![GILDAS (516?-570?). Opus Novum. Gildas Britannus monachus ... de calamitate excidio, & conquestu Britanniae. Edited by Polydore Vergil and Robert Ridley. [Antwerp: C. Ruremunde?, ca. 1526-27].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/1995/CKS/1995_CKS_05424_0171_000(103228).jpg?w=1)
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GILDAS (516?-570?). Opus Novum. Gildas Britannus monachus ... de calamitate excidio, & conquestu Britanniae. Edited by Polydore Vergil and Robert Ridley. [Antwerp: C. Ruremunde?, ca. 1526-27].
8° (153 x 100mm). Collation: A-E8 F4. Woodcut initials. Modern russet morocco. (Light soiling, marginal repairs to first 3 leaves.) Provenance: Robert Vaughan (ca.1592-1667, Welsh antiquary, inscription on title).
FIRST EDITION. Written ca. 540 A.D. in south Wales, De excidio Britanniae is a denunciation of contemporary rulers and clergy. Although not intended as a work of history, it does contain the only surviving narrative history of 5th-century Britain, and has been for many in succeeding centuries a source of historical detail. Geoffroy of Monmouth drew on Gildas, and it was the historian Polydore Vergil who had the first edition printed, prefaced with a dedication to Cuthbert Tunstall. THIS COPY WAS FORMERLY OWNED BY ROBERT VAUGHAN, the Welsh antiquary. Not only was his interest in Welsh subjects acute, as witnessed in his ownership of this important Celtic text, but his library at Hengwrt contained the finest collection of Welsh manuscripts. Gildas was printed anonymously and has been assigned variously to London, Antwerp or Paris. D.E. Rhodes concluded, however, that it should be assigned to Antwerp, where he located the woodcut initials among the stock of Ruremunde ("The First Edition of Gildas", The Library 1979, 355-60). With the uncorrected state of the title, reading "PRFTER". STC 11892; NK 0562.
8° (153 x 100mm). Collation: A-E8 F4. Woodcut initials. Modern russet morocco. (Light soiling, marginal repairs to first 3 leaves.) Provenance: Robert Vaughan (ca.1592-1667, Welsh antiquary, inscription on title).
FIRST EDITION. Written ca. 540 A.D. in south Wales, De excidio Britanniae is a denunciation of contemporary rulers and clergy. Although not intended as a work of history, it does contain the only surviving narrative history of 5th-century Britain, and has been for many in succeeding centuries a source of historical detail. Geoffroy of Monmouth drew on Gildas, and it was the historian Polydore Vergil who had the first edition printed, prefaced with a dedication to Cuthbert Tunstall. THIS COPY WAS FORMERLY OWNED BY ROBERT VAUGHAN, the Welsh antiquary. Not only was his interest in Welsh subjects acute, as witnessed in his ownership of this important Celtic text, but his library at Hengwrt contained the finest collection of Welsh manuscripts. Gildas was printed anonymously and has been assigned variously to London, Antwerp or Paris. D.E. Rhodes concluded, however, that it should be assigned to Antwerp, where he located the woodcut initials among the stock of Ruremunde ("The First Edition of Gildas", The Library 1979, 355-60). With the uncorrected state of the title, reading "PRFTER". STC 11892; NK 0562.