Incunable

1480 · 5273 — Gouda: Gheraert Leeu 1480. Contemporary limp sheepskin parchment without a spine so that the sewing is completely visible. Kept in a modern brown half morocco clamshell box. 4to 20.5 x 14 cm. With 4 full-page woodcuts plus 14 repeats. The first shows King Pontianus on his throne the Queen standing next to the throne and the seven wise men standing before them with one telling a story. The last shows the same group but with the king's son Diocletianus telling his story The other two show in one case a wise man and in the other the queen telling a story to the king and are used for various stories. That with a wise man has scroll with an opening where type is set to indicate which wise man is speaking. The first illustrated edition in any language of one of the oldest and most popular texts of early European literature. It is also the first illustrated book printed by Gheraert Leeu just before his better-known Dialogus creaturarum. No copy of any edition before 1483 in any language is recorded in a Dutch library. Known in English as The seven sages of Rome it is a series of educational short stories within a "frame story" in the tradition of the Indian Panchatantra the Arabian Nights etc. and some of the stories are variations on stories told there. These stories were first published in Latin at Cologne in 1472. Leeu probably published the first edition in the Low Countries in Dutch with only a single woodcut dated 25 July 1479. That edition is known only from two incomplete copies. His present Latin edition must date between that and 3 June 1480 so it is not clear whether it preceded the unillustrated Deventer edition of 1479 or later. Our copy is preserved in its original limp parchment and only very slightly trimmed giving wide margins 1.5 4 and 5 cm. With 8 early owners' inscriptions one dated 1579 and others clearly older four small and mostly marginal worm holes running through the first leaves and the usual traces of age and handling. The parchment is stained and slightly wrinkled. Nearly untrimmed and in good condition.l Campbell 947; Goff S-448; Goudriaan Een Drukker zoekt publiek. Gheraert Leeu te Gouda 1477-1484 list of publications no. 46; Hain 3000; ILC 1952; ISTC is00448000 7 copies; Klebs Incunabula 906.4; Kok Woodcuts in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries 69. 1-4; Polain 1970; Van Thienen & Goldfinch 1952 same 7 copies; Vijfhonderste Verjaring Boekdrukkunst Nederlanden 127 with. ill.; not in BMC STC Dutch; Incunabula in Dutch Libraries; Gheraert Leeuw exhibition at Gouda 1992; cf. Lexicon des Mittelalters VII pp. 1836-1839. Gheraert Leeu, unknown