‘IF YOU READ THIS LITTLE BOOK WITH A MODEST AND DEVOTED HEART’
TAULER, Johannes, attributed.
Exercitia D. Ioannis Thauleri piissima, super vita et passione salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi, in gratiam ac sitientium salutem, ex idiomate Germanico in Latinum nuper versa …
Antwerp, Philippus Nutius, 1565.
8vo, ff. 169, [2]; bound without final blank leaf; woodcut device to title, initials; repair to blank corner of S4, occasional marks, somewhat toned; overall very good in contemporary calf over wooden boards, covers roll-tooled in blind to a panel design incorporating allegorical figures and heads in medallions, four raised bands to spine, partial old paper label at head, two brass clasps and catches; small losses at head of spine, some wear to extremities and covers; near contemporary notes in German and Latin to endpapers, title verso, and f. 169r, a few marginal annotations.
Added to your basket:
Exercitia D. Ioannis Thauleri piissima, super vita et passione salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi, in gratiam ac sitientium salutem, ex idiomate Germanico in Latinum nuper versa …
Uncommon Antwerp edition of Laurentius Surius’s Latin translation of a devotional work on the life and passion of Christ attributed to the medieval German mystic Johannes Tauler (c. 1300–1361), in an attractive contemporary binding and with interesting manuscript notes.
A Carthusian based in Cologne, Surius (1523–1578) first issued his translation in 1548. He was an important translator of vernacular mystical works, making them accessible to an international Latin-literate readership beyond German-speaking and Catholic circles. His Exercitia consists of meditations, prayers, and devotional exercises based around Christ’s life, arranged in fifty-five chapters, supplemented with fourteen further exercises penned by the Netherlandish mystic Nicolaus van Essche (1507–1578), covering, for example, knowledge of God and oneself, mortification of the senses, and sin and virtue.
This copy bears near contemporary notes in German and Latin in a few different hands. Those to the endpapers cover, for example, sin in body and spirit with reference to St Paul; Ezekiel chapter 33; Revelation chapter 12 (on Michael and the angels fighting Satan); and various chapters of Isaiah. A manuscript note to f. 169r addresses future readers directly: ‘Reader, if you read this little book with a modest and devoted heart you will see that Christ suffered cruelly and moreover because of his suffering you will not refuse him’ (trans.). The marginalia show a particular interest in themes around the crucifixion. The attractive contemporary binding incorporates rolls with allegorical figures of charity, faith, and hope, and medallion heads representing fortitude, justice, patience, and prudence.
OCLC records four copies in the US (California State, Marquette, Notre Dame, Stanford) and three in the UK (Lambeth Palace, London Library, Westminster College Cambridge).
Adams T272; USTC 409618.
