BRUNO of Cologne, Saint ; [Zaccaria FERRERI]. Opera & Vita post indicem serie literaria indicanda.

BRUNO of Cologne, Saint ; [Zaccaria FERRERI]. Opera & Vita post indicem serie literaria indicanda.Bruno's Bruno BRUNO of Cologne, Saint; [Zaccaria FERRERI]. Opera & Vita post indicem serie literaria indicanda. [Paris] : Jodocus Badius Ascensius. [27 March 1524.] Folio. Bound in pigskin over boards in 1939 by W. H. Smith and Son (rear turn in signed in blind) for Sotherans (twentieth century ink stamp to front free endpaper), preserving a few deckle edges; ff. [8 (contents)], DXX; 8 az8 AH8 2A2Z8 3a3g8 3h10 2A8 2B6 2C8, f. DVIII misfoliated, f.

Bruno's Bruno

BRUNO of Cologne, Saint; [Zaccaria FERRERI]. Opera & Vita post indicem serie literaria indicanda. [Paris] : Jodocus Badius Ascensius. [27 March 1524.]

Folio. Bound in pigskin over boards in 1939 by W. H. Smith and Son (rear turn-in signed in blind) for Sotheran’s (twentieth-century ink stamp to front free endpaper), preserving a few deckle edges; ff. [8 (contents)], DXX; †8 a–z8 A–H8 2A–2Z8 3a–3g8 3h10 2A8 2B6 2C8, f. DVIII misfoliated, f. CCCXCVIII blank; roman letter, gothic running-titles, text in two columns, 6 large in-text woodcut illustrations, 2-, 6-, and 10-line woodcut criblé initials, title printed in red and black within an elaborate woodcut architectural border depicting a printer at work; a few scratches to rear board; slight worming at inner upper margin of first 4 ff. subtly repaired, last 4 ff. reinforced at gutter; light soiling to f. CCLXXXIXr, small marginal oilstain to quire 2Z; pinhole wormhole to first 3 quires touching a single character per page, light marginal spotting to quire D, pale marginal dampstaining to Vita; twentieth-century bookplate and ownership inscription of Bruno Scott James to front pastedown (see below); a handsome copy.

First edition of the collected works of St Bruno of Cologne (c. 1030–1101), founder of the Carthusian Order, with an illustrated life of the saint and a lengthy poem on the foundation of the Order by the Benedictine-turned-Carthusian Zaccaria Ferreri, our copy from the library of the Benedictine-turned-Carthusian Bruno Scott James.

Under Pope Leo X, the liturgical feast of Bruno of Cologne was authorised on 19 July 1514, and he was made a saint through the process of equivalent canonisation, renewing broader interest in his life and work. The printing of this work was explicitly authorised by the Order: ‘It might be expected that religious orders would authorise a particular edition or publisher when printing liturgical or other books for the use of the order, and discourage the circulation of others. In practice it seems that this was rarely done, at least explicitly. An exception must however be recognised in the case of the Carthusians. ‘For many years the order had laboured to produce an edition of the works of its founder, St Bruno, and by 1524 this project was completed … [Badius Ascensius] received the manuscript, sent to him by the Prior of the order, Gulielmus Bibaucius or Bibaut, from the Grande Chartreuse, and printed in a handsome folio volume in 1523’ (Armstrong, p. 60). Bade’s magnificent woodcut title-page, incorporating his device of a printer at work, is Renouard’s Marque II, in the fourth state, used from April 1522 to September 1529.

Following Bruno’s works is a detailed biography of the saint with six striking woodcut illustrations illustrating episodes from his life, as well as laudatory epigrams, choriambic and hendecasyllabic verse by several poets, and a thirteen-page poem on the life of Bruno in heroic verse by Zaccaria Ferreri of Vicenza (1479–1524). Ferreri had entered the Benedictine monastery of Santa Giustina in Padua at the age of fifteen, and in April 1508 entered the Charterhouse of Venice; the following year, however, he was forced to return to his original Order under a new Carthusian decree preventing the transfer of monks. His preface to the poem is dated five days before the kalends of May 1508, almost immediately after his turn to the Carthusian Order, and he died in 1524 as Bishop of Guardalfiera in Molise only a few months after the publication of the present work.

Provenance: the somewhat eccentric Catholic priest Bruno Scott James (1906–1984) had entered the Anglican Benedictine Monastery at Pershore as a young man and studied the works of the Church Fathers extensively before taking instruction from the Carthusians at Parkminster; following stints at Downside Abbey and the Certosa of Florence, he was appointed canon of the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere with the title of Monsignor. His health issues caused him to return to England later in life; a member of the Travellers Club, he is perhaps best known for his translation of the Letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux, aided by Thomas Merton, and his biographical work Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, of which C. S. Lewis owned a copy.

Adams B-2936; Basler Buchillustration 62; BP16 104798; BM STC French, p. 84; Brunet I, col. 1296; CLC B2494; Moreau III 624; Pettegree and Walsby, French Books 59297; Renouard, ICP III 624; Renouard, Badius Ascensius II, pp. 227–8; Renouard, Imprimeurs et libraires parisiens II 535; USTC 145663. See Armstrong, Before Copyright: The French Book-Privilege System 1498–1526 (2002).

SKU: 2123942