Sermones Parati de tempore et de sanctis (Sermones de tempore only) Incunable,1495

Strassburg]: (Martin Flach). Good with no dust jacket. 1495-1500. Hardcover. Small 4to measuring 8" x 5". This is the complete first part of the work -- de tempore -- with 178 leaves. (The "de sanctis" portion would add 96 leaves, not present here.) Rubricated initials throughout and touched with red throughout as well. Binding is probably a 19th century rebinding with leather spine and corners, cream paper boards, the spine with three raised bands and handwritten title and printer, along with a "1498" date -- ISTC dates it to 1495-1500 (ip00099000). Some normal wear to the binding, interior end papers have some oxidizing, light marginal soiling throughout, some scattered dampstaining in the bottom margins, occasional marginalia, one leaf has a tear in the lower margin, another leaf has a marginal restoration, a bit of gutter dampstaining at the rear, but otherwise clean and unmarked, very handsome. 157 short sermons "de tempore." Interesting because the sermons are more like outlines than full sermons, providing the division of a sermon, some commentary, biblical and patristic authorities and a number of examples. A preacher could readily expand the material into a full sermon. This anonymous collection of sermons, known by the words that open the book, "Paratus is judicare vivos et mortuos ...", was extremely popular in the Middle Ages because of its "exempla", tools then indispensable to the argumentation of a medieval preacher. The Sermones include an exemplum in a which a confessor can do nothing for a demon who comes to confession because he is not contrite. (Sermon 2). Beautifully printed by Martin Flach (the elder) who first founded a press in 1469, by 1489 it had become an important imprint in Strassburg specializing in printing for the Roman church. Quite scarce: only one copy in the UK at the British Library and only one in North America. ; 4to 11" - 13" tall .