Estimate: | £500 - £800 |
Hammer price: | £600 |
BARTHOLOMEUS ANGLICUS (c. 1203-72) and Stephen BATMAN or BATEMAN (1542-84, co-translator and editor). Batman upon Bartholome, his Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum, Newly corrected, enlarged and amended: with such Additions as are required, unto every several Booke: Taken foorth of the most approved Authors, the like heretofore not translated in English. Profitable for all Estates, as well for the benefit of the Mind as the Bodie, translated by John Trevisa. London: “Imprinted by Thomas East, dwelling by Paules wharfe,” 1582. Folio (276 x 195mm). Title within wide woodcut border, large woodcut coat-of-arms on verso, initials and ornaments, printed in double column, black letter, hand-coloured woodcut coat-of-arms at end (lacks U[i] and Uii but both supplied in crude facsimile, 8-lines of text excised from Bbiiii and replaced in crude facsimile, last few leaves torn at upper edge and repaired with slight loss and some soiling, final 2 leaves torn with more serious loss replaced in crude facsimile, some minor marginal worming, variable mainly light staining, spotting and browning). Old panelled calf, spine with later red morocco lettering-piece and 5 raised bands (rubbed and scuffed). Provenance: intriguing contemporary inscription (partly cropped) at head of title (“But Elizabeth for me … [illegible word] is my name and I love Ane as well as he can and therefor take excepttion”); old inscription on dedication, scribbled out; variously related material loosely-inserted, including a one-page typed letter by Colin Blakemore, Waynflete Professor of Physiology, University of Oxford, to George Engle, dated 1994, relating to the book’s discussion of the human eye [see illustration]; from the Library of the late Sir George Engle. Archbishop Matthew Parker appointed Stephen Batman as one of his domestic chaplains and employed him in the collection of the library now deposited at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (see DNB). The present work, in this translation, is often referred to as ‘Shakespeare’s Encyclopaedia.’ Not in Brunet; STC 1538.