NONIUS MARCELLUS. Without name of printer or place. 1471. Folio. This is the first edition of the work with a date, but the printer is unknown. It is executed in a superior style of typographical elegance; and the present is as fine and white a copy of it as can possibly be possessed. I think it even larger than the Göttwic copy.
PETRARCHA. HISTORIA GRISELDIS. Printed by G. Zeiner. 1473. Folio. Whether this edition of the HISTORY OF PATIENT GRISEL, or that printed by Zel, without date, be the earliest, I cannot pretend to say. This edition is printed in the roman type, and perhaps is among the very earliest specimens of the printer so executed. It is however a thin, round, and scraggy type. The book is doubtless of extreme rarity. This copy was formerly Prince Eugene's, and is bound in red morocco.
PHALARIDIS EPISTOLÆ. Lat. 1471. Quarto. This is the first time (if I remember rightly) that the present edition has come under my notice. It is doubtless of excessive rarity. The type is a remarkably delicate, round, widely spread and roman letter. At the end is the colophon, in capital letters.
PHALARIDIS EPISTOLÆ. Printed by Ulric Han. Without date. Folio. This is among the rarest editions of the Latin version of the Epistles of Phalaris. It is executed in the second, or ordinary roman type of Ulric Han. In the whole there are thirty leaves; and I know not why this impression may not be considered as the first, or at least the second, of the version in question.
POGGII FACETIÆ. Without name of Printer, Place, or Date. Folio. It is for the first time that I examine the present edition, which I should not hesitate to pronounce the FIRST of the work in question. The types are those which were used in the Eusebian Monastery at Rome. A full page has twenty-three lines. This is a sound, clean copy; in calf binding.
PRISCIANUS. Printed by V. de Spira. 1470. Folio. Editio princeps. A beautiful, large, white, and crackling copy, in the original wooden binding. Is one word further necessary to say that a finer copy, upon paper, cannot exist?
PRISCIANUS. Printed by Ulric Han. Folio. With the metrical version of Dionysius de Situ Orbis at the end. This is a very rare book. The fount of Greek letters clearly denotes it to come from a press at Rome, and that press was assuredly Ulric Han's. This appears to have been Gaignat's copy, and is sound and desirable, but not so fine as the copy of this edition in the library of Göttwic Monastery.
PTOLEMÆUS. Lat. Printed at Bologna. 1462. Folio. There can be no doubt of this date being falsely put for 1472 or even 1482. But this is a rare book to possess, with all the copper plates, which this copy has--and it is moreover a fine copy.
PTOLEMÆUS. Printed by Buckinck. 1478. Folio. Another fine and perfect copy of a volume of considerable rarity, and interest to the curious in the history of early engraving.
TURRECREMATA I. de. MEDITATIONES. Printed by Ulric Han. 1467. Folio. This wonderfully rare volume is justly shewn among the "great guns" of the Imperial Library. It was deposited here by the late Mr. Edwards; and is considered by some to be the first book printed at Rome, and is filled with strange wood-cuts.[127] The text is uniformly in the large gothic character of Ulric Han. The French were too sensible of the rarity and value of this precious book, to suffer it to remain upon the shelves of the Imperial library after their first triumphant visit to Vienna; and accordingly it was carried off, among other book trophies, to Paris--from whence it seems, naturally as it were, to have taken up its present position. This is a very fine copy; bound in blue morocco, with the cuts uncoloured. It measures thirteen inches and a quarter, by very nearly nine and a quarter: being, what may be fairly called, almost its pristine dimensions. Whenever you visit this library, ask to see, among the very first books deserving of minute inspection, this copy of the Meditations of John de Turrecremata: but, remember--a yet finer copy is within three stones-throw of Buckingham Palace!