[ASSISI (Saint Francis of)]. Incipit The little flowers Of St. Francis of Assisi Translated from The Italian by T.W. Arnold, M.A, [sic] With a Note by Dr. Guido Biagi. Chatto and Windus, London; New York - Duffield and Co: 1908. Med.8vo; fine coloured collotype frontispiece with tissue guard captioned in red precedes wood-engraved title-page after a 1504 original; six four-colour engravings by Löwy of Vienna and G.W. Jones, Ltd., printed by H. Stone & Son, Ltd., and four engraved and printed by E[dmund]. Evans, Ltd.; twenty-four half-tone plates; b8 (the first leaf of the index of Illustrations) is here a cancel tipped onto a stub; final leaf bearing publisher’s device on recto, blank on verso; pp.xxxii+318+[ii]; white buckram blocked and lettered gilt on front cover with a replica of “a binding embodying the arms of St. Francis by Aldus Manutius of Venice, date circa 1500”, blocked and lettered gilt on spine; t.e.g., others uncut. Very slight darkening to spine, and gilt at extreme tail a trifle rubbed; corners of boards bruised; made up without back end-papers (v. note); a few margins damp-stained; otherwise, and in general a nice copy, with the back panel and one flap of the dust-wrapper loosely laid in.

GB £90.00

US $144.00

A proof copy of the large-paper edition purchased by us from the publisher’s file. Loosely laid in is a proof pull of one sheet of the four-colour plates (printed four-up), marked up in pencil with notes and queries by an editor, and suggesting among other things that 240 copies of the large-paper edition may have been printed. Also loosely laid in is a proof pull of one sheet (printed eight-up) of a gathering of the small-paper edition. Additionally a number of slips of paper bearing pencilled notes are inserted at various points in the text, and the list of Illustrations has been marked up with crosses and ticks suggesting (in conjunction with some of the notes referred to above) that the frontispiece and two of the four-colour plates, as well as all of the half-tone plates were not to be included in the small paper edition. According to the back panel of the dust-wrapper, the book, issued as a volume of ‘The Art and Letters Library’, was to be available in ‘Large crown 8vo., buckram, 7s. 6d. net per vol.; Edition de Luxe, small 4to, printed on pure rag paper, parchment, 15s. net per vol.; vellum, 20s. net per vol.; polished morocco, 30s. net per vol.’ Though the ‘large crown 8vo’ is correct by the proof-sheet, it is evident from the present proof that the ‘small 4to’ was actually med.8vo. The white buckram binding of the present copy is evidently a trial of the blocking (which appears to be in real gold), and in terms of the published book is wholly anomalous. A sumptuously conceived edition reproducing numerous paintings and illustrations from early manuscript sources including for the first time reproductions “of the quaint illustrations relating to events in the life of the Saint of Assisi contained in the ‘Codice Laurenziano Gaddiano CXII’ - a parchment manuscript belonging to the second half of the fourteenth century, described by Bandini in his catalogue of the Laurentian Library (Florence, 1792; Supplem. col. 124)”.
Ref: NRT817120