[BOOK XVI].

an old handwritten note on the inside front cover: “Monsieur de Boil (?)”; a 19th-century handwritten note referring to the Descloux, Gonzales, Moreau Chaslon auction, Paris, Drouot, 9–13 April 1877. 

Bechtel D.259. USTC 26400, 6 copies BP16 103794.

A rare ascetic work from the 15th century, by a Celestine monk from the Abbey of Notre-Dame d'Ambert (Loiret). A mystical treatise on divine love, it draws inspiration from Saint Victor, Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Saint-Thierry and Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls, and contains “several highly unusual passages” according to various bibliographies.

Printed three times in Paris, including this edition based on a manuscript version reportedly provided by a nun. Text in blackletter type and wood-engraved initials from the collection of Pierre Vidoue (BnF). This copy features a variant title compared to that cited by Brunet: it does not contain the phrase “with the properties of seraphic love” but is otherwise in every respect consistent with his description. Colophon: “Here ends the book on the discipline of divine love… Printed in Paris on the 28th day of November, by Regnault Chaudière, Bookseller… in the year 1519.” Sign.: [unsigned]8; a-y8 (2 quires signed m, the first of which was erroneously corrected to “l” by hand at the time). A fine copy with red rules, wide margins (h 178 mm) and preserved in its contemporary binding.