Details

BREVIARY, use of Chur, summer part. [Basel: Adam von Speier, with the material of Jacob Wolff, after 25 Jan. 1490]. Super-chancery 2° (304 x 210mm). Collation: s8 a-c8 d-e10 Aa8 Bb6 Cc8 Dd-Gg8 Hh-Ii6 Kk8 Ll6 Mm-Nn8 Oo6 Pp-Tt8 Uu-Xx6 Yy-Zz8 aa-bb8 cc6 dd-ee8 ff-gg10 18 28 2aa-2cc8 2dd6 2ee6 (r large armorial woodcut, v preface dated 25 Jan. 1490, r calendar, blank, a1r Psalterium, Aa1 blank, Aa2r Proprium de tempore, de sanctis, (pars aestivalis), gg10 blank, 1/1 Supplement, 2aa1 Commune sanctorum). (320, of 332, without blanks , Aa1, gg10, and lacking Nn8 (blank?), Zz2, dd6, e1-6), Nn7 possibly supplied from another copy, quires 1-2 containing the supplement are bound between Nn and Oo. Printed in red and black. 45 lines, double column. Type: 1:107G, 4:180G, 7:108G. Large woodcut of the arms of Ortlieb von Brandis, bishop of Chur, woodcut decorated initial, lombard initials, other initials supplied in blue, a few 3-8-line spaces left blank. Contemporary blindstamped pigskin over bevelled wooden boards (new endpapers, rubbed), 2 brass fore-edge clasps, stamps not in Kyriss or Schwenke-Sammlung. Provenance: Georgius Tschudi von Blaruss und Laglois Zu Sargans, inscription dated 1700; Cardiff Castle bookplate. Already in 1520 this first edition of the Chur Breviary was considered a rare book. In introducing the second edition printed that year, Paulus, bishop of Chur, described this earlier edition as fast disappearing, and that "few copies, and even these few soiled or torn, are procurable today" (Scholderer, "The Chur Breviary of 1490", The Library 1914, pp.44-59). His statement is equally applicable now, with ONLY THREE OTHER COPIES RECORDED, and those, in the British Library, Milan and Mels, all badly imperfect. 400 copies of the edition were printed, each selling for 4 Gulden, and 300 of them had already been sold within a year after printing. No copy of the winter part is known. The British Library copy has an initial D on Aa2r printed in mauve ink; here that initial space is blank. CR 1273; GW 5332; IGI 2092; Schreiber 3596; Boh(LB) 216=215(?)