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LIVIUS, Titus. Romische Historie usz Tito livio gezogen. Translated from Latin into German by Bernhard Schöfferlin and Ivo Wittich. Mainz: Johannes Schoeffer, 1505. 3 parts in 2 volumes, 2o. Gothic types. Full-page frontispiece woodcut showing one of the translators presenting his book to Emperor Maximilian, 213 large woodcut illustrations (including numerous repeats), many printed from two blocks. Printer's woodcut device at end. Title with large woodcut fraktur initial; initial spaces, most with printed guide letters. With blank leaf p4, lacking R6 blank. (Title-leaf *1, its conjugate *6, and final leaf Nn6 apparently supplied from another copy, repaired tear to *1, a few small marginal tears or repairs, some worming at head of vol. I, occasional staining and soiling, a few leaves browned, Xx3.4 detached.) 18th-century German vellum over pasteboard, edges stained blue-green (covers slightly bowed, turn-ins of vol. II detaching).
Details
LIVIUS, Titus. Romische Historie usz Tito livio gezogen. Translated from Latin into German by Bernhard Schöfferlin and Ivo Wittich. Mainz: Johannes Schoeffer, 1505. 3 parts in 2 volumes, 2o. Gothic types. Full-page frontispiece woodcut showing one of the translators presenting his book to Emperor Maximilian, 213 large woodcut illustrations (including numerous repeats), many printed from two blocks. Printer's woodcut device at end. Title with large woodcut fraktur initial; initial spaces, most with printed guide letters. With blank leaf p4, lacking R6 blank. (Title-leaf *1, its conjugate *6, and final leaf Nn6 apparently supplied from another copy, repaired tear to *1, a few small marginal tears or repairs, some worming at head of vol. I, occasional staining and soiling, a few leaves browned, Xx3.4 detached.) 18th-century German vellum over pasteboard, edges stained blue-green (covers slightly bowed, turn-ins of vol. II detaching).
Provenance: a few early marginalia; (contemporary inscription in red gothic lettering on final [supplied] leaf: "Diss buch gehort meinem besünder(?) guten freundt Meister Borgen krieger...und bürger tzu [H]amburg [signed] H. Bock"); (early monastic inscription on title); German or Austrian 19th-century armorial bookplate with initials R.F.E.G.V.S.W.B.W.; Paul Schmidt (bookplates and shelfmark 2136 noting this as a duplicate copy); Lionel H. Pries (bookplate and Memorial Library bookplate).
FIRST EDITION IN GERMAN, dedicated to Emperor Maximilian. The preface to parts 1 and 2 is by Schöfferlin; that to part 3 is by Wittich. This edition was the most copiously illustrated book in early Mainz printing. Although the woodcuts resemble the work of the Late Master of the Grüninger workshop, who illustrated Grüninger's 1502 Virgil, they are probably not from that atelier, since Grüninger's own edition of this translation of Livy, published in 1507, used a different series of illustrations by the Grüninger Master himself.
Adams L-1357; BM STC German p. 521; Muther 645; Roth, Die Mainzer Buchdruckerfamilie Schoeffer (1898) 16,2. (2)
Provenance: a few early marginalia; (contemporary inscription in red gothic lettering on final [supplied] leaf: "Diss buch gehort meinem besünder(?) guten freundt Meister Borgen krieger...und bürger tzu [H]amburg [signed] H. Bock"); (early monastic inscription on title); German or Austrian 19th-century armorial bookplate with initials R.F.E.G.V.S.W.B.W.; Paul Schmidt (bookplates and shelfmark 2136 noting this as a duplicate copy); Lionel H. Pries (bookplate and Memorial Library bookplate).
FIRST EDITION IN GERMAN, dedicated to Emperor Maximilian. The preface to parts 1 and 2 is by Schöfferlin; that to part 3 is by Wittich. This edition was the most copiously illustrated book in early Mainz printing. Although the woodcuts resemble the work of the Late Master of the Grüninger workshop, who illustrated Grüninger's 1502 Virgil, they are probably not from that atelier, since Grüninger's own edition of this translation of Livy, published in 1507, used a different series of illustrations by the Grüninger Master himself.
Adams L-1357; BM STC German p. 521; Muther 645; Roth, Die Mainzer Buchdruckerfamilie Schoeffer (1898) 16,2. (2)