To Live and to Die Well
The Syston Park Copy
[BUTRIO, Antonius de, attributed; HUGH of Saint-Cher; Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo; DENIS the Carthusian.]
[Speculum de confessione; Ars moriendi; Speculum ecclesiae et sacerdotum; Speculum vitae humanae; Speculum conversionis peccatorum.] [(Colophon:) Louvain, Johannes de Westfalia,] [not before 1483–1485].
Chancery folio, 5 parts in one vol. (of 6; see below), ff. [151] (of 168); a–c8 d4, e–f8, g10, h8, i–n8 o6 p–t8 u6, x8 y6 (without preliminary blank a1 and quires e–f8 but with medial blank o6); text in double column, gothic letter; occasional light foxing, minor dampstaining to final leaves, else a very good copy; bound in early nineteenth-century cross-grained green morocco by R. Storr of Grantham (with his ticket, partially torn, to rear pastedown), borders roll-tooled in gilt, spine gilt in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, edges gilt, glazed brown endpapers, pink silk place-marker; joints neatly repaired, a few insignificant scrapes to lower cover, small paper label to foot of upper cover; early inscription at head of first leaf ‘Libreria de la Victoria de Madrid cax 86 n 22’, very occasional early notes and reading marks, monogrammed booklabel of Sir John Hayford Thorold and armorial Syston Park bookplate to front pastedown, later pencil price note (£3 10s) to front free endpaper verso.
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[Speculum de confessione; Ars moriendi; Speculum ecclesiae et sacerdotum; Speculum vitae humanae; Speculum conversionis peccatorum.]
Rare third(?) edition, printed in Louvain, of a collection of devotional and moral works, with early Spanish provenance, later in the library at Syston Park.
First printed in Vicenza in 1476, the texts comprise a mirror of confession, a manual on the art of dying, a mirror of the church and its priests, a mirror of human life, and a mirror of the conversion of sinners. This collection was printed twice by Johannes de Westfalia in undated editions; the dates have been assigned from watermark evidence, by which the other edition (ILC 496) is dated slightly earlier, c. 1481–1483, and copies are often incorrectly assigned.
Antonius de Butrio (c. 1338–1408) was a canon lawyer from Bologna who wrote primarily legal texts; Hugh of Saint-Cher (c. 1200–1263) was a French Dominican; Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo (1404–1470) a Spanish bishop; and Denis the Carthusian (1402–1471) a Flemish theologian. Butrio’s writings on the spiritual life, however, are now attributed to other writers: the Speculum de confessione to Berengarius Fredoli, and the Ars moriendi to Matthew of Kraków or Albertus Magnus.
The book is printed in a Venetian-style gothic typeface which was obtained by Johannes de Westfalia at the start of his printing career; he began printing in Louvain in 1473 and used this typeface to produce legal and theological books that, although aimed at the local market, still looked to be Venetian (he later introduced the first roman type to the Low Countries).
The section not bound in this volume contains the Speculum animae peccatricis (also by Butrio but now attributed to Jacobus de Gruytrode) and indeed many of the extant copies do not contain all six of the different sections.
Provenance:
1. From the library of a Madrid convent, perhaps the Minim convent of Nuestra Señora de la Victoria.
2. Sir John Hayford Thorold (1773–1831), from his library at Syston Park; his sale, Sotheby’s, 12–20 December 1884, lot 368.
ISTC records only two complete copies of this edition in US institutions (Indiana, Walters Art Museum).
HC 4185*; BMC IX 150; GW 5830; Goff B1347; ILC 497; BSB-Ink A-633; ISTC ib01347000.