![BREVIARIUM ROMANUM. Edited by Georgius de Spathariis. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, [before 6 May] 1478.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/CKS/2017_CKS_14299_0214_001(breviarium_romanum_edited_by_georgius_de_spathariis_venice_nicolaus_je114945).jpg?w=1)
![BREVIARIUM ROMANUM. Edited by Georgius de Spathariis. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, [before 6 May] 1478.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2017/CKS/2017_CKS_14299_0214_000(breviarium_romanum_edited_by_georgius_de_spathariis_venice_nicolaus_je105321).jpg?w=1)
Details
BREVIARIUM ROMANUM. Edited by Georgius de Spathariis. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, [before 6 May] 1478.
A deluxe copy of the first edition of a purely liturgical text of the Roman breviary. Printed on vellum and illuminated by a contemporary Venetian artist associated with the Jenson printing shop. It was preceded into print by only a few breviaries adapted for Franciscan or Augustinian use.
The edition is notable for the beauty of the type-page, the extensive two-colour printing, and the luxury of its materials and finishing. A higher number of copies printed on vellum survives than for any other Jenson edition, and many of these are decorated. In her survey of decorated copies, Lilian Armstrong associates the decoration with the Jenson shop, and notes the overall uniformity of the flourished red and blue initials. For the illumination, artists working at the highest level finished copies for the noblemen, ambassadors and prominent ecclesiastics among Jenson’s clientele. The present copy is fully decorated with fine Venetian work. It was divided at some point, and a 51-leaf section is preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (87.F.13). Armstrong, ‘Nicolaus Jenson’s Breviarum Romanum, Venice, 1478, Decoration and Distribution’, Incunabula, Studies in Fifteenth-Century Printed Books presented to Lotte Hellinga, ed. M. Davies, 1999, 421-467, no. 21b. H *3896; GW 5101; Boh(LB) 378 = 386 = 398; CIBN B-783; IGI 2114; BMC V 179; BSB-Ink. B-889; Van Praet I, 77, 78; Goff B-1112.
Median folio (319 x 231mm). Printed on vellum in red and black. 269 leaves (of 404, lacking the calendar [6 lvs], 9 lvs in the Psalter, and the Proprium de Sanctis [124 lvs]. With the main settings, not the variants as described in GW. Contemporary Venetian illumination: 9-line historiated initial depicting King David and 23 small decorated initials in gold and colours with extensions; remaining 2-line initials in red with purple penwork decoration or blue with red penwork decoration, one-line initials alternating in red or blue, blue paragraph marks. (Marginal section replaced in 11 leaves sometimes affecting flourishing, 3 leaves defective with loss of text, light stain on p4, occasionally elsewhere, the gold extension on the first leaf is rubbed.) ?18th-century Italian mottled goatskin and pastepaper boards (rubber, minor loss of pastepaper). Provenance: Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) -- Harrison D. Horblit (incunabula acquired by:) – H.P. Kraus (cat. 156, no. IV).
A deluxe copy of the first edition of a purely liturgical text of the Roman breviary. Printed on vellum and illuminated by a contemporary Venetian artist associated with the Jenson printing shop. It was preceded into print by only a few breviaries adapted for Franciscan or Augustinian use.
The edition is notable for the beauty of the type-page, the extensive two-colour printing, and the luxury of its materials and finishing. A higher number of copies printed on vellum survives than for any other Jenson edition, and many of these are decorated. In her survey of decorated copies, Lilian Armstrong associates the decoration with the Jenson shop, and notes the overall uniformity of the flourished red and blue initials. For the illumination, artists working at the highest level finished copies for the noblemen, ambassadors and prominent ecclesiastics among Jenson’s clientele. The present copy is fully decorated with fine Venetian work. It was divided at some point, and a 51-leaf section is preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (87.F.13). Armstrong, ‘Nicolaus Jenson’s Breviarum Romanum, Venice, 1478, Decoration and Distribution’, Incunabula, Studies in Fifteenth-Century Printed Books presented to Lotte Hellinga, ed. M. Davies, 1999, 421-467, no. 21b. H *3896; GW 5101; Boh(LB) 378 = 386 = 398; CIBN B-783; IGI 2114; BMC V 179; BSB-Ink. B-889; Van Praet I, 77, 78; Goff B-1112.
Median folio (319 x 231mm). Printed on vellum in red and black. 269 leaves (of 404, lacking the calendar [6 lvs], 9 lvs in the Psalter, and the Proprium de Sanctis [124 lvs]. With the main settings, not the variants as described in GW. Contemporary Venetian illumination: 9-line historiated initial depicting King David and 23 small decorated initials in gold and colours with extensions; remaining 2-line initials in red with purple penwork decoration or blue with red penwork decoration, one-line initials alternating in red or blue, blue paragraph marks. (Marginal section replaced in 11 leaves sometimes affecting flourishing, 3 leaves defective with loss of text, light stain on p4, occasionally elsewhere, the gold extension on the first leaf is rubbed.) ?18th-century Italian mottled goatskin and pastepaper boards (rubber, minor loss of pastepaper). Provenance: Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872) -- Harrison D. Horblit (incunabula acquired by:) – H.P. Kraus (cat. 156, no. IV).
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