The First Print: Sir James Ware's edition of 1656

The first ever printed version (editio princeps) of St Patrick's Confessio and Epistola, edited by Sir James Ware in 1656 and based on the 'Book of Armagh' and the British manuscripts from the British Libray (Cotton Nero E.1) and the Salisbury Cathedral Library - interim Bodleian Library, Oxford - (221 and 223), "but very inaccurate" (White, Libri …, p. 233):

S. Patricio, qui Hibernos ad fidem Christi convertit, adscripta opuscula, quorum aliqua nunc primum ex antiquis mss. Codicibus in lucem emissa sunt, reliqua recognita; omnia notis ad rem historicam et antiquariam spectantibus illustrata, opera et studio Jacobi Waraei Euquitis Aurati. Apud Johannem Crook, sub signo navis in coemeterio Paulino. MDCLVI. (London: Johannes Crook, 1656 cf. bibliography.)

PDF-Download(s):

Full volume of Ware's edition as bookmarked PDF [55 MB] [print_ware.pdf] .

Images created in collaboration with the Hardiman Library, NUI Galway, from a copy of the Royal Irish Academy Library.

CC 2011 HyperStack

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