[A.A. Luce, editor]. LIMITED. The Book of Durrow in Two Volumes. Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Durmachensis. Olten, La...
Description
Limited Facsimile Edition of
The Book of Durrow
[A.A. Luce, editor]. LIMITED. The Book of Durrow in
Two Volumes. Evangeliorum Quattuor Codex Durmachensis.
Olten, Lausanne and Freiburg: Urs Graf-Verlag, 1960. Two folio
volumes. Limited edition of 650 copies, of which this is copy
number 487. The first volume is a reproduction of the 248 paged
codex in black and white with seventeen tipped in color facsimiles;
and is bound in full tan morocco, stamped on the front board with
the knotted pattern from the recto of the last leaf and titles on
the spine. The second volume of text [xv, 239 pages], discussing
the book and its background, has four pages of black and white
photos and several in-text illustrations; and is bound in quarter
tan morocco with the title on the spine. The first volume has
bleedthrough in the borders of the endpapers from leather turn-ins
and light discoloration from dust jacket flap. Both books with
small holograph pencil numbers on the free endpapers, and light
thumb creases on a few pages. Both volumes in unprinted dust
jackets with holograph pen titles on spines, edge and fold wear,
tears and fold separation, soiling and smudges, and some paper
loss. Cellophane tape repairs on both the front and back of the
first volume's dust jacket; otherwise near fine condition books in
worn and damaged dust jackets. From the Krown & Spellman
Collection.Please visit HA.com/6127 for an extended description of this lot.
More Information:
"The Book of Durrow, here reproduced, is an ancient vellum manuscript that belonged from early days to the Columban monastery of Durrow. For all that is known to the contrary it may have been written there. The manuscript is now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, where its press-mark is A.4.5, and its number 57 in Abbott's catalogue. Its historic title is 'The Book (or, Gospel) of Colum Cille'. By scholars it is known as Codex Durmachensis, and it has the abbreviation durm. and dur.
"This reproduction in both the editio princeps and an editio diplomatica. Extracts, collations, and specimens of the ornament have been published before, but now for the first time the contents of the whole codex, text and ornament, are made generally accessible. The reproduction is a page for page replica, as exact as photography can make it. The order and contents of the pages are those of the original; and the text and ornament of the manuscript with what is left of its margins as reproduced in their actual size.
"Seventeen pages are reproduced in colour, viz. 1V, 2R, 3V, 8V, 21V, 22R, 23R, 84V, 85V, 86R, 124V, 125V, 126R, 191V, 192V, 193R, 248R. These include all the ornamented pages, unless the five pages if Canon Tables (of which only one, 8V, is reproduced in colour) deserve that appelation. "Colour Selection" was the photographic method employed. The black and white photographs were taken during the re-binding under very favourable conditions; for the leaves were detached; they had just been flattened, and had no yet been re-sewn.
"Since this edition was undertaken, the whole codex has been reconstructed . and its original order of leaves restored. It is now a new document (for many purposes of scholarship), and can be studies and described with an ease and confidence hitherto impossible."
-From "The Present Edition" on page 3 of Volume Two.
Auction Info
Buyer's Premium per Lot:
25% on the first $100,000 (minimum $14), plus 20% of any amount between $100,000 and $1,000,000, plus 12% of any amount over $1,000,000 per lot.
Terms and Conditions | Bidding Guidelines and Bid Increments | Glossary of Terms