The History Civil and Ecclesiastical, & Survey of the Antiquities, of Winchester

Description

Original full tree calf, gilt decor and red gilt label per spine. Remains of library label near base of each spine. Rubbing to spines; small loss to base and top of spine in vol. I and top spine in vol. II. Cracking to boards over front and rear hinges to both vols: hinges tender but holding. Faint cup-mark to front board of vol. II. Wear to board edges and corners; board corners slightly pushed in. 4tos (21.6 x 27.1cm). All edges speckled red. Front endpapers cracked at gutters in both vols; cracking at gutter before rear free endpaper in vol. I. Recent bookplate, library shelfmark inscriptions, and Greenock Library bookplate to inside front board of both vols. This is likely the Greenock Library founded in 1783 as a subscription library in Greenock, Scotland, now the Watt Library after its early patron James Watt. Pen trial to front free endpaper of vol. I. Occasional scattered foxing. Elaborate engraved title pages to both vols. Plates complete as called for in prefaces: 13 in total, including engraved titles, of which 5 are folding. Some plates have tissue guards. Folding plates, esp. in vol. I, have some foxing and damp-spotting, particularly at folds. In vol. I, folding plate of Winchester Cathedral has two closed tears at folds (9.8cm & 3.3cm); folding plate of St. Mary’s College has closed tear at fold (5.2cm). In vol. II, final folding plate is slightly creased at fold. Tailpieces. Undated; dates take from ESTC. John Milner, (1752-1826), vicar apostolic of the midland district and religious controversialist. Milner, from a Lancashire Catholic family, received clerical training from the English College at Douai and was then missioned to Winchester by Bishop Challoner: the city ‘became the base for his opposition to the liberal Catholics known as Cisalpines, and for his literary and artistic activities’ (ODNB). His History, Civil and Ecclesiastical, ‘an early study of Gothic architecture’ gained Milner a fellowship in the Society of Antiquities, but was ‘controversial in that it contained a trenchant attack on the latitudinarian and deeply anti-Catholic late bishop of Winchester, Benjamin Hoadly’ (ODNB). It also included, as an supplement to vol. II, a description of the new Catholic church Milner had erected in Winchester in 1792, in the wake of the Second Relief Act: the first Catholic church consecrated in England since the Reformation, it was also arguably the first English church built in in the Gothic style since the Middle Ages, being designed ‘in the Strawberry Hill Gothic style’ (ODNB) by the draftsman and architect John Carter (1748-1817), a significant figure in the eighteenth-century Gothic revival, who also supplied the drawing for the plate of the church in vol. II. James Cave, the ‘young artist of great ingenuity and unrivalled application’ (vol. I, p. 19) who provided most of the drawings for the plates in these vols, had also completed the paintings in the church, together with his father. Milner’s text describes his decision to reject ‘the modern style of building churches and chapels’, ‘square chambers’ that are ‘hardly to be distinguished from assembly rooms’, in favour of imitating the Gothic models ‘left us by our religious ancestors, who applied themselves with such ardour and unrivalled success to the cultivation and perfection of religious architecture’ (vol. II, p. 230). ESTC T65099. Robust packaging. Tracking is always added to USA orders. It can be added to other overseas orders on request. Used books are exempt from USA tariffs.