W/D-7-1/20

Shelfmark W/D-7-1/20

Historia Byzantina.
Paris: 1645–1663 [1670].

Inscription on label pasted on verso of front free endpaper: Donum Thomæ Turner Decani Cantuariensis.

The eighteen books of the Historia Byzantina (now bound in 20 volumes), published in Paris between 1645 and 1663, each have a paper label on the verso of the front free endpaper with the inscription stating that they were the gift of Dean Thomas Turner.

The books are bound in 17th-century calf with a double fillet rule parallel to the spine. Most have been rebacked at a later date. The first volume has a fore-edge title, showing that the volumes were once shelved with the spine inwards, either in Turner's own library or in the newly re-opened Chapter Library. All the volumes have evidence of a former chain staple: two holes (sometimes covered by a patch of leather) on the upper fore edge of the front board. There is an additional volume dated 1670 (Joannes Cinnamus, Historiarum libri sex; H/D-7-19) which has a similar binding but without the chain-staple holes and inscription.

These may be the volumes from which the chains were removed by order of the Chapter in 1677, after Turner's death.

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