[Rarebooks] fa: FLORUM HISTORIAE ECCLESIASTICAE GENTIS ANGLORUM 1654 - Bishop of Kilmore's Copy

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

After a long summer hiatus...

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, September 21. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/arch_in_la/m.html?item=351168108877&

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

Richard Smith: Florum Historiae Ecclesiasticae Gentis Anglorum, Libri septem, Ex quibus dulcissimum mel Catholicae religionis, Eiusque admirabiles fructus in ea gente copiosissimè colliguntur. Collectore Richardo Smitheo Episcopo Chalcedonense. His adiuncta est Epistola eiusdem ad Iacobum Regem de mutuis officijs inter summos pontifices & M. Britanniae Reges. Parisiis: apud Fredericum Leonard, 1654. Presumed first (and only) edition. Text in Latin. Folio (33 cm) in early/period mottled calf, sympathetically rebacked in modern calf with gilt-lettered morocco spine label; [8], 428 [i.e. 430], [2] pp.; woodcut vignette, decorated initials, head- and tail-pieces, and borders.

A history of the Catholic Church in England written by Richard Smith (1566-1655), a Lincolnshire-born Catholic recusant and controversialist who spent most of his life in exile. Appointed Apostolic Vicar for England, Scotland and Wales, he returned to his homeland in 1625, but was forced to flee three years later when a warrant was issued for his arrest. He removed to Paris, where he lived with Cardinal Richelieu until the latter's death in 1642.

Binding a bit bumped and worn at the corners; some soiling and toning to the title-page, light toning and a few scattered spots thereafter, but otherwise quite clean and sound, firmly bound. A handsome copy with an intriguing provenance: a hard-to-decipher penciled annotation on the front paste-down seems to read, "[Jos?] Horte's the Bishop of Kilmore's copy with his autograph," and the signature on the title-page appears to bear this out. Josiah Horte (d. 1751) was bishop of Kilmore, County Cavan, Ireland, and later archbishop of Tuam. The first (modern) preliminary blank leaf bears the 19th-century bookplate of noted English Roman Catholic antiquary and bibliographer Joseph Gillow. The second (older or original) blank bears an ink inscription in an 18th-century hand: "N: this Book in Large paper was sold in the Auction of Cardinal Dubois Library at ye Hague for 11.14-0 Anno 1725."