What is it about?
Not many english sammelbands of incunabula from the late 15th or early 16th century have been located. We study in our paper a collection that belonged to a clergyman and professor of Oxford, William Hewster († 1492). It contains six incunabula from Antwerp, Leuven, Paris and Oxford, printed in the workshops of Gerard Leeu (3), John of Westphalia, Antoine Caillaut, and Theodoric Rood & Thomas Hunte. This sammelband is in the Biblioteca Diocesana de Córdoba (Spain) and we have not been able to find out how it got there.
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Why is it important?
Of the six editions collected in this sammelband three are very rare. One of them is the only known copy of his edition, and of the remaining two editions only another copy is known in the British Library. We study the complete collection and its relevance within the British private libraries and the incunabula trade between the Low Countries (three editions are from Antwerp and one from Louvain) and British Islands.
Perspectives
Although I have had to work for several years on the subject, it has been a great satisfaction to make this really rare collection known to the public and also its unexpected location in Cordoba, as no other similar collection is known in Spanish libraries.
Julián Solana
Universidad de Córdoba (España)
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Sammelband of Incunabula of British Provenance Held at the Diocesan Library of Córdoba Containing the Only Known Copy of Elegantiae terminorum ex Laurentio Valla et aliis collectae, Antwerp: Gerard Leeu, 7.XI.1487 (GW M35200), Quaerendo, June 2022, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15700690-20221136.
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