Pliny, the Elder. Historia naturalis. Venice, Nicolas Jenson, 1472.
A very fine edition in vellum. The illustrations and initials are by Franco dei Rossi. The illustrated page below features the coat of arms of an early owner, Francesco Donato, Doge of Venice (1545-53).
The Henry Davis collection is closed and consultation of items is only by prior arrangement with the Special Collections team at Coleraine. Contact the team using the Special Collections email.
This is a brief introduction to the Henry Davis Collection of early printed books held at the Ulster University Library in Coleraine
Henry Davis, 1897-1977, was a businessman who owned factories in London and Belfast, making telephone cable. To escape from this, and in order to provide himself with an interest in his retirement, he began to collect old books. At first he was mainly interested in fine bindings, but his interest grew to encompass the subject matters of the books also.
The bulk of Henry Davis's collection was left to the British Library, but in order to mark his enjoyment of his time in Northern Ireland, he decided to leave a part of his collection to the New University of Ulster, established in Coleraine in 1968.
The collection consists of some 190 printed items, and a few manuscripts, ranging from a leaf of the first book printed using moveable type, the Gutenberg Bible, to the works of the Gregynog and other private twentieth-century presses, and includes examples of the work of some of the most notable of the early printers, especially Aldus Manutius, Nicolas Jenson and Johann and Peter Schoeffer. There are 57 incunabula items dated before 1500 - many of which are still in their original bindings.
The collection is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history of printing and book illustration, literature, the classics, the Renaissance and the development of scientific thought. Visitors and researchers are always welcome. Some items are listed in ISTC
A full catalogue of the collection has been published, and is available for purchase from the University Archive.
External links and resources at other institutions
For this brief introduction nine illustrations are included from seven of the 190 plus items in the collection to give a flavour of the depth and variety of the volumes.
The first illustration comes from Fragments of a Fifteenth Century Antiphoner,
There are 21 vellum leaves in a cloth folder, each with a full- scale illuminated initial.
This initial depicts the visitation of t he Virgin Mary to Elizabeth.
The Library is fortunate to possess a magnificent copy of the famous Fust and Schoeffer Bible of 1462. It has a very distinguished provenance, and is richly illuminated throughout in gold and colours. Two illustrations are reproduced below.
1. The first illustration includes the Incipit: Incipit epistola sancti Iheronimi ad paulinum presbiterum.
2. The second illustration is of the last page, where the Colophon giving the publication date of 1462 can be seen.
The fourth illustration is taken from a very fine copy of Aristotle:
Ethica, Politica, Economica. This is the first appearance of any of
Aristotle's works in print, and was published by Johann Mentelin in
Strassburg in 1469.
Aristotle is also the author of the work from which this example is taken. This is Opus Aristotelis de moribus a Leonardo Aretino traductum, published by Paulus Hurus in Zaragotha in 1492.
These illustrations are from the famous Nuremberg Chronicle, of which the University is lucky to have a remarkably splendid copy. This was written by Hartman Schedel and printed by Anton Koberger at Nuremberg in 1493. There are over 2000 woodcuts, and those on the two pages selected are typical of the range and quality of illustrations to be found in this seminal work.
This final example features one of the books in the collection which is particularly noted for its fine binding. This is the Anthologia Graeca, published in Florence by Lorenzo di Alopa in 1494. It is bound in late 15th Century red morocco, with gold and blind tooling. The cover has four borders inside blind rules, with a centre stamp of Alexander the Great in blind intaglio.
