Rationale Divinorum Officiorum..

Strassburg: [Johann Pruss], 1486 Contemporary blindtooled pigskin over oak boards. . Folio. Text in double columns, Gothic type. Rubricated throughout, including a 6-line initial letter with a page long flourish on a4 (folio 1). Binding a bit soiled, spine with old white paint. Lacking fore-edge ties. Two line title with old inscriptions of a Salzburg cloister, The Convent of St. Peter, and of "Domus S. Missionis Benedictinae Schwarzachii." GTwo leaves with a few lines inked out (censored) on folio 245 and 249. Text with some contemporary marginalia. A very clean, wide-margined copy. Guillelmus Duranti (ca. 1237-1296) was a "canonist and one of the most important medieval liturgical writers." He studied at Bologna under Bernard of Parma and then taught at Modena. He spent most of his life in the service of the Pope. This is his most famous work, first published by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz in 1459. It was reprinted at least forty times before 1500. Its eight books contain a detailed account of the laws, ceremonies, customs, and mystical interpretation of the Roman Rite. Book I treats of [religious art and architecture:] the church, altar, pictures, bells, churchyard, etc.; II of the ministers; III of vestments; IV of the Mass; V of the canonical hours; VI of the Proprium Temporis; VII of the Proprium Sanctorum; and VIII of the astronomical calendar, manner of finding Easter, Epacts, etc. [The] Rationale is the most complete medieval treatise of its kind; it is still the standard authority for the ritual of the thirteenth century and for the symbolism of rites and vestments" (Catholic Encyclopedia).