Search Results: Titles starting with L from Littera Scripta

"The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just."
Recto:Six lines of music written on parchment in square neumes on red-ruled four-line staves with a key signature. Rubrics in red. The accompanying text is written in Latin in a refined gothic rotunda bookhand. One illuminated initial - "L" - in blue with decorative red penwork.
Verso: As Recto with two illuminated initials and a number CLXXIIII in the margin.
Source: Probably Spain
Date: Early part of the 16th century - c. 1525
Content: The leaf includes part of the Gregorian chant Os Justi (The mouth of the righteous). The text is taken from two verses of Psalm 36 (KJV 37) and reads: Os justi meditabitur sapientiam: et lingua ejus loquetur judicium. Lex Dei ejus in corde ipsius: et non supplantabuntur gressus ejus. (The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks what is just. The law of his God is in his heart: and his feet do not falter.
Condition: The Recto of this leaf is in very good condition with… Read More

An original post incunable leaf with splendid woodcut headers and initials from the gazetteer of a French edition of the "Geographica".
The most popular geographical work to be printed from movable type in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was Ptolemy's Geographica or Cosmography. Originally compiled by the Alexandrian geographer, astronomer, and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy in the second century A.D., it was translated from Greek into Latin in Florence, Italy about 1410. Ptolemy lived from approximately 90 to 170 AD and worked in the library at Alexandria from 127 to 150 AD.
Verso: A leaf from Book 8 with a woodcut page header which depicts an angel supporting a scroll bearing Ptolemy's name and two scholars at either end with dividers and a rule. One 7-line woodcut initial "E" with an elaborate internal foliate design. Printed on laid paper in a roman typeface, paginated 148, marginal notes in an italic font.
Recto: As Verso, with three four-line woodcut initials and a slightly different… Read More

Verso: Text in two columns printed in a gothic font on laid & watermarked rag paper. Heading Tractatus (Treatise). One woodcut of lions. Spaces have been left at the start of each chapter for an illuminator to add the capital letters by hand.
Recto: As Verso with woodcuts of lizards and llamas. Heading: De Animalibus (On Animals).
Source: Strasbourg Printer: Johann Prüss Date: c.1497
Condition: This leaf is in good/very good antiquarian condition with just the expected edge browning and some light page-turning stains in the bottom margin, well away from the text. Full margins and a clear watermark. The leaf is unconditionally guaranteed genuine.
Notes: The Hortus Sanitatis (Garden of Health) is the most comprehensive work on natural history produced in the Middle Ages. It contains all the knowledge then available on plants, beasts, fishes, birds, and minerals, together with their curative uses. The unnamed author was either a German physician, Johann Wonnecke von Kaub (1430-1503) or Johannes von… Read More