BALBUS (JOHANNES)

[Catholicon]. Incipit summa que vocatur catholicon edita a / fratre iohanne de ianua ordinis fratrum predicatorum. S.l.n.d. Strasbourg, R-printer, Adolf Rusch, ca. 1475-1477]. Large gothic folio volume, dark brown calf blindstamped on ais, chased brass spandrels, brass cipher in gothic letters on first board, clasps, spine ribbed, remainder of chain fastening, painted coat of arms on side edge (Period binding). HC, 2251. - GW, 3185 (dates the edition to c. 1470 but not after 1477). - Goff, B-23. - Pellechet, 1699. Fourth edition of the Catholicon, printed in Strasbourg by Adolf Rusch, son-in-law of Johannes Mentelin the city's prototypographer. Printed in gothic type on two columns. The Catholicon by Johannes Balbus de Janua (John of Genoa in French), a Dominican who lived in the 13th century, is a Latin encyclopaedia comprising both a dictionary and a grammar; a reference work at the end of the Middle Ages, it was printed for the first time in the 1460s and went through some twenty incunabula editions. A rubricated copy, with many initials painted in red and blue. THE FIRST PAGE IS ILLUMINATED IN THE MARGINS with a decoration of foliage, flowers and pine cones, painted in blue, green, pink and brown, which bears, repeated at the foot and on the edge, an unidentified monogram ITZ; THE INITIAL OF DEPARTURE P IS ALSO ILLUMINATED AND CHARGED WITH AN UNIDENTIFIED ARMORIE ECU. From the library of Paul Schmidt, with his bookplate. Incomplete with 12 leaves. Some leaves soiled and stained. Cut in the lower margin of one leaf, slightly reaching the last word of the text on the front; cut filled in in the margin of another leaf; marginal restorations to the first 2 leaves and to 4 others at the end. Spine rebacked, restorations to binding, vertical scuffing to second board, cold decoration faded. Missing the first endpaper.