces and central boss (two back cornerpieces of slightly different design but apparently original) original catchplates newer clasps (with thongs of a slightly lighter shade of leather) carefully rebacked in the 20th century using a large section of a former (probably early 19th century) backstrip with gilt titling text divisions marked with (18 of 20) rawhide tabs. Rubricated throughout: capitals struck with red many two- to four-line initials and 80 initials five lines high and larger. Verso of first leaf of second part with a 14-line woodcut (Schreiber 4226) showing a penitent St. Jerome kneeling before the crucified Christ the saint bleeding where he has torn his breast while beating it with a stone. Printer's device on colophon leaf. Title page with 17th century Latin inscription From the Library of the Blessed Walburga apparently referring to the famous Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga in Eichstätt. Front and back flyleaves with two large woodcut stamps (approximately 90 x 60 mm.) used four times three depicting the Pietà and one of them showing three haloed saints standing before a masonry background (possibly the women at the empty tomb of Christ). Contemporary ink marginalia marking readings for Matins and other monastic services. The leather with minor scuffing scratches and abrasions but the binding solidly restored and still strikingly attractive because of its well-preserved original elements. Frequent but faint freckled foxing an eight-inch diagonal ink mark (looking like a ribbon shadow) through the text on two facing leaves (and with slight bleed-through on the preceding leaf and following leaf) a small handful of leaves with marginal dampstaining or ink blot (final gathering with slight softening and fraying at fore edge from damp with terminal blank silked) other minor defects but still a pleasing copy internally the attractively rubricated text rather fresh and clean and the margins very commodious. Goff H-171; BMC III, 768. Perhaps the greatest Christian scholar of his age St. Jerome (ca. 340-420) was a translator scriptural commentator biographer and historian who is chiefly remembered for his creation of the Latin Vulgate version of the Scriptures a translation that represents an enduring contribution to Western culture. He frequently participated as one of the most heated of partisans in various theological controversies and his disputations and protestations in connection with such debates comprise a good deal of the text of the letters contained here. The letters were particularly admired in the early Middle Ages were among the earliest books to be printed (by Sweynheym and Pannartz in 1468) and are valuable today for their history of the man and his times. According to Enenkel Erasmus is known to have consulted the present printing of Jerome's letters when preparing his own edition and commentary. Given the Walburga reference our volume was obviously used in a monastery where the writings of Jerome and other Church Fathers would have been read as lectio divina during daily prayers or meals. Walburga an Anglo-Saxon nun came to Germany with her brothers Willibald and Wunibald as missionaries in the eighth century. Willibald was the first bishop of Eichstätt while Walburga eventually became abbess of the double monastery founded by her brothers at Heidenheim. In 870 her relics were translated to Eichstätt where the Abbey of St. Walburga was established in 1035. The large woodcut stampings that appear on the flyleaves here are most unusual. They seem to be 16th century German and the work of an amateur wit [Attributes: Signed Copy; Hard Cover]