[JACOBUS de TERAMO]

Sensuyt la consolation des pecheurs autrement dit Belial procureur infernal Paris, [A. Lotrian], [c. 1534]. BINDING WITH GROTESQUE GILDED BACK. PROVENANCE MORTEMART, MASSÉNA, YEMENIZ, FAIRFAX MURRAY In-4 (176 x 125 mm). Woodcut title in red and black, engraved initials. 39 lines on two columns COLLATION : A8 B-E4 F8 G-Z4 2A-C4 ILLUSTRATION : 1 large woodcut in red on the title page, 21 woodcuts in the text, 1 repeated three times, finial Eighteenth century binding. Red morocco, gilt decoration, triple fillet in frame, long spine decorated in the grotesque style, vertical titling, gilt edges PROVENANCE: Mortemart family (wet heraldic stamp on title page) -- Victor Masséna, Prince of Essling (mark "vm n686", in ink on the flyleaf; his sale, Paris, May 3, 1847, no. 3) -- Nicolas Yemeniz (1783-1871; bookplate; his sale, Paris, May 9-31, 1867, no. 320) -- Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919; Catalogue of a Collection of Early French Books, 1910, t. II, no. 535) -- Librairie Berès (cat. 1987, no. 94, 50 000 FF) -- Librairie Valette (cat. March 1988, no. 8, 75000 FF) -- Paris sale ( 17 Feb. 1999 no. 93, 70000 FF = ) -- Librairie E. Rossignol (cat. June 2001, n° 14, 135000 FF = 20 580 € ) RARITY : according to Bechtel, only two copies have been sold at auction in the last century and a half, this one and the one from the Marquis de Germiny's library in havana morocco. USTC lists two copies in public hands, in the BnF and in the Houghton Library. Copy a little short, a little reddish, quire S mounted before quire R, small restorations to the last quire Jacobus of Teramo (1349-1417) was an Italian archbishop and member of the famous Palladini family. The consolatio peccatorum describes two trials between Lucifer and Christ before the court of King Solomon. Jesus is attacked by the devil for having introduced himself into his Kingdom during his descent into Limbo. The accused has Moses, Isaiah and Aristotle as lawyers, while Lucifer takes Belial. The work of Jacobus of Teramo should be read as an allegory of the political events of the time: the end of the popes in Avignon and the return of the Holy See to Rome in 1378. The outcome of the judgment in the Consolation of the Fishermen goes hand in hand with the resolution of the Western Schism. Both are entrusted to an impartial court of arbitration, namely the Council of Pisa in 1409 and the Council of Constance in 1415. The work of Jacobus of Teramo was published around 1464 in Bamberg by Albrecht Pfister and quickly put on the Index. BIBLIOGRAPHY: USTC no. 73453 -- Bechtel, p. 384, J-13 -- Brunet, Supl. I, col. 686