Hebrew Printing in Sabbioneta 1 AFFO, Ireneo - Schulz-Falster Rare ...

of journal contributions, both well-known and obscure. A very valuable
source book for historians of science and technology.
The bibliography was also issued as the Wnal part of ‘Jacobssons technologisches
Wörterbuch oder alphabetische Erklärung aller nützlichen mechanischen
Künste, Manufacturen, Fabriken und Handwerker’ (1781–1795).
Besterman 6020; Petzholdt, p. 727; PoggendorV II. 696–97.
Fine Bindings, Large Paper Copies, and the Sherborne Missale
100 [ROTHELIN – AUCTION CATALOGUE.] Catalogue des
Livres de feu M. l’Abbé d’Orleans de Rothelin. Par G. Martin. Paris,
Gabriel Martin, 1746. £900
8vo, engraved frontispiece portrait of the collector; pp. xii, xxiv, 618;
engraved Rothelin arms to title; some light browning due to paper
quality; contemporary full mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments, giltlettered
spine label; discreet repairs to head and tail of spine, sides a little
scratched, but overall a good copy, priced throughout in ink and with
extensive manuscript annotations.
First edition of the priced auction catalogue of the collection of the Marquis
Charles d’Orleans de Rothelin, one of the most eminent French book collectors
of the eighteenth century. Rothelin had died in 1744, the auction
catalogue was prepared by 1746, but the auction was not held until April
to June 1749 according to a manuscript note in the catalogue. Rothelin’s
collection contained a large number of large paper copies, and books in
Wne bindings, bound by famous binders such as Boyet, Du Seüil, Pasdeloup,
Angeourran and others. Most impressive, however, was his large collection
of historical and illuminated manuscripts, many of them from the
collection of statesman and famous manuscript collector Nicholas Joseph
Foucault (1643–1721), including the Sherborne Missale, the most lavishly
decorated English medieval service book to survive from the Middle Ages,
which is now in the British Library (and can be viewed in its totality on
the British Library’s website). The catalogue was prepared by the auctioneer
Gabriel Martin. In his preface he writes that he discarded the owner’s
classiWcation and instead arranged them according to his own classiWcation,
which he believed better suited to an auction (Taylor p. 14). The books are
arranged by subject matter, beginning with theology, followed by law, arts
and sciences, medicine, mathematics, literature, history, literary history and
bibliography, and Wnally biographies. In all he lists 5036 lots, including 132
manuscripts.
The catalogue is priced throughout in a contemporary hand, and also
contains extensive ‘viewing’ annotations, and a calculation of the Wnal sale
total.
With the Wne engraved portrait of the collector, which is often missing.
Blogie IV, 5; Grolier Club, Printed Catalogues of French Books Auctions... 1643–1830,
82; Peignot p. 121; Taylor, Book Catalogues, pp. 14, 190, 259; H. Hastings, The
Great Book Collectors, pp. 191, 197, 198.
catalogue fourteen