English Binding.- Clenardus (Nicolaus) Institutiones ac meditationes in Graecam linguam... cum Scholiis & Praxi P. Antesignani Rapistaniensis, 3 parts in 1 vol., [124], 414, [10], 415-574 (numbered as columns), [32]pp., collation: a-p⁴, q², A-Z⁴, a-z⁴, Aa-Gg⁴, Gg-Ss⁴, (in part 3 seventh and eighth quires are both signed Gg), three separate titles, each with woodcut printer's device, woodcut decorated initials and headpieces, some leaves uncut, single wormhole to I¹-N⁴, affecting some letters of text, splendid contemporary English binding by Vincent Williamson for Eton College of dark brown calf over pasteboards, covers within borders of gilt and blind fillets and decorated with acorn tools and rosettes, cornerpieces and at the centre of both covers a large plaque inspired by Estienne's device with the motto 'noli altum sapere', traces of green silk ties, smooth spine, divided into compartments by double gilt fillets, edges speckled red, light wear to extremities, joints rubbed and cracking, front hinge split, a few wormholes, preserved in modern red cloth case, title lettered in gilt on black morocco spine label, 4to (256 x 171mm.), Frankfurt am Main, Heirs of Andreas Wechel, Claude Marne and Johann Aubry, 1590-1591.

⁂ The augmented edition of the popular Greek grammar by the Flemish theologian and philogian Nicolas Clenardus or Nicolas Cleynaerts (1495-1542), which first appeared in 1580, and is offered here in a handsome binding executed in the workshop of Vincent Williamson - one of the few recorded bearing the famous device of Eton with the motto 'Noli altum sapere' (Ep. Rom., 11: 20). For a similar binding see Bearman-Krivatsy-Mowery, Fine and Historic Bindings from the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington 1992, II, 4.

Provenance:

William Henry Corfield (1843-1903; sale Sotheby Wilkinson & Hodge 1904); Charles William Dyson Perrins (1864-1958; Sotheby's 1947); William Foyle (1885-1963; sale Christie's 2000).

Literature: Adams C2157; VD C, 4156; STC German, 213; L. Bakelants-R. Hoven, Bibliographie des oeuvres de Nicolas Clenard. 1529-1700, Verviens 1981, no. 298.