Ulphilae Versionem Gothicam. [BIBLE].

FROM THE ROYAL LIBRARY AT WINDSOR CASTLE

nonnollorum capitum Epistolae Pauli ad Romanos [...] E Litura Codicis cuiusdam Manuscripti rescripti qui in Augusta apud Guelpherbytanos Bibliotheca adservatur [...] eruit commentatus est datque foras Franciscus Antonius Knittel.

Woodcut head and tailpieces and initials, with 8pp print in red and black, samples of Gothic and Greek type, later coloured lithograph facsimile bound at the end.

4to. [ 271 x 215 x 40 mm]. [4]ff, 532pp. Bound c.1850 in quarter dark purple goatskin, green textured cloth sides with a gilt fillet border. The spine divided into six panels with raised bands tooled with gilt fillets, lettered in the second and fourth on black labels, with Queen Victoria's crest in gilt in the third, marbled endleaves, top edge gilt, the others uncut. (Spine slightly discoloured and a little rubbed).
[Colophon] Guelpherbyti: Ioannes Wilhelmus Bindseil, Ducis Typographicus, [1762].

Darlow & Moule 4562 - "Fragments of Roman, printed from Codex Carolinus, a bilingual (Gothic and Latin) palimpsest of the fifth century, discovered in 1756 in the Library of Wolfenbuttel by F. A. Knittel, who edited them at Wolfenbuttel in 1762. Knittel's work was republished, with additional matter, by J. Ihre [in Uppsala] in 1763".

This is an early example of printing in Gothic, just a century after Junius's editio princeps of the Gothic Gospels.

There is some variable foxing and the volume was originally issued with 12 engraved plates of facsimiles, not present here (a later colour facsimile is bound in at the end). It may be surmised that unbound sheets of the work survived into the 19th century, and were bound up on an ad hoc basis. As not infrequently happens in such cases, the supply of plates was exhausted sooner than the text leaves. It was evidently considered good enough for Windsor Castle as it has the bookplate of the Royal Library, Queen Victoria's crest on the spine and pencil shelf-marks.

Stock no. ebc8047