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Augustine's Confessions & Other Writings | MS 5101

AUGUSTINE: CONFESSIONS & OTHER WRITINGS

MS 5101
MS Short Title AUGUSTINE: CONFESSIONS & OTHER WRITINGS
Text
  1. AUGUSTINUS: CONFESSIONS (CONFESSIONES)
  2. AUGUSTINUS: AGAINST DONATIST HERETICS (DE BAPTISMO CONTRA DONATISTAS)
  3. AUGUSTINUS: ON THE WILL (DE LIBERO ARBITRIO VOLUNTATIS)
  4. AUGUSTINUS: DIVINATION OF EVIL SPIRITS (DE DIVINATIONE DEMONUM)
  5. AUGUSTINUS: RESPONSE TO SEVEN QUESTIONS POSED BY SIMPLICIANUS (DE DIVERSIS QUAESTIONIBUS VII AD SIMPLICIANUM)
  6. AUGUSTINUS: RETRACTATIONES, EXTRACTS AS INTRODUCTIONS TO TEXTS 1 - 5
Description MS in Latin on paper, Southern Germany or Northern Austria, late 15th c., 204 ff. (complete), 31x21 cm, 2 columns, (24x14 cm), 46-47 lines in a cursive Gothic book script, 2 line initials in red touched with yellow, 30 large initials in blue with red, yellow and green infills and extensive marginal flourishing, f.1 with a blue roundel with the IHS monogram.
Binding Germany, 1988, vellum over pasteboard, sewn on 4 cords by Atelier Tiemeyer.
Provenance 1. Heribert Tenschert, Leuchtende Mittelalter, 1989, no 21; 2. Biblioteca philosophica hermetica (Joost R. Ritman), BPH 85, Netherlands (-2001); 3. Sotheby's 19.6.2000:29; 4. Percy Barnevik, Sweden (2001); 5. Christie's 11.7.2002:27. Deaccession May 2010.
Commentary St. Augustinus, Churchfather (354-430), wrote at least 120 different works and 270 letters. The 2 most important are the City of God, and the Confessions. The Confessions is the first autobiography, written shortly after 395. As a spiritual autobiography, it has never been surpassed. The Retractationes is an equally extraordinary and personal work, written towards the end of his life, in 426-27. It is a bibliography of all his writings with a series of frank criticisms and corrections. Extracts were therefore frequently used, as here, to preface the relevant work.
Place of origin Germany / North Austria
Dates late 15c AD