Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu Christi. Venice, Andreas de Bonetis, 12 March 1485

Folio (278 x 190mm). [250]ff (including blanks a1, B12, H6). Double columns, roman type. 18th-century calf-backed vellum boards, gilt spine (light wear at spine, a few small wormholes at foot).  

 

Annotated first edition - and the only one to be published in the 15th century - of The Tree of the Crucified Life of Jesus Christ, the most important work of Ubertino of Casale.   

Ubertino da Casale (1259-c. 1329) was an Italian Franciscan and one of the leaders, and last great exponent, of the Spirituali, a branch of the Franciscan order who held to the strict observance of Saint Francis’ Rule of poverty. Being a passionate preacher who propagated rigorist ideas, Ubertino often found himself at odds with the ecclesiastical authorities of the time, publicly criticising other Franciscan friars and even the Popes of his time, guilty of adapting a looser interpretation of the Rule. As a result, he was banished to the convent of Mount Alverna (around 1305), where he wrote the The Tree of the Crucified Life of Jesus Christ, his major work. The animosity between Ubertino and the papal authority escalated as a result, until he was excommunicated in 1318. He travelled through Europe to escape being arrested as a heretic, but after 1328 every trace of him is lost. Some suppose that in 1332 he left the Benedictine order (which he had joined in 1317) and joined the Carthusians, while the Fraticelli (successors of the Spirituali) believed that he was murdered in 1330 and venerated him as a martyr.  

His figure provoked such a stir that Ubertino enjoys a long tradition in Italian literature: he is mentioned in Dante’s Divina Commedia (“ma non fia da Casal né d'Acquasparta,\ là onde vegnon tali alla scrittura,\ ch' uno la fugge, e l'altro la coarta”, Paradiso XII, vv. 124-126) and he appears as a character in Umberto Eco’s historical novel The Name of the Rose (1980).  

The Arbor (1305) is a monumental work, and it is one of the oldest, if not the earliest example of the successful early medieval genre of the Vita Christi. It is a compendious life of Christ in five books, in which each part of the tree corresponds to a period in the life of Christ culminating with the fruits, which represent the Church and its history. The text enjoyed a very substantial transmission in the late medieval period, so much so that it can be considered a bestseller. But despite being widely read, it only had one printed edition in the 15th century: all later editions are either translations in vernacular languages or publications of Book V, which often circulated separately. 

This copy is a witness to Ubertino’s reception in the early age of print. There are occasional annotations in Latin, slightly trimmed, by a contemporary reader. They are mostly corrections and underlining of certain passages, showing the reader’s specific interests, and there is also an attempt of rubrication on a5r. But the most significant aspect of these annotations is their almost concentrated presence in chapter 38 of Book 4, entitled Iesus electam elevans (Jesus elevates the chosen ones), where Ubertino writes about the Virgin Mary and how she was raised by her Son to eternal glory. Furthermore, the annotator added in capitals below the incipit: ET POSTEA MONACHUS CARTUSTENSIS, clearly sharing the opinion of those who believed that Ubertino had joined the Carthusians in the final years of his life. 

Provenance: Initials “Z.S.” on the verso of the first leaf suggest very early ownership, possibly by the same hand that annotated the text. On the same page four later stamps: an ink stamp from the library of the Jesuit training Seminary at Vals (France), and three woodblock stamps (one bearing the letter P and two the letter A). 

Occasional spotting or small stain, light marginal dampstain in quires n-o, tiny hole in last leaf

ISTC iu00055000. HC *4551. BMC V, 361. Bod-inc U-008. Goff U-55. 
 

Stock Code: 246165