Beschreibung:

AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius (Saint, 354-430). De civitate Dei . Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 2 October 1475. Chancery 2° (288 x 206mm). Collation: [1-2 8 3-31 1 0] (1/1 blank, 1/2r table of rubrics, 2/8 blank, 3/1r text, 318/v colophon, 31/9-10 blank). 303 leaves (of 306, without blank leaves 2/8 and 31/9-10). 46 lines and headlines, double column. Types: 2:84G (text), 4:110R (headlines). 2- to 11-line initial spaces, most with guide-letters. Occasional early manuscript quiring. Unrubricated. (Preliminaries slightly soiled at margins, occasional light marginal soiling elsewhere.) Contemporary South-German goatskin over wooden boards, covers with saltire cross in blind, once chained (rebacked, lacking front flyleaf). Provenance : erased catalogue entry at head of a2r and on front pastedown. Sixth edition, issued a few months after Sixtus IV conferred upon Jenson the title of Count Palatine (announced in a letter printed at the end of the Decretales of March 1475). Sweynheym and Pannartz brought out the first three editions (Rome, 1467, 1468 and 1470). The fourth, first Venetian edition, was printed by Johannes and Vindelinus de Spira (1470). After a three-year lull provoked by the crisis in the book trade, both Ulrich Han in Rome and Jenson in Venice published editions in 1474. It is the sole edition by the latter. Using a smaller Gothic text type with plain capitals, the great French craftsman here introduced the innovation of printing his name in the headline of the first text leaf. Variant settings are known of 1/2r, line 1 and for the colophon: this copy corresponds in both to the main entries of GW and BMC. A GENERALLY GOOD, CLEAN COPY. HC *2051; Polain(B) 360; BMC V, 175 (IB. 19686); GW 2879; CIBN A-682; IGI 972; Goff A-1235.