A wonderfully illustrated edition of this catalogue of saints, compiled by Veneto bishop Petrus de Natalibus (fl.late C14th) between 1369 and 1372. First published in Vicenza in 1493, it was an extremely popular work that ran to many editions; perhaps due to its popularity and extensive use, however, we have found few copies of this edition outside Italy. The text of this edition was edited by Antonius Verlus and subsequently revised and augmented by Dominican monk Alberto Castello. A prolific writer and editor of religious and liturgical texts, particularly those that had practical application, Castello collaborated with several printers in Venice in this period, including the Sessa and Lucantonio Giunta. His best-known work is the handbook for priests, the Liber Sacerdotalis, with copiously illustrated opening pages, similar to those here.
Printed in gothic type in two columns, the saints here – both Old and New Testament – are arranged very practically and for ease of reference, by month, according to the ecclesiastical calendar. The first, Vicenza edition was unillustrated, but it was evidently a work that loaned itself to illustration; Mortimer notes the woodcuts in the Zanni-Giunta edition of 1506, along with those in the Lyon edition printed by Sacon in 1514, which contains over 250 (Mortimer, French, 384), and the blocks for which were still in use as late as 1542. In the present work, charming, 8-line historiated woodcuts introduce the entries for better-known saints; while some - like that for St Jerome, depicting him seated, writing at a desk with a lion at his feet – are specific to their subject, many are repeated from the same blocks. The opening page of the first book (leaf ai recto) and the facing page are copiously illustrated; on the verso of ?8 is a large woodcut of the crucifixion, surrounded by a white on black floral border, and outer border of woodcuts of the saints, and God the father and angels at head. Similarly on the facing page is an outer border of vignettes of saints and bars of floral ornament; opening the text is a 12-line woodcut of St Laurence amongst other saints.
The early pages of this volume have been annotated in a neat, sixteenth-century hand; the same hand, on the final leaf, has also copied out two letters of the so-called Pilate cycle. Purportedly epistles written by Pontius Pilate recounting the judgement and final days of Christ, they are apocrypha, written after the events described and not by Pilate (the recipient of the second letter here, for example, came to power after Jesus’ death). The first copied here is Pilate’s letter to Tiberius, praising Jesus’ piety and explaining Pilate’s decision to execute him as the result of popular pressure, and fear of inciting sedition. That on the verso is Pilate’s letter to Claudius, in which he confirms Jesus’ ability to perform miracles and again, explains his reluctance in sentencing him and the pressure from the Jewish population to do so. Unusually the second letter here is dated April, when the date more frequently given is 28 March; it may thus be possible to identify the printed or manuscript source from which it was copied. A controversial figure, Pilate was both exonerated and condemned in the culture and commentary of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. Both letters here paint Pilate in a positive light, as a legislator contending with the pressure of public opinion but sympathetic to Jesus.
Provenance: Pier Francesco Passerini (1612-1695), theologian, his letterpress exlibris to front pastedown with his title – presumably produced during his time as president of the ‘Consiglio supremo di grazia e giustizia’ after 1668. ‘Regarded as one of the finest minds of his time’, Passerini was apostolic protonotary to Urban VIII, personal theological advisor to Ranuccio il Farnese and senior counsellor in the Farnese government, lecturer at the University of Piacenza, and author of several theological, legal and literary works. Passerini ensured in his will that, in the event of his family line ending, his extensive library should be given to the College of Theologians at Piacenza, on the proviso that it be freely available and accessible for consultation in a public library. Accordingly, in 1791 the Passerini library merged with that opened in Piacenza’s Jesuit College after they’d been expelled; the library is still called the Passerini-Landi library after Passerini and another benefactor, Marquis Ferdinando Landi. (see entry for Pier Francesco Passerini in Treccani).
Edit 16 CNCE 41625. Adams N47. Essling 1511. Sander 4941. OCLC (US: NYPL, Trinity College, UCLA & Yale only).
