Prices of Books: An Inquiry into the Changes in the Price of Books which have occurred in England at different PeriodsWheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
History
Prices of Books: An Inquiry into the Changes in the Price of Books which have occurred in England at different Periods
Wheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
Books -- Prices -- History
---- Noctes. Venetiis, per Nicolaum Jenson, 1472, folio. Mead, £2,
12s. 6d.; Askew, £11, 10s.; Sunderland, £13, 10s.
HOMERUS. Opera Omnia. Florentiæ sumpt. Bern. et Nerii Nerliorum,
1488, two vols. folio, first edition. The British Museum copy
was purchased for £17; Wodhull, £200; Sunderland, £48.
---- Homeri Odyssea Græce. Florentiæ, 1488, first edition. Duke of
Hamilton, 1884, very large and fine copy, red morocco, by Clarke
& Bedford, £25.
---- On vellum (one of the four known to exist). Dent, part 1, 1827,
£142, 16s.
HORATIUS. Opera. 1470, small folio, first edition, with a date.
Sunderland, £29. The Naples edition of 1474 is called by Dibdin
“the rarest classical volume in the world,” and it was chiefly
to possess this book that Earl Spencer bought the famous library
of the Duke of Cassano.
JUSTINUS. Venetiis, per Nicolaum Jenson, 1470, small folio, first
edition. Mead, £3, 3s.; Askew, £13, 13s. (sold to the British
Museum); Pinelli, £18, 7s. 6d.; Sunderland, £15.
JUVENALIS ET PERSIUS. Editio Princeps. Dr. Askew gave £3 for his
copy; at his sale it was purchased by the British Museum for
thirteen guineas.
LIVIUS. The first edition, printed at Rome by Sweynheym and
Pannartz, as is supposed, in 1469. The only copy printed on
vellum which is known to exist is now in the Grenville Library
(British Museum). It was for years in the possession of the
Benedictine Library at Milan. It was bought by Sykes at J.
Edwards’s sale (1815) for £903. At Sykes’s sale (1824) it was
bought by Payne and Foss for £472, 10s. These booksellers sold
it to Dent, and at Dent’s sale (1827) bought it again for
Grenville for £262, 10s., a remarkable instance of depreciation
in price of a unique book.
The editor of this series contributed an article on this copy to
_The Library_ (vol. i. p. 106). The arms of the Borgia family
are beautifully painted on the first page of the text, and it
has usually been supposed that Cardinal Roderigo Borgia
(afterwards Pope Alexander VI.), to whom it belonged, was Abbot
of the monastery of Subiaco (where the first productions of
Sweynheym and Pannartz were executed) at the time the book was
printed. It is proved in the article, however, that the abbey
was not conferred upon Borgia by Sixtus IV. until 1471, so that
the connection is merely a coincidence. This magnificent volume
was probably executed for Borgia, whose character, as delineated
by Raphael Volaterranus, is evidently imitated from Livy’s
character of Hannibal.
---- Venet. Vindelin de Spira, 1470, two vols. folio, printed on
vellum. Sunderland, £520.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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