FROM ERFURT MONASTIC LIBRARY: Divi Cyrilli Alexandrini episcopi theologi præstantissimi Opera qvæ hactenvs haberi potvere, in tomos qvinqve digesta: nam quintus hac editione accessit : cuiusuis tomi elenchum, & quid quoq[ue] libro doceatur sequentes paginæ indicabunt. Cum indice totius operis rerum & uerborum. de Cyril, Saint, Patriarch of Alexandria, ca. 370-444 - 1566

Basel; per haeredes Ioannis Hervagii et Eusebium Episcopium, 1566, 1566. 1st Edition . Hardcover. Very Good. Large thick folio; [x], [386], [ii], [222], [186], [152], [32], [xvi], [324]pp. Five volumes in one, each with separate title page, pagination and closing printer's device. In contemporary ornately blindstamped pigskin over bevelled oak boards (lightly soiled, spine ends and corners worn with minor loss, headband stitching broken), with original working metal hasps and clasps, five raised double bands to spine with early handwritten ink title in top compartment, and early title additionally written in ink across upper fore-edge. 18th century engraved library label to front pastedown, old library stamp on reverse of title page, early monastic and mid-eighteenth century inscriptions to first title page. Mild occasional browning, two unobtrusive wormholes to front board and first few quires touching the occasional letter, otherwise complete and clean with occasional ornamental capitals. The monastic inscription is that of Erfurt monastic library. Erfurt Augustinian Protestant monastery is famed as the home of Martin Luther in the early sixteenth century, and though the monastery was disestablished in the 1560s, its library continued into the nineteenth century. Monumental edition, the first thus, of the works of Saint Cyril of Alexandria, the fifth volume of which carries a dedication to Elizabeth I dated 1562. The original Gothic binding remains exceptionally sturdy and strong, carrying blindstamped images of religious figures and accompanying floral and other motifs within a framework of panelling.