Printed in 1459 by Johannes Fust and Peter Schöffer, this copy of Gulielmus Duranti’s Rationale Divinorum is estimated at €280,000 in the Reiss & Sohn October 29-31 series of book, map, manuscript, photograph and print sales.
When published in 1459, Gulielmus Duranti’s Rationale Divinorum, an influential and much reprinted compendium on the mystical origins and meaning of the liturgies, was only the fourth book to be printed using moveable types.
It was also produced in a more familiar-looking text type than the gothic types used in the Gutenberg Bible and two psalters issued by Fust and Schöffer.
Printed on vellum and in a later, Rivière binding, it is one of just three copies in private hands.
In 1987, as part of the great Estelle Doheny library, this copy sold for $85,000 at Christie’s in New York.
It is now estimated at €280,000.
