Author: BERNARDUS CLARAVALLENSIS [ ] (BONAVENTURA ?) :
Title: Een nyeu ende seer suyverlick boecxken leerende ende seer ghenoechlic vercleerende die natuer ofte aert van den hemelschen wijngaert/ welck Christus Jesus onse salichmaker selver is....
Description: .: Thantwerpen ( Antwerpen) , Willem Vorsterman, 1537, in-8°, 145 x 95 mm, (144) nn lvs. (coll. A-S8). Title page within an ornamental woodcut. Printer's mark on last page. Page 2 depicts Christ in the winepress (full page woodcut). Further with 45 large and 18 smaller woodcut illustrations (some repeated). With a contemporary manuscript ex-libris on the pen-ultimate page: ''desen boec hoert toe Lysbeth vande zype. With a later manuscript ex-libris on the first paste-down of Maria Conickx, nun at Leliendaal (near Mechelen). On the same page she states that she entered the convent on 1 august 1636 and was ordained on 24 januari 1638. Bound in somewhat later (17th c.) full vellum with overlapping edges, manuscript title on spine (and year of printing). Printed on strong paper in gothic type. Superb copy with no stains on the inside and only a few minor stains at the back cover. The binding nor the book show any signs of wear or use.The text is an early Dutch translation of the ''Vitis Mystica'' or the True Vine by Bernardus de Clairvaux** . Remarkably well preserved illustrated copy of this mystic text. It is a witness to the high degree of religeous sofistication arrived by in Dutch society: the book is published in the vernacular (Dutch). A few decades later all this was swept away upon the arrival of the Renaissance, Humanism (Erasmus) and the Religeous Wars. **Allthough traditionnally catalogued under the authorship of Bernardus; the work is now ascribed to Bonaventura. (See Nijhoff-Kronenbereg nr. 295). Also USTC 400609 (8 copies of which 6 in the historical Low Countries). .

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