Accession number
PML 23578.2
Creator
Boethius, -524.
Object title
Boecius de consolacione philosophie.
Published
[Westminster] : William Caxton, [about 1478]
Description
[94] leaves ; 28 cm (fol.)
Credit line
Purchased in 1926.
Notes
"Epitaphiu[m] Galfridi Chaucer. per poetam laureatu[m] Stephauu[m] [sic] surigonu[m] Mediolanense[m] in decretis licenciatu[m]", in verse, leaf [12]/6.
An English translation by Geoffrey Chaucer, who is named on [12]/5v. Includes a portion of the original Latin text.
Caption title, leaf [1]/2r.
Caxton is named on leaf [12]/5v; publication date from Needham.
Collation: [1-11⁸ 12⁶]: 94 leaves, leaf [1]/1 blank.
Paper format: Chancery folio
PML copy formerly bound with John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady ([Westminster]: William Caxton, [1483]), ISTC il00409000, leaves [1]/3.6 (PML 23578.1, ChL 1786). Lydgate leaves removed in June, 1982 to Broadside leaf box 2.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 28 x 20.8 cm
PML copy leaves [5]/4.5 only.
An English translation by Geoffrey Chaucer, who is named on [12]/5v. Includes a portion of the original Latin text.
Caption title, leaf [1]/2r.
Caxton is named on leaf [12]/5v; publication date from Needham.
Collation: [1-11⁸ 12⁶]: 94 leaves, leaf [1]/1 blank.
Paper format: Chancery folio
PML copy formerly bound with John Lydgate, Life of Our Lady ([Westminster]: William Caxton, [1483]), ISTC il00409000, leaves [1]/3.6 (PML 23578.1, ChL 1786). Lydgate leaves removed in June, 1982 to Broadside leaf box 2.
PML copy leaf dimensions: 28 x 20.8 cm
PML copy leaves [5]/4.5 only.
Binding
Late nineteenth-century quarter-leather and corners (29.3 x 22.2 cm) with gilt decoration on spine by D. Dillworth, Newcastle, Staffordshire, binder's label (front pastedown). Binding filled out with blank paper.
Inscriptions/Markings
Hand decoration: Rubricated, red lombards, paragraph marks, and underlining in red (likely in Caxton's workshop, see BMC XI 346). Latin quotations with L-bracket underlining ending in clover-leaf finials; C-type paragraph marks with extended upper stroke.
Provenance
William Blades, who gave this bifolium to W.H. Dutton in June 1879 (on other leaves dispersed from his copy, see De Ricci, Census of Caxtons, 8.29-30); William Henry Dutton (1827-1897), of Hewcroft, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, bookplates (front pastedown and front fly); his sale, Sotheby's, 8 Dec. 1903, lot 177, to Quaritch; Quaritch, 1905, cat. 243, lot 159; W.C. Van Antwerp; his sale, Sotheby's, 22 March 1907, lot 26, to Tregaskis; Tregaskis, July 1908, cat. 652, lot 98; Pierpont Morgan Library, purchased from Gabriel Wells, May 1926.
Classification
Catalog link
Century
Department