AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius Meditationes, soliloquia, manuale. Dillingen S. Mayer 1571 12mo: 200-[4] ff. (clear water stains,...

AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius Meditationes, soliloquia, manuale. Dillingen S. Mayer 1571 12mo: 200-[4] ff. (clear water stains, sm. marg. tears without loss on f. L4, b3, b4). Contemp. calf richly gold-tooled, boards with fillet and roll frame, sm. tool in inner corners, central oval block figuring Crucifixion on upper side with mentions "EMANVEL BO/ .DVENSIS. // TERTIUS AD/ SYNTAXI.", the Virgin and Child on lower side with date "1577", two green cloth ties on each side, repeated fleuron on spine with raised bands, gilt-gauffered edges (gilding largely faded, very min. def. on corners and endcaps, one tie incomplete). Nice copy. Rare pocket edition of popular devotional writings. Woodcut frame on title and initial at beginning of text. Prize binding probably from a Latin school, awarded in 1577 to Emanuel Boduensis, third in syntax. The two blocks and the corner fleuron are very similar to those of an Antwerp binding, but not a prize binding, executed some ten years later, on a 4to "Missale Romanum" printed by Plantin in 1585 (Quatre siècles II:31). Several variants of these blocks can be found on bindings from the Southern Netherlands in the 16th and early 17th c., as e.g. on a prize binding dated 1615 made on a Moretus edition (Quatre siècles I:30). At the exhibition "De prijs is het bewijs" (Leuven, 1991), the oldest "ex-praemio" was presented in Nancy 1621 (cf. chronological register, p. 222). Our copy is therefore much older than most known specimens. Ref. VD16 A 4290. - USTC 640434 (1 copy in Belgium: KUL). - Cp. STC German (ed. Cologne, 1575). - Not in Adams. - Culot & Sorgeloos, Quatre siècles de reliure en Belgique, I:30-31, II:31. Prov. Emanuel Boduensis (supralibros). - A.J. Steinbach (ms. entry on title). - Laurent Hennuy from Cheneux (Liège) (ms. Latin entries).