Index in Tomos Omnes Operum Diui Hieronymi cum interpretatione nominum Graecoru et Hebraeorum, per Ioan. Oecolampadium, Theologum in ordinem digestus. Basel: Johannes Froben, 1520, folio.
-------------------
A fantastic post-incunable imprint of this important index to St. Jerome's works from the famous Froben Press with a stunning engraved title page and equally stunning contemporary fine binding, rebacked.
This imprint from Froben is especially notable following the 1516 monumental edition of St Jerome's works which was edited by Erasmus and printed the same year as important Erasmus' Greek New Testament. Erasmus' confidence in Froben as a printer is shown in a letter he wrote in London to Raffaele Riario, Cardinal of San Giorgio:
"This great work is now at press, and will run, I think, to ten volumes; and so much expense and care have been lavished on the printing that I am prepared to swear that for these twenty years no work has issued from any printing house that had so much money and so much effort spend on it. I doubt if Jerome himself expended so much effort on the writings of his works as they will cost me in the correction. At least I have thrown myself into this task so zealously that one could almost say that I had worked myself to death that Jerome might live again."
We do have a set of the 1516 Froben set of St. Jerome's works available in contemporary blindstamped vellum bindings which will be listed up soon. If you're interested in being notified when this becomes available, just send over a message and we'll let you know once it's live. The 1516 Jerome is extremely rare in commerce outside of single volumes, as is this Index to St. Jerome's works.
-------------------
Size: 225 x 339 mm (approx.)
Condition:
[(1), a-z6, A-E6, F4, G8, (1)]
Contemporary fine panelled full calf binding, rebacked, with losses, remnants of contemporary clasps/metalwork extant but lacking the functional parts, as often. Attractive on the shelf, but the boards are especially attractive, notably the front board. The binding does have a distinctive stamp with a cross incorporating the letter 'R' which we have been unable to attribute to a specific bindery, it could also be an 'R' and a 'Z' or 'N' connected by a line which could be an 'I'. Some old worming to the boards. Later endpapers and pastedowns. Collated as complete sans the original blanks, very rare complete. Some mild toning, minor worming to pp.223-240 in the blank marginal space not affecting text, with some smaller wormholing continuing to the end of the text block occasionally touching a few letters of text, no loss of sense. The wormholing becomes more extensive in the final few leaves, the most being present at the final leaf with the colophon & printer's device. The aforementioned leaf has some edge repair contemporaneous with the blanks/rebacking. This leaf is pictured. Some dampstaining from pp.309 to the end of the text (pp.363), largely unnoticeable until circa pp.319 where it becomes more prominent towards the end of the volume, again, being maximal on the final leaf where this is pictured. This is in the lower right corner, though after pp.349 affects the top right corner also, to a lesser extent. Else the text block is generally very clean, especially through the majority of the text block. A lovely copy of a very rare work.
[Adams J114; OCLC 65393852].
