Durer (Albrecht).- Roswitha von Gardersheim. Opera Hrosvite illustris virginis et monialis Germane gentes Saxonica orte nuper a Conrado Celte inventa, first edition, collation: a¹⁰ b-k⁸, complete with 8 full-page woodcut illustrations, 2 by Dürer, the others attributed to Wolf Traut and others, woodcut device on final leaf beneath register, faintly ruled in red, last 3ff. with slight marginal worming, some light foxing and soiling, 2ff. from The Saturday Review of 1868 bound in at end, 17^th century citron morocco, triple filets on covers, spine with gilt frames and gilt fleurons between raised bands, brown morocco title label, g.e., a few skilful repairs, folio (299 x 204mm.), Nuremberg, Sodalitas Celticae [Frederic Peypus], 1501.

⁂ An excellent copy of this rare work by a woman, Roswitha von Gardersheim (935-973), widely regarded as the first great German writer and the first person since antiquity to compose drama in the Latin West. Included here are her six prose plays ("Comediae"), written in loose imitation of Terence, eight sacred histories in verse, and a panegyric on her patron, Otto I.

Provenance: John Bellingham Inglis & Charles Inglis; Charles William Dyson Perrins; Mildred Bliss; Margaret Winkelman (with their respective bookplates); Bernard Quaritch 1981; Librairie Thomas Scheler 2015.

Literature: Brunet, III, 356 : "Tre?s-rare"; Fairfax Murray, German, 210 ("not reprinted until 1707"); British Museum, STC German, 758; Dyons-Perrins, 634 (this copy).