Scriptum Logica Sua Explicit Scriptu by Andreae Antonius, First Edition (1 results)

Fragment of four incunable leaves. The leaves are mounted on the rear flyleaf of a copy of the facsimile edition of The Boke of Saint Albans (London, 1881) by a narrow paper stripe. The custom made half vellum binding was made in the workshop of Gustav Hedberg (Stockholm), his vignette is on the front pastedown. Some pages of the book were omitted by the binder, and its parts follow a different order. With Per Hierta's ownership inscription on a front flyleaf, dated in 1901. Bibliographical notes in pencil probably in Hierta's hand on the front and rear endpapers. Edward Gordon Duff's short letter (signed, undated) with bibliographic information mounted beneath the incunabula leaves. Four leaves fragment: I1, I6, I3, I8. 32 lines; Size: ca. 100 × 165 mm. A four-leaf fragment from the scarce 1481/2 edition of the St Albans printing of Antonius Andreae's Scriptum in logica sua. Scriptum in logica sua, a collection of Antonius Andreae's philosophical works, is one of the only eight books that the St Albans Press produced during the short period of its activity between 1479 and 1486 and it is the longest book (336 leaves) printed by the Schoolmaster Printer. Exceedingly rare incunabula, only one complete copy of the work is recorded by GW and ISTC, which is held at the Norwich Public Library. Further two imperfect copies are at the Wadham College (Oxford) and the Jesus College (Cambridge), and six (according to ISTC only five) fragments of 1 to 28 leaves could be found in the following collections: Oxford, Merton College (1 leaf); Cambridge UL (28 leaves); St Andrews, University Library (2 leaves); Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium (14 leaves); Princeton UL (2 leaves bifolium, cropped with severe loss of text) (Green, 2015). The Wadham College-copy (which lacks gathering "L") was discovered and described first in 1885 by Edward Gordon Duff (Duff, 1885), at the time an undergraduate student of the College, soon an eminent bibliographer and librarian, known for his works on early English printing (Hunt, 1990). His short, handwritten letter of bibliographical identification is attached beneath the fragment, which was probably sent to one of the former owners, Per Hierta (1864-1924), a Swedish bibliophile, whose collection was sold in 1932 by Björck & Börjesson (Katalog Nr. 272). The present four-leaf fragment was supposedly extracted from a bookbinding, which explains the punched holes at the edges (some with tiny losses of text). I1, I3, and I6 are rubricated in red. The paper of each leaf is tanned, some letters are faded. I1 is the most heavily punched, and some of the tiny holes are affecting the text. It is damaged at the inner margin with some small loss to the paper. I3 bears four punch holes at the inner margin with no effect on the text, and two holes on the other side with a tiny loss to a few letters. The outer edge is chipped and there is a three cm tear with no effect on the legibility. The print space on the recto is very slightly cropped at the top, barely shaving the first line of text. A tiny trace of old marginalia on the recto remained to be seen. I6 is turned the wrong way round here. It is punched with tiny holes with an insignificant loss to a few letters, damaged at the inner (here outer) margin with some small loss to the paper. A watermark, probably the lower part of a bull's head, is visible in the inner (here outer) margin. I8 is also punched with two tiny holes and has some small losses to the inner edge. It is cropped at the top and the outer edge. On the verso the two top lines are trimmed, on the recto the top line is shaved, and both sides suffer a minimal loss to the text at the outer edge. The great abbey of St. Albans had for centuries been an important center of book production and was famous for its library (Baker, 1979). The Abbey's printing press became the third to set up in England after William Caxton's in Westminster (mid-1470s), and the workshop of the Printer of the 'Expositio in symbolum.