8vo, (135 x 80 mm). [183] ff., [1 (blank)]. Each page printed within woodcut border. Contemporary calf over bevelled wooden boards, boards blocked in Zwischgold with wide arabesque plaquette borders and central oval vignettes, on the front board showing a figure kneeling before the Crucifix, on the rear board the Salvator Mundi, spine gilt in compartments, brass clasps to fore-edge, edges gilt and gauffered; a little rubbed at joints, Zwischgold tarnished.

A distinguished patrician and merchant family dating back to the thirteenth century, the Imhofs (also Im Hof or Imhoff) reached the height of their political and cultural power in Nuremberg under Andreas I (1491–1579) who, after early travels in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, established himself as ‘Endres Imhoff und Mitverwandte’, trading in saffron, spices, metals, and money, by 1547 lending substantial sums to the future Philip II of Spain. He sat on the city council for over fifty years and served concurrently as Oberster Reichsschultheiß (imperial mayor) and Vorderster Losunger (treasurer), with the traditionally distinct roles combined and inherited by his son, Andreas II (1529–1597), his grandson, Andreas III (1572–1637), and several further successors. He was a patron of Albrecht Dürer, helped to fund the founding of the Academy (later University) of Altdorf, and published several of his own writings.

Andreas II was the son of his father’s marriage to Magdalena Koberger, the granddaughter of the great Nuremberg printer Anton Koberger.

He followed his father not only in his commercial and political activities, but also in his bibliophilia: the engraved bookplate, with his arms and a city view in the background, is based closely on the bookplate engraved for Andreas I by Virgil Solis in 1555, and the binding resembles those done for his father (see Quaritch, New Acquisitions, August 2019, item 8, featuring the same central motif of a man kneeling before the Crucifix). The present volume was presented by Andreas II as a New Year’s gift in 1595 to his daughter-in-law, Regina Imhof (née Rehlinger), who had married Andreas III in 1589.

The illumination of the bookplate and the accompanying gilt calligraphic presentation inscription are the work of Georg Mack the Elder (d. 1601), the noted Nuremberg Briefmaler responsible both for the British Library’s Hortus Eystettensis and for the celebrated colouring of a set of Dürer’s Passion, now dispersed.

Provenance: engraved armorial bookplate of Andreas Imhoff to front pastedown, hand-coloured and illuminated by Georg Mack (dated 1595 and initialled ‘G M’ in gilt), presentation inscription ‘1595 | Neu Jar |Regina Im Hof | Von ihrem lieben Vat-|ter Endres Im Hof | dem Eltern.’ in brown ink and gilt to front free endpaper.