Le grant vita Christi en francoys.

Xylographic title page to each volume, with large initial grotesque L.
Volume 2, which contains parts 3-4, has title page reading: La tierce partie selon le translateur.
Middle French translation by Guillaume Lemenand, first printed at Lyons by Matthias Huss and Jacques Buyer in 1487. See Incunabula short title catalogue, il00357600; Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, M19231.
Translator's prologue (v. 1, leaves I-II, 1st count) has caption: Sensuyt le prologue de frere Guillaume Lemenand de lordre des freres mineurs de lobseruance, translateur de ce noble et vitile liure nomme le vita Christi.
Imprint from colophon (end of v. 2), which begins: Cy finist le tres bel & [pro]ffitable liure des meditacions sur la vie de ihesucrist prins sur les quatre euangelistes. Et compouse par venerable pere Ludoulphe religieux de lordre des Chartreux. Et tra[n]slate de latin en francoys par venerable scientifique, et eloque[n]te [per]sonne frere Guillaume Lemenand, maistre en theologie, de lordre de mon seigneur Sainct Fra[n]coys, a la requeste de trespuissant, tresexcelle[n]t, et tresmagnifique prince mon seigneur le duc de Bourbon, co[n]nestable de France. Imprime ...
The date in the colophon, translated as 1 March 1493, is the equivalent of 10 March 1494 in the Gregorian calendar, New Style (until 1563, the legal start of the year in France was Easter Day). Date given as 1 March 1493/94 in Incunabula short title catalog and Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke.
Signatures: v. 1: a-p⁸ q⁶ 2a-2p⁸ 2q¹⁰; v. 2: A-L⁸ M-N⁶ 2A-2T⁸.
Each volume in 2 separately foliated parts (1-4). Leaves following leaf CXX (2nd count) in v. 1 numbered CXI, CII, CXIII, CXIIII, CXV, CXVI, XCVII, CXVIII. Other errors and irregularities in foliation.
Spencer Coll. copy incomplete: leaves a1, f3-6, 2d4, 2q10, A1, 2T1, 2T8 wanting (in all, 10 leaves). Title page (leaf a1) transcribed from online facsimile of Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena copy.
Printed in 2 columns. Gothic type (Proctor 8568); 54 lines. Initial spaces, with guide letters.
Illustrations: Full-page woodcut, leaf a1v; 2 large woodcuts, leaves a2r, a3v; 116 smaller cuts. Cut on leaf a1v (title page verso), wanting in Spencer Coll. copy, depicts Crucifixion, within a multipart border including small cuts of the Evangelists; caption: Christe fili dei viui miserei nobis. On leaf a2r, large woodcut representing the translator presenting his work to the Duc de Bourbon, thought to contain true portraits. "Cette planche est un document précieux pour l'histoire de la gravure sur bois en France. On croit communément que les tailles croisées ont été employées pour la première fois dans la Chronique de Nuremberg en 1493; or cette planche, gravée en 1487, six ans auparavant, présente une application de ce procédé pour figurer les ombres"--Claudin, Histoire de l'imprimerie en France, III, 297-300. Claudin had evidently not seen Breydenbach, Peregrinationes, Mainz, 1486, which is credited as having the earliest examples of crosshatching, or Lirer, Chronica, Ulm, 1485? (cut on verso of leaf d8), containing interesting examples of a form of this work. Although Claudin states this plate is the same in both the 1487 and this edition, a comparison of this with his reproduction shows variations. On leaf a3v, large woodcut, representing the author writing in his library. The smaller woodcuts throughout the text vary in size and represent at least two, and possibly four, different styles. A number of the larger cuts are said to be of Basel origin, having been used in the 1476 Basel edition of Der Spiegel der menschlichen Behältnisse, and, passing into the hands of the Lyonnese printer Martin Huss, used by him in Le miroir de la rédemption, 1478, the first known, dated book with pictorial woodcuts printed in France. See: Spencer Collection of illustrated books, from which above information is largely derived.
Large grotesque initial L on title pages (2 different cuts). Device of Mathias Huss at end of each volume.
Incunabula short title catalog, il00358000
Universal short title catalogue, 71262
Goff, F.R. Incunabula in American libraries, L-358
Hain, L. Repertorium bibliographicum, 10299
Reichling, D. Appendices ad Hainii-Copingeri Repertorium bibliographicum, v. 2, page 208
Claudin, A. Histoire de l'imprimerie en France au XVe et au XVIe siècle, v. 3, pages 158-165
Bibliothèque nationale (France). Catalogue des incunables, L-275
Catalogue of books printed in the fifteenth century now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, L-190
Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, M19233
New York Public Library. Spencer Collection of illustrated books, page 46
BAC Leaf Collection no. 0530: Imperfect: 31 leaves only, most with hand-colored woodcuts. From a collection of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century printed leaves compiled by Frederick Werther, with his enumeration stamped in ink.