Calendar of the Canonised
GOEREE, Jan, engraver.
Godtvrugtige Almanach, of Lof-gedachtenis der Heyligen, op ijder Dag van’t Jaar. Amsterdam, 1730.
Three parts in one vol., 4to, ff. [371], comprising 3 engraved titles, 366 engravings for each day of the year (including leap year) and 2 additional plates for the Feast of Corpus Christi and for the Feast of the Ascension; 3 blank leaves, before August, before the title page of part III, and before November; a very good copy; bound in early nineteenth-century russia, borders roll-tooled in gilt, spine gilt in compartments and lettered directly in gilt, edges speckled red and blue, blue endpapers; somewhat rubbed, headcap chipped, neat repairs to front joint; armorial bookplate of the Duke of Sussex to front pastedown.
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Godtvrugtige Almanach, of Lof-gedachtenis der Heyligen, op ijder Dag van’t Jaar.
First edition of a calendar containing an engraving of a saint for every day of the year, from the library of the Duke of Sussex.
The plates were engraved by Jan Goeree (1670–1731) after designs by Sébastien le Clerc, Pierre le Pautre and Jean Dolivar, originally rectangular but here reshaped into roundels, which were made for Les figures des saints, avec un abrégé de leurs vies (Paris, Gantrel, 1689). The two additional engravings are bound at the end of April, representing the Feast of the Ascension and Corpus Christi.
Copies are also recorded with two plates per leaf, making a folio-sized volume. The plates were later reused to accompany a 1770–1771 Amsterdam printing of the calendar of saints by the Jesuit Giovanni Battista Mascolo.
Provenance: From the substantial library of Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex (1773–1843), the ninth child of George III and a renowned book collector, who amassed more than fifty thousand books over his lifetime. His library was sold by Evans in five sales across 1844–1845; this volume was lot 4783.
STCN 242359876; Cohen-De Ricci 612.