TRAVAMALA DE SALIS, Battista

by Battista Travamala De Salis

£9,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Charmingly bound, most probably in Flanders, by a German binder, as evidenced by the use of cord for sewing supports. The three cords, laced through holes in the wooden boards, are kept in place by wooden nails, a technique that began to die out in the 1480s. It also bears covered endbands (caps), the leather held in place by secondary sewing. The early C16 purchase note in this copy states it was emptus in auctione (bought at auction) at the sale of the estate of its earliest recorded owner, a Magister Heinsius, priest of the Catholic church of St Aldegondis, probably one of the dozen Flemish churches devoted to her. Aldegonde was a typically Flemish saint; she appears in the early C15 ms. litany of the saints used as fep in this copy, suggesting it was bound and purchased in Flanders. The purchase note refers to a very early sale unrecorded in Dutch Book Sales Catalogue, van Selm and Pollard Ehrman. Unlike major post-1600 auctions, mostly organized at Leiden or The Hague by the Elzevirs, this probably took place in a sizeable Flemish town; of the earliest (late C15) records of Flemish auctions we possess, all but one concern books owned by church ministers (Hellinga, Four Book Auctions , 261-69). The work is prefaced by the poem To the Buyer . It begins with The life of man is short , probably too short to read all the books that need to be read. It continues with For us this [book] alone is sufficient instead of many. / This is the chosen book, called Rosella; to the reade

• Binding: Hardcover

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