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A rare 16th-century Dutch devotional work printed in Antwerp

[FLORIS VAN HAARLEM].
Den wech des levens. Een gheestelijc boecxken leerende hoe dat ee[n] goet kerste[n] mensch moet beginne[n] en[de] voortgaen in duechden, met veel devote ghebede[n] en[de] gheestelike corte vermaninghe[n] om tot een warachtich gheestelijc leven te comen.
[Antwerp, Heyndrick Peetersen van Middelburg, 1547?]. 8vo. With title printed in black and red, within woodcut borders. Contemporary slightly overlapping parchment, remnants of ties. [200] ll.
€ 7,500
Third (?) edition of a rare 16th-century Dutch devotional work written by Floris van Haarlem, Carthusian prior at Louvain and edited by the Antwerp priest Simon van Planen. With a dedicatory letter to Gheraert Heerman, rector and confessor of the Roman Catholic monasteries at Leiden, dated Louvain, 2 April 1542. The work itself is divided into four treatises, with an extensive index.
The colophon at the end of the work is cut off, but the privilege at the end is granted to Heyndrick Peetersen and dated 17 January 1546. Because an edition of 1546 is unrecorded, it seems likely that this is the edition published in 1547. Other edition were published by Peetersen van Middelburg in 1542, 1544 and 1552, followed by two other editions in 1564. A Latin translation by Nicolaus Zegerus appeared in 1656 as Via vitae, libellus plane aureus,... Only a few copies of the several editions are known.
With library stamp of "St. Hugh's, Parkminster" and manuscript owner's inscription entry of "Pieter Loontjens, filius Johannis" on flyleaf. First and last leave somewhat soiled, four leaves loose in the last quire, some occasional thumbing and colophon on last leave cut off and restored. Binding slightly soiled and spine chipped. Still a good copy. Cf. BCNI 01998, 02056, 02135, 02329, 02870, 02871; Belg. Typ. 5805, 1159-1162; BMC STC Dutch, p. 76; Jaspers 289-292; Machiels F-155-158.
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Early printing & manuscripts  >  Religion & Devotion
Religion & devotion  >  Books of hours, Missals & Prayerbooks