Quarto. Quires [1-410, 56], 46 leaves, the last two blank, 23 lines to the page, roman letter, without signatures, catchwords, pagination, place, printer's name or date. Two- to six-line spaces left for capitals. Claudin XIX. Pellechet 147. Hain 216.
Large initial on first page supplied in blue and gold, with pen ornamentation in red and blue. Other capitals and the paragraph-marks in alternate red and blue. Last blank leaf wanting.
This and the two next works of the present list bound with it were printed at the first Paris press, a private press set up in the Sorbonne in 1470 by Johann Heynlin, Prior, and Guillaume Fichet, Librarian, of the University, and maintained by them until April, 1473. During these three years twenty-two books were printed, all in the same roman type, copied from the Cæsar of Sweynheym and Pannartz, Rome, 1469. In only two of them are the actual printers, Friburger and his associates, named.
To the twenty-eight 15th-century editions—not to speak of the translations—of this novel described by Hain, Copinger's Supplement adds half as many more. The present edition is perhaps the third. Claudin, who makes it the nineteenth in the list of the Sorbonne books, could trace but four copies. This makes a fifth.
The three books from the Sorbonne press are bound in one volume, red morocco, gilt edges, with book-plate of Sir Willim Burrell. It passed from his possession some years before his death and was bought by Michael Wodhull at Payne's sale April 7, 1789, for £4.4s. The binder, possibly mistaking the date of the author's subscription (Vienna, 1444) for that of the printing, has placed it on the back of the volume. Leaf 7 3/4 × 5 1/4 in.
20. PIUS II. (AENEAS SILVIUS PICCOLOMINI). De curialium miseria. [Paris, Michael Friburger, Ulric Gering and Martin Crantz, 1472.]
Fol. 1a: Aeneæ Siluii poætæ laureati (cui et pro pontificali dignitate Pio nomen est) in disputationem de curialium miseria ad perspicacissimum iurisconsultum Iohannem Ech, serenissimi diuique principis, Alberti, cæsaris inuictissimi! Alberti quoque austriæ ducies inclyti consiliarium atque oratorem præfacio fœliciter incipit; Fol. 34a: Vale uir (nisi ex curialibus unus esses) meo iudicio prudens; Colophon: Aeneæ Siluii de curialium miseria disputatio finem habet fœlicem; Fol. 35, 36, blank.
Quarto. Quires [1-310, 46], 36 leaves, the last two blank, 23 lines to the page, roman letter, without signatures, catchwords, pagination, place, printer's name or date. Two- and six-line spaces left for capitals. Claudin XX. Pellechet 132. Hain 198.
First initial rubricated in the same style and by the same hand as in the De duobus amantibus. Other capitals and paragraph-marks in red and blue alternately. Initial-strokes in yellow. At the bottom of fol. 29a a line accidentally dropped by the compositor is supplied in manuscript by a contemporary hand, viz., "non te uolunt. Quidam uero potentes sunt! ac ex." Both the recto and the verso of the leaf have the full complement of 23 lines but there is a hiatus in the text. The copies in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, have the line supplied in manuscript in like manner, but instead of uero read non, which does not suit the context.