[Imitatio Christi].

£2,250 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

contemporary 'semi-sombre' English Restoration binding A near fine example of an English 'semi-sombre' binding dating from the Restoration of Charles II. The covers have been tooled in blind to a 'cottage-roof' design composed of panels where the goatskin has been ruled with concentric lines and tooled in bind, and alternately left untreated and tooled in gilt. Similar examples are exhibited in Howard Nixon's English Restoration Bookbindings (see nos 113-116), and as no. 39 of his Five Centuries of English Bookbinding , which belongs to a French New Testament owned by Samuel Pepys. As Nixon explains, sombre bindings emerged in the 1670s 'for mourning use and Lenten observance' and were prevalent for the next 50 or so years (see English Restoration Bookbindings , p.45). Further examples of this style of binding can be seen in the Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge, Volume VI, Bindings (see no. 403). The text is an anonymous English translation of Thomas à Kempis' great spiritual meditation De Imitatione Christi , an important work of Christian mysticism forming part of the Late Medieval Devotio Moderna movement which called for religious reform and apostolic renewal. This edition had earlier been printed in a smaller vicesimo-quarto format. Kempis (d.1471) was born in Kempen, in the Diocese of Cologne, but received his education at Deventer, in the Low Countries where he came into contact with the Fratres Vitae Communis, a majority lay confraternity

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.