Elias Ashmole. The Institution, Laws & Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter; and A Brief Account of all other Military Orders of Knighthood in England, Scotland, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Swedeland, Denmark, &c. With the Ensigns of the several Orders. The whole Work Adorned with Sculptures, and furnished with Variety of Matter, relating to Honour and Nobless. The Catalogue of the Knights-Companions and Officers, continued to 1693. London: Printed for Thomas Dring, at the Harrow at the Corner of Chancery-Lane in Fleetstreet, 1693. Second edition (a reissue of the 1672 edition, with the "Catalogue of Knights-Companions and Officers" continued to 1693). Large folio (14.0625 x 9.1875 inches; 358 x 234 mm.). [12], 130, 135-136, 149-720, [102], [1, errata], [1, blank] pages. Pages 81, 88, and 710 misnumbered 85, 84, and 610; numbers 131-134, 137-148 omitted in pagination. Signatures: [pi]2 a4 B-Z4 Aa-Zz4 Aaa-Zzz4 Aaaa-Uuuu4 a-z2 aa-cc2. With the license leaf and title-page from the 1672 first edition bound in at front. Complete with the engraved frontispiece portrait of Charles II by William Sherwin (not present in all copies), and fifty-four fine engravings by Wenceslaus Hollar, including thirty-six plates, sixteen double-page and twenty single-page (including ten plates of coats-of-arms printed back-to-back on five leaves), and eighteen illustrations and vignettes throughout the text, including the vignette head-piece and historiated initial at the beginning of Chapter I. Double-page plates mounted on guards (some plates possibly remounted). Title-page of the 1672 edition printed in red and black.
Late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century dark blue straight-grain morocco. Covers with the central gilt arms of Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington (1753-1829), Stamp 2 (see University of Toronto Libraries British Armorial Bindings Database at https://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/node/39358), within an outer blind border of back-to-back intersecting drawer-handle tools, between gilt rules, enclosing an inner blind border of floral tools with elaborate gilt-dotted cornerpieces. Neatly rebacked, with original spine laid down, the spine with six double raised bands separated by decorative gilt bands, gilt-lettered in two compartments, the remaining compartments with intricate tooling in gilt and blind. Board edges with gilt diagonals at the corners; turn-ins elaborately tooled in gilt and blind between gilt fillets; drab pastedowns and liners, the pastedowns bordered with three blind fillets; all edges gilt (gilt now dulled). Pink silk ribbon bookmark between pages 548 and 549, with offsetting in the gutter margin.
An attractive copy with good impressions of the plates.
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