Der ewigen Weyssheit büchlin.
Dillingen, S. Mayer 1567.
8vo. [xvi], 208 leaves. TWENTY-EIGHT TEXT WOODCUTS, title in red and black in a fleuron frame.
Contemporary calf over beveled wooden boards ?by Jakob Preisger of Würzburg (worn, slight loss), military bust portrait roll with two shields — one bearing a pine tree and the other signed IP (see Haebler, Rollen- und Plattenstempel I: 332-4 and EBDB r001032), central rectangle with a repeated acanthus roll, ruled spine, printed and manuscript paper labels, brass catches (lacks clasps).
“HIS PROSE IS POETRY” (ADB, tr.). Originally composed for Elsbeth Stägel (c. 1300-60), this was read silently alone, aloud at meals in convents or at home with family gathered round.
Dedicated to the merchant banking heiress Ursula Fugger (1521-73), this is the first edition of Adam Walasser’s High German version. In 1589 this copy belonged to Barbara ?Andarger of Egg (signature) before passing to the Capuchins at Stans then at Sursee (inscriptions and stamps). The only example in the U.S. I sold twenty years ago. Handsoiled, seductive.
¶Suso, The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom ed. & tr. Clark; Breuer, “Zur Druckgeschichte und Rezeption der Schriften Heinrich Seuses” in Frömmigkeit in der frühen Neuzeit 36-8; VD 16 S 6102.
Price: $6,600.00