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Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
JOHN CLIMACUS, Saint. Scala spiritualis. Latin translation by Ambrogio Traversari. Woodcut of St. Ildefonso receiving the chasuble from the Virgin on title. [4], 150 leaves. 4to, 214x142 mm, old limp vellum with spine title in ink and remnants of thong ties, hinges partly cracked; marginal dampstaining at beginning and end with slight paper corrosion in upper outer corners, scattered dampstains elsewhere, title soiled with partly indistinct early monastic ownership inscription in lower margin, ink stains on verso of n8. (Toledo: [successor of Pedro Hagembach], 3 January 1505)
First or second edition in Latin, published contemporaneously with an undated Paris edition printed for Denis Roce. The Spiritual Ladder is a treatise by a 6th-/7th-century Greek monk at the monastery of Mt. Sinai on ascetic spirituality and the attainment of Christian perfection. It first appeared in Italian translation in 1478, and in Spanish in 1504 from the same Toledo press as the Latin edition offered here. In the late 1530s the Spanish version was reputedly the first book printed by the Mexican prototypographer Juan Pablos, but no copy or fragment is known to exist. Norton 1042; Palau 292613. See also lot 268.
