Tractatus Sancti Bonaventure qui Vocatur Lignum Vite

Authors

Saint Cardinal Bonaventure

Files

Description

This item is a bound set of unpaginated, folio leaves taken from a longer work; it is only part of a book. The leaves are about 10.25 inches in height. The text by Bonaventure is a meditation on the life of Christ using an allegory of a tree and its fruits to denote various virtues. An English translation of this item’s title is “A Treatise of Saint Bonaventure which is Called the Tree of Life.” The title is usually spelled in Latin “Lignum Vitae.” These leaves are taken from the longer work Tractatus Sancti Bonauenture [Cologne, Germany: Bartholomaeus de Unkel, Johann Koelhoef, the Elder], 1484 -1485.

Publication Date

1484

Publisher

Bartholomaeus de Unkel, Johann Koelhoef, the Elder

City

Cologne, Germany

Keywords

Theology, Incunabula, Versals, Meditation, Allegory

Comments

This item is an example of “incunabula,” the earliest printed books in the West, dating from the origin of printing in about 1440 through 1500. The Latin text is printed in two columns. A notable feature in this item is the presence of three-line, hand-drawn versals appearing throughout the text. The versals are red and are sometimes enhanced with silver.

Recommended Citation

Bonaventure, Saint Cardinal, "Tractatus Sancti Bonaventure qui Vocatur Lignum Vite" (1484). Special Collections Books. 2.
https://collected.jcu.edu/books/2