LEO I (late 4th century - 461, Pope from 440, Saint, called LEO THE GREAT). Sermones et epistolae . With short treatises by other Doctors of the Church. Ed. Johannes Andreas de Buxis (Bishop fo Aleria). Rome: Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz [after 30th August] 1470. Median 2° (322 x 226mm). Collation: [1-11 10 12-14 8 (1/1 blank, 1/2 r editor's dedicatory letter to Pope Paul II (r. 1464-71), 1/2 v table of contents and incipits, 1/4 v blank, 1/5 r De assumptione ad pontificatum gratiarum actionis sermo Primus , incipit: Laudem domini loquatur os meum , 2/9 r Flaviano Constantinopolitano Episcopo Epistola , incipit: Lectis dilectionis tue epistolis quas miramur fuisse tam seras , 13/8 r Symbolum Nicenum , 14/2 v Testimonia excerpta de libris catholicorum patrum , 14/8 r colophon, 14/8 v blank)]. 133 leaves (without the blank). Roman type 2:115. 38-39 lines. Four large illuminated initials by a French artist, the first incorporating a coat-of-arms and extending into a fine floral and foliate border with birds (1/5 r ); elaborately rubricated in a contemporary hand, blue and red initials with penwork decoration, paragraph-marks, red, green and yellow capital-strokes. (First two small initials flaked, 3 tiny wormholes at the beginning, light marginal damp-stain, but A FINE COPY.) 18th-century French red morocco gilt, floral tools in compartments of spine, gilt edges. Provenance : Cecil Thompson (armorial bookplate). Sweynheym and Pannartz's edition from their second press, the first in Rome, is traditionally considered the EDITIO PRINCEPS. However, P. Scapecchi has recently shown that it was set from Johannes Philippus de Lignamine's Rome edition of the same year after identifying printer's copy at Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana (see The Library 1990, p. 50). The edition described in Goff (L-130) as German ca. 1470 was printed in Poland about seven years later. "Declared a doctor of the church by Benedict XIV, Leo was a lucid codifier of accepted orthodoxy rather than an original and profound theologian ... His surviving sermons and letters are marked by clarity, terseness, and rhythmic prose ... But Leo was a man whose personality and courage impressed more than churchmen. In 452 near Mantua he personally confronted Attila the Hun, then ravaging north Italy and pressing southwards, and persuaded him to withdraw" (J.N.D. Kelly, Oxf. Dict. of Popes p. 44). HC *10011; Pr 3308; BMC IV, 11 (IB. 17145); Goff L-129; IGI 5722; CIBN L-111.
LEO I (late 4th century - 461, Pope from 440, Saint, called LEO THE GREAT). Sermones et epistolae . With short treatises by other Doctors of the Church. Ed. Johannes Andreas de Buxis (Bishop fo Aleria). Rome: Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz [after 30th August] 1470. Median 2° (322 x 226mm). Collation: [1-11 10 12-14 8 (1/1 blank, 1/2 r editor's dedicatory letter to Pope Paul II (r. 1464-71), 1/2 v table of contents and incipits, 1/4 v blank, 1/5 r De assumptione ad pontificatum gratiarum actionis sermo Primus , incipit: Laudem domini loquatur os meum , 2/9 r Flaviano Constantinopolitano Episcopo Epistola , incipit: Lectis dilectionis tue epistolis quas miramur fuisse tam seras , 13/8 r Symbolum Nicenum , 14/2 v Testimonia excerpta de libris catholicorum patrum , 14/8 r colophon, 14/8 v blank)]. 133 leaves (without the blank). Roman type 2:115. 38-39 lines. Four large illuminated initials by a French artist, the first incorporating a coat-of-arms and extending into a fine floral and foliate border with birds (1/5 r ); elaborately rubricated in a contemporary hand, blue and red initials with penwork decoration, paragraph-marks, red, green and yellow capital-strokes. (First two small initials flaked, 3 tiny wormholes at the beginning, light marginal damp-stain, but A FINE COPY.) 18th-century French red morocco gilt, floral tools in compartments of spine, gilt edges. Provenance : Cecil Thompson (armorial bookplate). Sweynheym and Pannartz's edition from their second press, the first in Rome, is traditionally considered the EDITIO PRINCEPS. However, P. Scapecchi has recently shown that it was set from Johannes Philippus de Lignamine's Rome edition of the same year after identifying printer's copy at Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana (see The Library 1990, p. 50). The edition described in Goff (L-130) as German ca. 1470 was printed in Poland about seven years later. "Declared a doctor of the church by Benedict XIV, Leo was a lucid codifier of accepted orthodoxy rather than an original and profound theologian ... His surviving sermons and letters are marked by clarity, terseness, and rhythmic prose ... But Leo was a man whose personality and courage impressed more than churchmen. In 452 near Mantua he personally confronted Attila the Hun, then ravaging north Italy and pressing southwards, and persuaded him to withdraw" (J.N.D. Kelly, Oxf. Dict. of Popes p. 44). HC *10011; Pr 3308; BMC IV, 11 (IB. 17145); Goff L-129; IGI 5722; CIBN L-111.
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