Folio, mm. 462x318; Original binding in half calf and wooden axes; leaves 476 not numbered, including leaves 1 and 5 blanks, wanting the final blank leaf. Text on two columns, 62 lines, Round type, space for guide letters, first paragraph lines in Capital letters. Manuscripted Initials with red ink in different dimensions, 2 Large miniatures on leaf 6 and 265. Signature of possession on the leaf 2. Sign of humidity of the most part of the lower margins, sign of wear on the first three leaves, genuine specimen with wide margins.
Very rare illuminated incunabulum, typographical masterpiece. Leaf 6, within a square frame, large illuminated initial 'I' painted in blue and white on the field liquid gold decorated with lozenges, along the two edges extends a garland phytomorphic in red, blue and green, with gilt bezants; Leaf 265, within a square frame, the initial 'E' painted in pink on the field in liquid gold decorated with lozenges, with a similar garland in blue, green and gold. The Speculum morale, divided into three books, is a complex treatise that examine all questions concerning ethics, leaning to the authority of Thomas Aquinas and Stephen of Bourbon. The printer, Johann Mentelin, was the first printer of Strasbourg and was one of the first to use the Round type in Germany.
Goff V288; IGI 10319; BMC I 58; IBP 5651. Cfr. Ashley, Frederick W., Catalogue of the John Boyd Thacher Collection of Incunabula, Washington, DC, 1915; Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall, Encyclopedia of the Book, 2nd edn, London: British Library, 1996; Ullman, B. L., A Project for a New Edition of Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum, 8, 1933, pp. 312-26.