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Johannes
Trithemius. Liber de triplici regione claustralium et spirituali
exercitio |
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4to. [98] leaves. 193 x 135 mm. Our copy rubricated and illuminated; the latter is perhaps 19th C. work. Tooled calf binding over wooden boards, metal corners and clasps.
Trithemius’ handbook on monastic spirituality entitled, “On the three regions of the cloister,” along with a brief “Compendium of spiritual exercise,” was printed during his lifetime in an edition of 1000 copies. Each member of the Congregation of Bursfeld, the reforming group to which Sponheim belonged, was to receive a copy. The Mainz printer Peter Friedberg was a sort of house printer for the Congregation and had already printed more than a dozen of Trithemius’ own works (including, ironically, the treatise In Praise of Scribes) when this manual was printed in August 1498. At the end of that same month, the general chapter of the Bursfeld Congregation—which had commissioned the work five years previously--made Trithemius’ manual the norm for spiritual practice. The three regions of the monastic life are Hell, Purgatory and good observance leading to living union with God.
Our copy obviously belonged to monks who used it in the intended manner. It contains the painted bookplate of a Br. Apollinaris (left), and library notes from the monastery of Amerbach; there is some marginal annotation. One curious feature is that while the book is both rubricated and decorated with painted initials and marginal illustration (right), the latter at least may be much later than the printed book itself; one observer has suggested even a 19th C. date, given the style and color, though done in what was thought to be a medieval manner.
Saint John’s Rare Book Collection. |
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