細節
Cordiale quattuor novissimorum. Geneva: [Louis Cruse, ca. 1490].
Chancery 4o (201 x 148 mm). Collation: a-d8 e10 (a1r title, a1v blank, a2r text, e10r colophon and table of contents, e10v blank). 42 leaves. 35-37 lines. Types: 3:98G (title and headings); 5:66G (text). 17 8-line white-on-black woodcut initials. Clear impression of 2 lines of bearer type on title (capital sorts and quads). Early limp vellum (a remboîtage).
The last of four unsigned and undated Genevan incunable editions of this popular 15th-century devotional tract, containing edifying anecdotes relating to the "four last things": death, the last judgement, hell and eternal bliss. It owed its immense popularity to the amusingly realistic quality of its stories: over 50 incunable editions are recorded, in Latin, German, French, Dutch, English and Spanish. The text has been attributed to various authors, and is now commonly ascribed to Gerardus de Vliederhoven or Dionysius Carthusiensis.
Two editions were printed at Geneva ca. 1480 and 1481 by the otherwise little known Jean Croquet; the present edition was the second printed by Louis Cruse. The son of a German physician and Geneva's second printer, Cruse produced a few books in 1479-1481, before printing a single Doctrinal de Sapience at his farm at Promenthoux in 1482, where he had gone to flee the plague raging in Geneva. He returned to the city by early 1483 and remained sporadically active, producing around 50 editions in all, mainly of devotional texts and vernacular romances. Like all early Genevan printing, this edition is very rare. ISTC lists 8 institutional copies, of which only one in the U.S. (Morgan Library).
A FRESH, CRISP AND LARGE COPY. C 1781=1785; GW 7492; IGI 3190; Lökkös, Catalogue des incunables imprimés à Genève (1978), 52; Pr 7813; Goff C-893.
Chancery 4
The last of four unsigned and undated Genevan incunable editions of this popular 15th-century devotional tract, containing edifying anecdotes relating to the "four last things": death, the last judgement, hell and eternal bliss. It owed its immense popularity to the amusingly realistic quality of its stories: over 50 incunable editions are recorded, in Latin, German, French, Dutch, English and Spanish. The text has been attributed to various authors, and is now commonly ascribed to Gerardus de Vliederhoven or Dionysius Carthusiensis.
Two editions were printed at Geneva ca. 1480 and 1481 by the otherwise little known Jean Croquet; the present edition was the second printed by Louis Cruse. The son of a German physician and Geneva's second printer, Cruse produced a few books in 1479-1481, before printing a single Doctrinal de Sapience at his farm at Promenthoux in 1482, where he had gone to flee the plague raging in Geneva. He returned to the city by early 1483 and remained sporadically active, producing around 50 editions in all, mainly of devotional texts and vernacular romances. Like all early Genevan printing, this edition is very rare. ISTC lists 8 institutional copies, of which only one in the U.S. (Morgan Library).
A FRESH, CRISP AND LARGE COPY. C 1781=1785; GW 7492; IGI 3190; Lökkös, Catalogue des incunables imprimés à Genève (1978), 52; Pr 7813; Goff C-893.