HELDENBUCH
darinn viel seltzamer Geschichten und kurtzweilige historien. Frankfurt, Sigmund Feyerabend, 1590. In-4, cold-stamped fawn calf on ais, borders and central panel drawn with fillets and scrolls, one of them decorated with allegorical portraits of Fidelity, Hope and Charity, small brass clasps, chain, spine ribbed, blue edges (Germanic binding of the time).
Edition illustrated with a large woodcut on the title, repeated in the text, and 83 woodcut vignettes engraved by Virgil Solis and Jost Amman and set in ornamented frames with flowers, fruits, animals, interlacing, etc.
Printed in gothic type on two columns. Title printed in red and black.
The Heldenbuch, or "Book of Heroes," is a collection of various epic novels from medieval Germanic literature. First published in the 1470s, the work was reprinted several times until 1590.
RARE SPECIMEN OF CHAINED BINDING.
The practice of tying books to desks or lecterns to prevent theft dates back to the Middle Ages and continued late into the 17th century in convents and public libraries. Gruel, in his Manuel de l'amateur de reliures, t. I, p. 95, describes these libri catenati.
Numerous old annotations on the last endpaper and on the lower flyleaf. Old engraved bookplate: Bibliothek Heinrich Stiebel.
From the Furstenberg-Beaumesnil library, with ex-libris (1983, n°126).
Chain restored. Restorations to the binding (hinges, headpieces, corners and nerves).
