Vigerius (Marcus) Decachordum Christianum, collation: aa8 a10 b-z8 &8 A10 B-E8 F10 AA BB8, aa8 blank, title and author's arms within woodcut border signed F.V., 10 full-page metalcuts, that of the Nativity signed 'L' and that of Pentecost signed 'F.V.', all within one of two repeated woodcut borders, 33 smaller metalcuts illustrating the life of Christ, all but two criblé, initial spaces with guide-letters, repair to upper margin of title, the odd small marginal repair, some spotting (or occasional foxing) and staining, water-stained at end, mostly to lower inner gutters and lower margins, but just encroaching on text on occasions, lightly browned, late 19th / early 20th century vellum, leather title label to spine (rubbed), upper joint just starting, but holding firm, folio (304 x 204mm.), Fano, Hieronymus Soncinus, 1507.
⁂ A wide-margined copy of the first edition of what is considered to be the finest book from the press of Soncino, the first printer at Fano. Vigerius joined the Franciscan order while his great uncle (the future Pope Sixtus IV) was general of the order, and it was to Sixtus IV that he owed his advancement. He was made bishop of Senigallia in 1476, Governor of Castel Sant'Angelo, and a cardinal in 1505. Vigerius returned to his studies in 1506, producing the Decachordum, a treatise on asceticism following the life of the Holy Family, which he dedicated to his cousin Pope Julius II. Our copy with foliation correct on f. lxxix (unlike the Harvard copy) and incorrect on f. lxxxix (reads lxxxiiii (corrected by hand in ink), as in the Garden copy); and with seventh and eighth chorda incorrectly headed sixth and seventh (corrected by hand in ink).
Provenance: Leo Samuele Olschki (1861-1940), Italian antiquarian bookseller and publisher (book label to front pastedown ‘N. 17818 (ms.); Ecrin. H9 (ms.)’); early 20th century German book label to front pastedown ‘Bibliothek Nr: E. 2087 (ms.); Bandanzahl :1 (ms.); Abteilung: Alte Drücke (ms.)’.
Literature: Adams V746; De Marinis, Livres à figures italiens 214; Mortimer Italian 537; Sander 7589; EDIT 16 CNCE 32811.
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