Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo
Epistolae Pulcherrimae...
(Venice: Bernardus Benalius, ca. early 1490s). First Benalius edition. Small 4to. 30 leaves (a-e6). Roman type. Modern marbled paper-covered boards; worming in lower spine, affecting lower front and rear endpapers and bottom of a1 and e6, but not affecting text; speckled red edges. ISTC ia01269000; Goff A1269; GW 02951; BMC XII 27; Sheppard 3986

First edition from Venetian printer Bernard Benalius of letters attributed to Saint Augustine of Hippo, touching on a variety of topics including the afterlife and predestination, and with two letters attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux at rear. Publication dated by Frederick Goff and the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke to around 1490, and by L.A. Sheppard to about 1492. A second edition was published in 1494. ISTC list 37 copies in institutions worldwide, in varying states of completeness. This is only the third copy offered at auction in the past 40 years. Rare.