Prominent among the books of knowledge published by Wynkyn de Worde is the scientific compendium De Proprietatibus Rerum (DPR) by Bartholomaeus Anglicus, “of the properties of things” by Bartholomew the Englishman, translated from Latin into English by the Oxford graduate John Trevisa in 1382 for his Somerset patron Thomas Lord Berkeley and commissioned by the London cloth merchant Roger Thorney for printing around 1495.' Although by the time of Thorney’s commission DPR had circulated for 250 years and acquired an international reputation, de Worde was issuing the first edition of this old book to be printed in English. With 914 42-line, double-column pages of text in an elegant typeface and 19 pages of woodcut drawings, al! printed in a spacious layout on durable paper milled in Hertford, de Worde’s DPR is an attractive and substantial tome. - [Author]

Language: English