EARLY PRINTING IN COLOGNE.

Alphabetum divini amoris. [Cologne: Ulrich Zel, ca 1466/67.]

Alphabetum divini amoris. [Cologne: Ulrich Zel, ca 1466/67.]
4to (210 x 145 mm). 28 leaves, 31 lines, Types 1a:99G. Fols. 19r and 20v set up with text running along rather than across the page, initial capitals, supplied in red, paragraph marks and initial strokes in red, contemporary marginalia in brown ink. 19th-century blue half morocco. Paper defect at lower corner of fol. 26, small rust hole at fore-margin of last leaf.
Provenance: Ross Winans, (1796-1877) American inventor and railroad magnate (bookplate, dated 1850); Eric Sexton (bookplate, his sale Christie's New York, 8 April 1981, lot 40).

FIRST EDITION, one of the earliest books printed by the first printer of Cologne. Ulrich Zel, a clerk in the diocese of Mainz was a pupil of Gutenberg's assistant Peter Schöffer. Zel founded the first printing press in Cologne around 1464. The Alphabetum divini amoris is one of five printed with the first state of Zel's first type, one of which is dated 1466. The text, of unknown authorship, is variously ascribed in editions to Johannes Gerson, Thomas à Kempis, Johannes Nider or Nikolaus Kempf. BMC I, 179; BSB-Ink A-432; Goff A-524; GW 1554; HC 7631.