A Garrett Godfrey Binding Owned by Dr. Simon Heynes

Desiderius Erasmus (d. 1536).
Paraphrases Erasmi Roterodami in aliquot Pauli apostoli epistolas.
Basel: Johann Froben, 1523. (AEN4977)

This binding bears the signed panel stamp used by Garrett Godfrey, a bookseller and binder active in Cambridge from 1502 until his death in 1539. Like many of England’s binders of the period, Godfrey came from the Netherlands (Limburg). In 1513 his countryman Erasmus, the author of this book, came to study at Cambridge and stayed in Godfrey’s home. Signatures within the book indicate that this binding is one of very few surviving examples once owned by one of Godfrey’s recorded customers, the Cambridge theologian Simon Heynes (d. 1552).

The calfskin binding is one of at least fourteen that survive with Godfrey’s panel stamp with the monogram, “GG.” These initials appear on the upper cover within a shield at the foot of a large Tudor rose surrounded by scrolls bearing the couplet “Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno Eternu[m] florens regia sceptra feret.” On either side of the rose are two angels in a field of flowers with the arms of St. George on the left and those of the City of London on the right. The panel stamp on the lower cover bears the royal arms of Henry VIII beneath a crown, all supported by two angels amid flowers.

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The Sixteenth Century
A Garrett Godfrey Binding