Catalogue Five : Important Books, Manuscripts, Documents & Autographs, 10th to 19th Centuries. [ Laurence Witten, bookseller's catalogue ]

Laurence Witten, New Haven, bookseller's catalogue, 1962. Later cream cloth, original printed rear wrapper bound in, top edge gilt, 4to,. 143, [1] pp, plates, ills. 181 items. From the introduction to the catalogue : "Petrarch is youthfully uncertain about the spelling of Cicero's name as he annotates a text of that ancient author which is as old as any now extant, and Pierre de la Ramee whimsically annotates his copy of Lancelot in Italian; popes write private letters about their nephews, books, singers, and known authors, while Essex says that his influence over Elizabeth is not so great as people imagine, and Cardinal Pole calls Henry VIII a tyrant; Ficino corrects and adds the Greek passages to one of his greatest works, and a general of the Dominicans presents his opposition to Ficino's views, in manuscripts dedicated to Lorenzo the Magnificent; the papacy carries out espionage in England and claims the right to censor books; Simon Boccanegra's brother crushes the power of the Moors in Spain forever while, in England, hundreds of grotesques are judged suitable decoration for a Psalter; a short-lived king of Jerusalem and Naples founds an order of chivalry, and a little to the north diplomats compose the draft of an elaborate peace treaty between powerful city—states; manuscripts of Dante, Chaucer, and Gower, sometimes humble and sometimes noble, are written and preserved, and one of Dante's exiled relatives recounts his efforts to create a new life; while Pietro Aretino makes notes on the fawning letters by which he earned his living, his contemporaries collect and edit the monuments of Italian literature for the first time; French historians dislike to talk about Joan of Arc, while Petrucci invents modern music printing, and Polydore Vergil writes about inventions and proverbs; tremendous manuscripts with large pictures and tiny manuscripts with microscopic pictures are prepared for prelates and princesses; as a 17th-century savant draws pictures of the moon seen through his telescope, his contemporaries write erotic poetry; presses spring up in Constantinople and Colmar, Teheran and Trino, while in provincial England a schoolmaster makes early experiments with color-printing; a distinguished retired soldier turned antiquarian adds drawings to his copy of The City of God, whilst the barber Burchiello swaps verses with the notables of his time. Spine slightly spotted, otherwise Very Good. (From the library of the bibliophile A R A Hobson, although without indication of that in the volume.).