A fine wide-margined copy of the second edition. The first of two Augsburg editions printed in two years by Johann Schüssler, of a work composed by a contemporary author, Cardinal Juan de Torquemada; the first edition of 1470 had been published in Rome by Ulrich Han.
This edition is dated 1471 from a purchaser’s note in the copy at Innsbruck. It is printed in the earliest types of Gunther Zainer, the first Augsburg printer, who appears to have sold the types to Schüssler in 1470. They were last used by Zainer in a dated book in January 1470, five months before the completion of Schüssler’s first dated book. ISTC list only 13 works from Schüssler’s press, which was only active from 1470 to 1473; much of his printing shop appears to have been bought by the Augsburg Benedictine monastery of SS Ulrich and Afra where Abbot Melchior of Stanheim established a monastic press active from 1472-1476/7.
This influential 15th century work on the Latin Psalter was by Cardinal Juan de Torquemada (1388-1468), a native of Valladolid, and formerly a Dominican monk. He was a champion of papal supremacy at various councils and was named Defensor Pacis by Pope Eugenius IV. His works were widely read and he appears to have been the first living author to have a work printed when his Meditationes was published by Ulrich Han in Rome in 1468. This commentary on the Psalms, first published in 1470, was dedicated to Pope Pius II and completed in 1463; it was mainly based on the writings of Chrysostomus, Augustinus, Cassiodorus and Remigius.
Provenance: a few contemporary annotations (some cropped). Augustinian Canons of the Lateran Congregation of St. Nicolaus in Passau, Bavaria (dissolved 1803); their inscription on first leaf “Iste liber est Mo[na]steri Sancti Nicolai patavine” and 18th-century armorial bookplate on front pastedown. Charles Harry St John Hornby (1867-1946) founder of the Ashendene Press, his bookplate and label ‘From the Library of C.H. St John Hornby, Shelley House, Chelsea’ on front pastedown). W. Senn-Dürck, Basel-Riehen (1904-2001; booklabel).
Very occasional unobtrusive finger-soiling, some minor marginal wormholes with one skilful repair in margin of first leaf.
ISTC it00518000. H *15693. GW M48192. BMC II 328. Goff T-518.
