85 - [PRINTED ON VELIN PAPER - FLANDERS - 17TH CENTURY]

[PRINTED ON VELIN PAPER - FLANDERS - 17TH CENTURY] Rule of the Poor Clares and Declarations and Ordinances Issued Regarding the Rule of the Poor Religious Women of the Order of Saint Clare; From the Reform of Saint Colete Unsigned, undated (Flanders), undated (17th century, after 1625) In-4°. Full period calfskin with brass clasps. Blank spine with 5 raised bands. Covers with frames richly decorated with scrollwork, foliage, floral motifs, and cold-stamped fillets, characteristic of Flemish and Germanic bindings still common in the 17th century. Blue-gray edges. Two paper endpapers surrounding one endpaper on vellum. Scuffs and scratches; damaged tail cap; a 1-cm tear at the top of the first joint. Interior immaculately white. An extremely rare edition printed entirely on very high-quality vellum, which in all likelihood belonged to a Colettine Poor Clare convent located in Flanders (Belgium). A luxurious copy lacking the printer’s name, place of publication, date, or privilege—as was sometimes found in abbey and convent libraries—printed as a single copy or in an extremely limited edition, intended for the private use of the Abbot or Abbess in office. Our copy contains no illustrations, apart from a few headbands, initials, and two tailpieces typical of Flemish printing of the period: a musical cherub and a squirrel with pomegranates. Furthermore, the reference to “Sancte Colete” in the title allows us to date the printing to after 1625, the year of the beatification of Colette of Corbie, who reformed the Rule of Saint Clare in the 15th century. The text consists of 89 pages, the first 82 of which are devoted to the Rule of Saint Clare itself, and the remaining pages to the “Devote Exhortation… of our holy and glorious mother Colette.” Included is a double folio of paper containing a handwritten copy of a passage from page 21, which deals with the election of the Abbess (needle marks on the double folio and on page 21 on vellum) bearing the countermark FYN and the mark with the initials DL & C for De Loose and Company, a prominent family of Flemish papermakers in Zele, near Dendermonde. The notation & C indicates that the paper was manufactured in the very early 19th century, during the Napoleonic era. However, it appears that following the decrees of Emperor Joseph II of Austria and the even more radical measures of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, the convents of the Colettine Poor Clares in Flanders were closed, with the exception—after many twists and turns—of the one in Ghent, the Monasterium Bethlehem. As for claiming that the presence of this handwritten double folio on paper manufactured 15 km from Ghent allows us to identify with certainty the convent to which our copy belonged, that is a step we cannot take. In any case, this is a very luxurious and rare 17th-century private printing on vellum, intended for a Flemish convent of Colettine Poor Clares!