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Manchester. The John Rylands Library, Special Collections, 3103

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Source
Manchester Digital Collections
Library
The John Rylands Library
Shelfmark
  • 3103
Biblissima authority file
Date
  • 1462
Language
  • Latin
Title
  • Conuersi ab ydolis p[er] predicatione[m] b[ea]ti joha[n]nis drusiana [et] ceteri (Conuersi ab ydolis per predicationem beati johannis drusiana et ceteri)
Agent
Description
  • Extent:
    [48] leaves, ill. (woodcuts), 31 cm. (fol.)
    Binding:

    Eighteenth-century full red Dutch [?] goatskin over boards; a wide gold-tooled roll of of a sprouting heart enclosed within a similarly-shaped decorative frame, flanked on either side by a five-leafed palmette; an inner row of alternating leaf bud tools, facing outwards, and dots, the buds facing the hearts are plain, those facing the palmettes are on a tripod; an oak sprig tool to the corners, facing inwards; an inner panel of an ornate metal-work roll and double gilt fillets, with a tool of an acorn sprig at corners, facing outwards; in the centre of both covers, the arms of the Spencer family added in the nineteenth century [British Armorial Bindings Spencer Stamp 3]; sewn onto six raised supports; spine gold-tooled; vertical and horizontal gold-tooled fillets top and bottom, the compartments bearing a gold lozenge-shaped tool of a flower and pomegranate amongst tendrils, with smaller flower tools, dots and fleurons; yellow leather spine label in the second compartment from the top, direct-lettered in gold: Laurenti Coster Apocalyps; top and bottom edges decorated in gold with repeating vertical fillets; marbled paper endleaves; the printed lot number from the Crevenna sale pasted to top left-most corner of the front pastedown: 185.

    Offset from the ink used to sign the individual quires on the versos suggests that some leaves were originally bound differently. The leaf bearing Schreiber's plate 16(18) (leaf 18 in the current numbering) bears offset from the manuscript H marking Screiber's plate 18(21) (leaf 17 in the current numbering), suggesting it was originally conjugate with the leaf bearing Schreiber's 17(19) (leaf 15 in the current numbering).


    Decoration:

    Stevenson, 'The problem of the block books', p. 240 localises the art to the Southern Netherlands and cites the woodblock cutter Jan van den Berghe, who in 1452 argued against joining the Carpenters' Guild as he was engaged in work for the clergy, rather than the town, cutting 'letteren ende beeldeprynten' (letters and pictures). Stevenson follows Hind, An introduction to the history of woodcut, I, 83, 227, in suggesting that this reference relates to the cutting of a blockbook, and concludes on p. 241: "with paper dating 1451 and woodcut work dating 1452, we have an attractive hypothesis to the effect that Apocalypse I was probably designed, cut, and printed at Leuven in the years 1450-1452".

    Each plate appears to have been engraved on an individual block, with the grain running vertically, and printed in pairs.

    Contemporary hand-colouring in green, yellow, orange, red, purple, dark brown and pale brown.


    Acquisition:

    Part of the Spencer library acquired by Enriqueta Rylands in 1892 from John Poyntz Spencer (1835-1910), 5th Earl Spencer for The John Rylands Library.


    Subject(s):
    John, the Apostle, Saint.; Apocalypse in art.; Beast of the Apocalypse.; Armorial bindings (Binding) -- England -- 19th century.; Gold tooled bindings (Binding) -- Netherlands -- 18th century.; Illustrations (Layout feature) -- Netherlands -- 15th century.
    Format:
    Codex
    Material:
    Paper

    According to Stevenson, 'The problem of the block books', p. 240: "printed on two supplies of paper, a run of stubby Gothic p's with a single clubfoot, of which one is Briquet 8587, unlike anything else in Briquet, in fifteen sheets, and a shorter run of Bull's-head-nose paper in nine sheets, with a mixture of the two sorts (I, II) in the middle gatherings".The Gothic p appears in paper used in four volumes of the Reckonings and Accounts of the Dom, St Martin's Church, in the Rijksarchief in Utrecht, dated 1451-1453. Other examples appear in the paper collections of the Royal Archives in Brussels, there dated 1451 and 1454.


    Provenance:

    Formerly owned by Henri-Joseph Rega (1690-1754), sold in 1755 following his death (see: Catalogus librorum in omni facultate et scientiarum genere praecipuè autem ad artem medicam, & historiam naturalem, necnon ad historiam belgicam, & litterariam spectantium, quos reliquit Henr. Jos. Rega (Louvain: 1755), pp. 1-2, lot 12, sold for 162 florins) according to Schreiber, subsequently acquired by 'Gockinga', a parish priest at Wilnes, near Utrecht, thence Pietro Antonio Crevenna (d. 1792), sold at the sale of the Crevenna library (see: Catalogue raisonné de la collection de livres de M. Pierre Antoine Crevenna (Amsterdam: 1775-1776) vol. 1, pp. 31-35, where Crevenna's acquisition from Gockinga is cited, and Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de M. Pierre (Amsterdam: 1789-1790), vol. 1, p. 46, lot 185, sold for 920 florins); acquired by George John, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834) June 23 1790, from B. White & Son: Expositio Apocalypsis S. Joannis, by L. Costar: 52.10.0 (see receipt dated June 23 1790 in BL Add MS 76299).

    Dibdin, Biblioteca Spenceriana, no. 3: "At the Crevenna sale, Bibl. Crevenn. 1789, 8vo. vol. i. no. 185, this copy was sold for 510 florins ... The present may be called a fine and complete copy, and is bound in ancient red morocco"; the printed list of prices realised at the Crevenna sale (Catalogue des livres de la bibliothèque de M. Pierre Antoine Bolongaro-Crevenna (Amsterdam: 1789-1798), vol. 5, Prix des livres, p. 4) suggests that lot 185 actually sold for 920 florins.

    Leather label on front paste-down: E Bibliotheca Spenceriana; from the collection of George John, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834).

    Armorial bookplate of The John Rylands Library 1894 on front paste-down.


    Additions:

    Signatures added in manuscript by an early hand in the centre of the recto of each folio sheet.

    Fifteenth- or sixteenth-century annotation to sig. [con]2 verso: Gloria supr[emo Lu]is sit soror / Gloria supremo Luis.

    Fifteenth-century annotations to sigs. D1 verso: Dominus deus noster; D2 recto: Dominus est deus noster; [con]2 recto: Et si mortiferum quid biberint non eis nocebit [Mark 16,18], remainder illegible.

    Eighteenth-century manuscript note of the price paid by Spencer in 1790 to B. White & Son on front flyleaf: 52:10:0.


    Note(s):

    Title from incipit.

    A cycle of 92 pictures illustrating the Apocalypse, arranged in two registers on 48 leaves, except for the full-page representations on 32(32) and 33(33) (Schreiber's counting), and deriving from the tradition of the English illustrated Apocalypse manuscripts.

    Schreiber's Edition I/II, State I. Schreiber distinguishes six editions of the blockbook, of which I and II, being printed from the same blocks, are better described as two states of a single edition I/II.

    State I was printed before signatures were added to the blocks, and also lacks Schreiber's plates (3) and (4). These two plates are anomalous in that, although evidently the work of one of the three wood engravers thought to have been responsible for the original set of 48 plates, they repeat the signature 'a' of plates 1(1) and 2(2). It seems likely that they were wanting in the manuscript model for edition I/II state I, and only became available to the designers of the blockbook subsequently.

    Dated and localised from watermark and stylistic evidence.

    Palmer, Nigel, Blockbooks,Woodcut and Metalcut Single Sheets, p. 8, under the description of Edition I/II, State II, concludes: "The Manchester copy of state I of Apocalypse I/II is datable on watermark evidence to c.1450/2. ... The blocks and the early Manchester copy are likely, on stylistic grounds as well as on paper evidence, to be Netherlandish".

    Printed in brown ink on one side of the paper by rubbing. The versos are blank, other than the application of the signatures in an early hand, and show signs of once having been pasted together.

    Signatures [added in manuscript by an early hand in the centre of the recto of each folio sheet]: A-Z², [con]².

    The order of the plates in this copy, according to Schreiber's numbering (see Schreiber, Manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois et sur métal au xve siècle, pp. 167-216): 1(1), 2(2), 3(5), 4(6), 5(7), 6(10), 7(11), 8(8), 9(12), 10(9), 11(13), 12(14), 14(16), 15(17), 17(19), 13(15), 18(21), 16(18), 20(24), 19(23), 21(20), 22(22), 23(25), 24(26), 25(28), 26(27), 27(43), 28(44), 29(29), 30(30), 31(31), 32(32), 33(33), 35(35), 34(34), 38(41), 36(36), 37(38), 40(40), 39(39), 41(42), 42(37), 43(46), 44(45), 45(47), 46(48), 47(49), 48(50). It is possible that in some cases the two halves of a bifolium have been transposed in more recent times.


    Publication:
    [Netherlands : s.n., ca. 1450-1452?]
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