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FIDDES, Richard (1671--1725)
The life of Cardinal Wolsey. With several copper plates. By Richard Fiddes, D.D. ...
London (Place), printed for John Barber,, 1724.
[4], lv, [1], 534, 260 p., engr. frontis. port., [7] pl. (3 ports.; 1 fold.) ; 35.5 cm. (2º)

By the Chaplain to the Earl of Oxford. With a list of subscribers. This is the ordinary paper issue; there was also a large paper issue. Includes 'Collections' of documents, letters, etc., in Latin and English (260 p. at end with separate pagination and register), including an essay '... in vindication of the Cardinal from certain popular Imputations' (pp. 231--251). Errata, subscription prices and list of the prints at the end of the preliminaries. The frontispiece portrait of the author is signed 'Geo. Vertue ... 1723'. ESTC t118407 (ordinary paper), t76228 (large paper); Lowndes 796.

Copy Notes Imperfect; wanting the three portraits of Bishops Fox and Tunstall, and of Wolsey. Inscriptions in ink in margins indicate the misplacement of the portraits of Bishops Fox and Tunstall: at p. 130: See his portrait wrong placed at p. 298 and at p.298: see his portrait wrong placed at p. 130-. Subsequently both have been removed as also that of Wolsey preceding p. 1 of the main text; traces of the missing leaves remain in the gutters. Inscriptions on first free-endpaper in pencil: in a small neat hand in ink pret. £1.10.0, and in a large hand in pencil £0-10-6 preceded by bookseller's code - ms- ad. Large armorial bookplate of 'The Honble. Sr. Thos. Robinson of Rookby-Park in the County of York Bart. ...' pasted to verso of title-page. Sir Thomas Robinson (1702/3--1777) was a keen amateur architect who rebuilt the family seat at Rokeby to his own design after rejecting designs by William Wakefield and his friend and Yorkshire neighbour the Earl of Burlington. After his return to England in 1747 after a period as governor of Barbados, he set up a lively architectural practice, including designs for a new western wing at Castle Howard (the client being his father-in-law) and a gothic gateway at Bishop Auckland Castle for the Bishop of Durham. See Howard Colvin, A biographical dictionary of British architects 1600--1840, 4th ed. (2008), pp. 882--4; John Harris (ed.), A passion for building: the amateur architect in England 1650--1850, exh. cat., Sir John Soane's Museum, London 2007, pp. 10--13, 34--35 (cat. no. 25--29).

Binding C18th sprinkled calf, blind roll-tooled within narrow gilt roll-tooled borders, gilt-tooled spine compartments, brown morocco spine-label.

Reference Number 891

Additional Names Wolsey, Thomas (1475?--1530); Robinson, Sir Thomas (1702/3--1777)


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