ANNOTATIONS AND DRAWINGS BY A CAPUCHIN
JEROME, Saint.
Epistolae Sancti Hieronymi.
Venice, Johannes Rubeus Vercellensis, 7 January and 12 July 1496.
Folio, ff. [vi], ‘390’ [recte 392]; a few woodcut initials, capital spaces, some with guide letters, occasionally completed in manuscript; lower margin of f. [ii] excised and neatly repaired, marginal repairs to title and f. 392 and to outer margins of ff. 145–147 and 277, some dampstaining, very occasional light foxing and other marks, nonetheless a good copy; bound in twentieth-century vellum over boards, title in ink to spine, edges sprinkled red; light marks to covers; annotations in Latin and Italian in a sixteenth-century hand to c. 348 pp. (slightly trimmed), several manicules, some underlining.
Venetian incunable edition of Jerome’s epistles, one of the most famous collections of letters in Latin literature, alongside those of Cicero, Seneca and Pliny, this copy with interesting marginal annotations.
Over 120 epistles from Jerome’s pen are extant, written between the years 370 and 419 and ranging from a few lines to several thousand words. They are an essential source for our knowledge of Christian life in the fourth and fifth centuries and provide an insight into one of the most striking and complex personalities of the age. Much admired by Jerome’s contemporaries, they were one of the works most appreciated by Renaissance humanists. There were numerous incunable editions, beginning in 1468. This edition was printed by Giovanni Rosso, of Vercelli in Piedmont, in two parts, the first with colophon dated 7 January (f. 164v) and the second dated 12 July (f. 376v).
This copy contains numerous interesting sixteenth-century annotations. The name of the annotator is recorded in the capital space on f. [1]r as follows, ‘di pret. Marcho benedecti Capp.no In S. Mart. di luc. e delli Amici suoi ch. prima hera della felice memoria del r.do m. Cesari bo[n]uisi mio patrone’ i.e. the capuchin friar Marco Benedetti of San Martino in Lucca, who notes with fondness his patron Cesare Buonvisi (the name of a prominent Lucchese family). His note to the final blank regarding the election of Pope Gregory XIII in 1572, and another dated 1574, indicate the period when he was reading Jerome’s letters.
Benedetti’s notes demonstrate an interest in Christ’s body, baptism, crucifixion, and resurrection; in the Trinity and the Virgin Mary; and in subjects as diverse as fasting, free will, sin, vanity, prayer, virginity, death, wisdom, and music. His marginalia contain references to the likes of Origen, Cicero, and Petrarch. Verses in Italian on a panther appear in the lower margin of f. 305v (‘Panthera sono animal dolce e fero’), and there are a few small drawings: Christ’s tomb at the foot of f. 4r, a naked Adam to f. 244r, and an acolyte and a wolf at the bottom of f. 380r accompanying a note on a marble sculpture at Bologna. There are various notes to the title-page, on Jerome and Augustine for example.
BMC V 419; Goff H175; ISTC ih00175000.
