Category: Provenance

Heber Copy of Plato’s Works (Incunabula Q. 881 P5.Lf 1491)

September 23, 2011

Plato. Works. Translated into Latin and edited by Marsilio Ficino. Venice: Bernardo de’ Chori and Simone da Luere for Andreas Torresanus de Asula, 1491. This 1491 edition of Plato’s works was translated and edited by Marsilio Ficino and published in Venice.  The book has an interesting provenance and contains beautiful hand decoration.  Two identifiable modern […]

Unidentified Crest of a Blue Greyhound in an Incunable (Incunabula Q. 871 A59c.I 1483)

July 13, 2011

  St Augustine. De civitate Dei. Venice?: Antonio di Bartolommeo Miscomini, about 1476-1478. While cataloging an Italian edition of St Augustine’s De civitate Dei, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a beautiful illumination.  The table of contents makes up the first ten leaves of this volume, but the opening page of the text proper […]

Unidentified coat of arms found in the Incunabula collection

June 17, 2010

  While cataloging a copy of Leonardus de Utino’s Sermones aurei de Sanctis (Venice: Johann von Koln and Johann Manthen, 1475) we came across a coat of arms that is so far unidentified. This coat of arms has been added to the recto of leaf a2 and is located after the incipit to the prologue.  […]

Histoire des Ballons from the Library of Amelia Earhart (Q. 629.13322 T52h)

May 24, 2010

 This two-volume set detailing the history of ballooning in Europe from 1783-1890 was written by balloonist Gaston Tissandier. Tissandier was a prolific author of books on balloons and patented the method of application of the electric motor in balloon flight. His work followed that of Henri Giffard who invented the first engine-powered airship. Although Tissandier […]