AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO.

£4,250 · Offered by Sokol Books

A rare and splendidly bound copy of this collection of sermons by St. Augustine. This particular edition is the result of a collaboration between two German pioneers of early printing. Heinrich Gran is one of the first printers in Alsace, who established the first printing house in Hagenau. The majority of the works he produced during the first three decades of the XVI century are theological, and the present volume is a remarkable example. During this period, the publisher Johann Rynmann of Augsburg was one of his major clients, financing 174 out of 213 works released by the press. Considered to be the first non-printing publisher in history, Rynmann used to commission the production of books by others, to focus on their distribution. The handsomely decorated binding has been realised by an unidentified German bookbinder. The blind tooled motifs depicting Holy Roman Emperors, religious scenes and muses were quite popular during the XVI century in Germany, and very similar examples were in use in Munich, not far from Augsburg where Rynmann was based (see for example: Muses EBDB 132934m; religious roll 132577m). Augustine of Hippo, commonly known as St. Augustine, is one of the most important Church Fathers of the Patristic period and among the most prolific Latin authors. His major writings especially De Civitate Dei and Confessiones are milestones of Western thought which had a fundamental influence on the subsequent development of the theological and philosophical disciplin

• Printing: first
• Binding: Hardcover

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