Beschreibung:

BOETHIUS, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus (480?-524?). De philosophico consolatu sive de consolatione philosophiae: cum figuris ornamentissimis noviter expolitus. Edited by Sebastian Brant Strasburg: Johann Grüninger, 8. Sept. 1501.
BOETHIUS, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus (480?-524?). De philosophico consolatu sive de consolatione philosophiae: cum figuris ornamentissimis noviter expolitus. Edited by Sebastian Brant Strasburg: Johann Grüninger, 8. Sept. 1501. 2 o (283 x 203 mm). 78 woodcut illustrations (including 4 large woodcuts, the first with early hand-colored), numerous woodcut initials and printer's device in white on black ground on last leaf. 19th-century English olive green morocco gilt by Clarke and Bedford, edges gilt (some light rubbing to joints). Provenance : Conrad Rottwelan, of the Dominican order ("Con[ra]di Rottwelani or[dinis] P[redicatorum] F[ratrum] prae__"); Edward Bond (bookplate, dated 1905); acquired from George Staack, 1961. FIRST FULLY ILLUSTRATED EDITION, the illustrations, characteristic of the Strassburg school, were cut for this edition. The printer Johann Grüninger, active in Strassburg from 1483-1531, published numerous illustrated books. He was the first to construct single woodcut scenes by mounting two to four woodcut blocks within a single frame that extended horizontally across the printed page. He first used this technique with his Terence and Horace edition and perfected it with this edition of Boethius. Among the 4 large woodcuts is an early depiction of Rome. Gibbon referred to Boethius text as "a golden volume, not unworthy of the leisure of Plato or Tully, but which claims incomparable merit from the barbarism of the times and the situation of the author."Adams B-2283; Kristeller, Strassburger Buchillustration 96; Muther 555; Schmidt, Grüninger 57.