Bonaventure, Saint

Egregium opus subtilitate et deuoto exercitio precellens paruoru[m] opusculoru[m]. doctoris seraphici sancti Bonauenture. Prima pars.#11;[and] Egregium opus subtilitate et deuoto exercitio precellens paruoru[m] opusculoru[m] doctoris seraphici sancti Bon

      Strasburg: [Printer of the 1483 Jordanus de Quedlinburg], 18 December 1495. Two folio volumes , 11.5 x 8.5 inches. Fourth edition. Volume I: 1[8], 2-4[6], a8, b-g8/6, h6, i-z8/6, A-M6/8, N-Q6, R-Z8/6, AA6, BB8, CC-DD6, EE8. 380 of 380 leaves, including the final blank, EE8. Volume II: A8 (lacking the title-page, A1), B-C6, aa8, bb-qq8/6, rr-tt6, vv-zz8/6, AA-PP8/6, QQ-SS6, TT-ZZ8/6, Aaa-Eee6 (lacking the final blank, Eee6). 368 of 370 leaves. A full-paged woodcut of the Lignum Vitae, or Tree of Life, embellished with fifteenth century coloring is printed on the verso of the title. A mellow golden ochre wash has been neatly applied to the tree itself, the PopeOs robes, and to the halos of Christ, Saint John the Baptist and the Pope. RubricatorOs red ink has been used to outline the halos, to color the flowers sprouting from the tree, to highlight the banners that entwist the crucifixion, and the PopeOs robes. This matte, opaque ink is also used to great effect to illustrate the bleeding wounds all over ChristOs body. The same woodcut is repeated in volume two, without hand coloring. On leaf 339 the full-paged woodcut of BonaventureOs De Sex Alis Cherubin, or Six Wings of the Seraphim is printed. This is a large copy, with deckle edges in evidence on all three sides of the leaves throughout both volumes. It is one and a quarter inch taller and five-eighthOs of an inch wider than the British Museum copy. Bound uniformly in full fifteenth-century alum-tawed pigskin bindings over wooden boards, these two volumes are in perfect condition. Central bosses have been removed on both volumes, but all sixteen corner pieces and both sets of catches and clasps are present, in perfect working order. The contents have been rubricated throughout. The matching bindings are tooled in blind on both boards. The tools, including the small banner with "Maria," the trefoil and the border plate with interlocking hearts, are used together on other fifteenth century German bindings created at the monastery of the Minor Friars of Bamberg. These particular tools were in use on printed books and manuscripts produced between 1471 and 1529. See EBDB s005957 on the Einband Datenbank at http://db.hist-einband.de/. Kyriss catalogues these tools under number 006, where the larger trefoil is 006.01, the small crown is 006.02, the Maria banner is 006.03, and the interlocking heart border plate is 006.04. . These two volumes were originally printed with a woodcut image of BonaventureOs OLignum VitaeO on the verso of each title-page. The title-page has been removed from the second volume, but is present in the first volume, perfectly preserved, and strikingly colored in a contemporary hand. Another print from the same cut appears in the second volume opposite leaf 333, uncolored.#11;BonaventureOs OTree of Life,O a structural mnemonic devised to guide Christian meditation on the humanity of Christ, was an illustrated element that accompanied one of his most popular and enduring treatises. In this image the tree is also the crucifix. The Tree first appears in thirteenth century manuscripts. See for example the Beinecke LibraryOs manuscript MS 416. In this fifteenth century woodcut version, the tree has twelve branches, each lettered from OaO through OmO. OPicture in your imagination a tree. Suppose next that from the trunk of this this tree spring forth twelve branches, adorned with leaves, flowers, and fruits. [E] Let there be twelve fruits, endowed with all delights and conforming to every taste, offered to GodOs servants as food they may eat forever, being fed but never sated.O The twelve branches are organized into three groups of fundamental Christian mysteries: the origin, the passion, and the glorification. Each of the mysteries is further subdivided into four main devotional ideals, sprouting from the main branch. Each of these four is numbered and suspended in a little orb. The twelve main branches are: 1) Illustrious Ancestry; 2) Humility of His Life; 3) Sublimity of Virtue; 4) Plenitude of Piety; 5) Confidence in Peril; 6) Patience in Injuries; 7) Constancy in Tortures; 8) Victory over Death; 9) News of the Resurrection; 10) Sublimity of the Ascension; 11) Justice of Judgment; and 12) Eternity of the Kingdom.#11;The flowing scrolls at the base of this living cross are inspired by the verses from Revelations 22:2, that link the crucifixion to the prophesied tree of life to come. OSuppose its roots to be watered by an eternally gushing fountain that becomes a great and living river, a river which spread out in four channels to irrigate the whole garden of the Church.O (Bonaventure)#11;The second full-paged woodcut, printed on leaf 339, at the end of volume two, is another mnemonic devised by Bonaventure in the 1260Os. In April 1263 Bonaventure composed his OSix Wings of the Seraphim,O as a treatise for religious superiors. Each of the six wings stands for a moral imperative that must be embodied by all church leaders. The virtues are: a zeal for justice, kindness, patience, living an exemplary life, exercising provident discernment, and devoting oneself to God. The angel depicted is the Seraph Francis. Here is how Bonaventure used the image of Francis. The two lower wings represent Ovestigia,O signs in the physical or natural world that indicate the existence of God, and correspondences between the sensory abilities of animals and people that point to the work of God. The two middle wings of the Seraph remind the reader to see God in His Oimage,O that is, in other people who seem to embody divinity. These special signs can be OnaturalO or Oreformed by grace.O The two highest wings are concerned with seeing God himself, through faith and reason. The inclusion of these fascinating woodcuts adds considerably to the artistic and intellectual value of this book.#11;OIn the OPrinter of the 1483 Jordanus de QuedlinburgO we come to an anonymous press of unusual activity and with a marked fondness for exactly dating books, and for attaining this exactness by reference to ecclesiastical festivals rather than the ordinary days of the month. As regards its output two important discoveries have been made. In five of this printerOs few undated books his types are found to measure 99 mm. These books agree also in having no title-pages, and it appears certain that they preceded the OJordanusO of 1483 from which the press takes its name, and that the 99 mm type in that year was filed down to 91 mm. [Further,] careful examination of a series of books in this printerOs type [BMC type 80] proves conclusively that the differences which have been found in specimens of it arise in the ordinary course of the replenishment of the fount, and that its division into two (ProctorOs types 4 and 5) was erroneous.O (BMC)#11;OBonaventure presents a marked contrast to his great contemporaries, Thomas Aquinas and Roger Bacon. While these may be taken as representing respectively physical science in its infancy, and Aristotelian scholasticism in its most perfect form, he brings before us the mystical and Platonizing mode of speculation. [E] To him the purely intellectual element, though never absent, is of inferior interest when compared with the living power of the affections or the heart.O (EB, 1910, v. 4, p. 198)#11;OBut more important than any group of positions is his effort to orient philosophy towards theology, and theology toward mystical union. Without such an effort, philosophy is merely an outgrowth of worldly curiosity, placing man on Othe infinite precipice.O In following the controversies of the thirteenth century it is important to remember that for men such as Bonaventure, the price of philosophical error is not merely confusion; it is also the ultimate disaster of damnation.O (Hyman & Walsh) #11;