Bernard of Clairvaux 1475

BERNARD of Clairvaux, Saint (1090–1153).
Sermones de tempore et de sanctis, et de diversis.
Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 14 April 1475. (06114)

Schoeffer printed the first edition of the collected sermons of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a highly influential spiritual teacher who did much to make the Cistercian monasteries of Clairvaux and Cîteaux in Champagne into the dual centers of Christian mysticism and monastic life in the twelfth century. For his eloquence and piety Bernard was regarded the greatest of the Cistercian writers and the last of the Church Fathers.

On the first leaf of Bridwell Library’s copy, the nine-line initial space has been filled not with an “H” but with a very fine ink drawing of an unidentified coat of arms. On leaf 93 is an ownership inscription, apparently unrelated to the coat of arms, that reads “Jacobus Bosschaert anno 1480 Augustus 17.”