Rare Books
[Gothic bookmark, dial type and two metal ball-end pointers or fastners]
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- Description
- Manuscript dial type bookmark; the handwriting on the vellum leaf dates roughly from 1450 to 1500 and appears to be a fragment of a records document or charter. Dial is numbered in Roman numerals from "I" to "IV" on both sides. Two metal fastners or pointers accompany the bookmark. They end in a hollow metal ball less than 10 mm in diameter and have small flat shanks attached, one is 34 mm in length and the other is 19 mm. At the time of cataloging, one was attached to a small note card accompanying these items and the other was loose. It is possible that the two metal items were attached by a single bar which has subsequently broken. These may have been used as bookmarks with the ball end protruding above the text block, or as a fastner for the bookmark. Removed from the Huntington's copy of Antonious, Saint, Archbishop of Florence, 1389-1459. Chronica sive Opus historiarum. Basel : Nicolaus Kesler, 1491 (Call number 89754). It is not known which volume of the set the items were removed from, but the note accompanying the bookmarks reads "From Mr. Schad , Aug. 1928". Robert O. Schad was curator of rare books at the Huntington Library from 1926 to 1961.
- Production date
