GRÉGOIRE I. Moralia in Job. Moralia Sancti... - Lot 55 - Ader

GRÉGOIRE I. Moralia in Job. Moralia Sancti Gregorij pape in libros beati Job una cum duabus]. Brescia: Angelo Britannico, June 2, 1498. - Fort petit in-4, 189 x 135 : (425 ff.) sur 426, mq le dernier blanc [sig. 1-4 ()4 5-8 ()4 AA-BB8 a-z8 2(culbuté)8 ↄ8 મ8 A-Y8 Z9 (sur 10)] ; car. goth. two columns of 51 lines. Glazed dark brown calf, gilt fillets framed on the plates, spine ribbed with gilt fillets, inner gilt fillets (Weckesser and his sons). Copinger, II, 2780 - Proctor, 6996. - BMC, VII, 979-980 - Gothic incunabulum edition of the Morales on Job composed by Pope Gregory I in the 6th century . These Morales are a commentary divided into 35 books, at once literal, historical, mystical and above all moral of the book of Job. Gregory had been sent as apocrisiary to the court of Constantinople, where he spent seven years from 579 to 586, and it is in the spiritual conferences given to the Roman monks who accompanied him during his mission that the origin of this work can be seen. More than a commentary, the future pope gave the rules of morals and the true principles of the interior life. It was the principal study of this Old Testament book throughout most of the Middle Ages. The editio princeps was published in the early 1470's. It was donated to Brescia in 1498 and printed in Gothic characters by Angelo Britannico (14-1517). It is ornamented with numerous small woodcut letters. Good copy bound by Weckesser and son, of which only the last white leaf is missing. It has many ink annotations in the margins, some unfortunately cut by the bookbinder. A larger note, by the same hand, appears under the colophon, dated 1516, with an ex-libris whose name has unfortunately been crossed out. Some slight scratches on the plates. Restoration at the top inner corner of the pages of the first notebook, with damage to a few words, freckles and dirt on the first page, traces of light wetness without gravity