John Calvin. 1578 Commentarius... Psalmorum, et 1616 Praelectiones in Ezechielis

Two of John Calvin's works, both printed by the Vignon family (although in two different eras), the commentary on Psalms and a look at prophecy in Ezekiel (the first twenty chapters).

Calvin's work in Psalms is expansive and is well-known for its thoroughness. The title page of this 1578 edition states that it was corrected from the earlier editions, and the edits were by Calvin himself. Vignon, the printer, is well-regarded; he married Jean Crispin's daughter and took over the business. The Psalms are parallel text of Latin and Hebrew, with Calvin's commentary in Latin surrounding them.

The second work, Calvin's Praelections in Ezechielis, is a later printing (1616), executed by the son of the above Vignon. This work only goes through the twentieth book of Ezechiel, because Calvin passed away before completing the work.

Bibliographic Details -

Psalmorum - Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 450160, 10 copies recorded in the world's libraries.

Ezechielis - Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) number 1945811, 5 copies recorded in the world's libraries.

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 32.5 x 21 x 6 cm. Folio. Vellum over pasteboard hardcover binding. Front and rear board with the blind impression of an arabesque to the center, a large medallion. Spine with five raised bands, title and author in "old hand"... also, "2.", indicating this works of Calvin included some other books at some point.

Pages - viii,1-676, 14 unpaginated pages of index. viii, 113, 13 unpaginated pages of Index.

Collation - P4, a-z8, A-T8, V6, X4. P4, AAa-VVv6. Collates complete.

Condition -

See pictures. Binding is rough with chipping and cracking along joints, boards held on by cords under. Toning and thumbing to boards, with some edge chips, corner wear, etc. Spine chipped along joints and top and bottom chipped away. Gutters also cracked.

Name on front pastedown. "Z-R" written on flyleaf. Moisture stain from bottom, worst at front of book (comes up into the printer/date). Name written on title page in the 1620s, but clipped by later trimming indicating book binding executed post 1620s. A moisture mark at the top edge, just at edge, intermittent. Title page has a crack near gutter, 1". Also,title page has 1 cm worm track that doesn't extend into the book. Text block with occasional thumb, dog-eared corner, page edge tear/chip, fox spot, candle ember mark, etc. Occasional marginal annotation. Underlining on page 631. Ink spot bottom margin Ez. p.76.