CORONA MARIANA COMPLECTENS DUODECIM VIRIDARII PARTHENII LILIA by (BINDINGS - PAINTED). BACHIN, LEONHARD, S. J - 1746

[Munich]: Franz Joseph Thuille, 1746. 160 x 95 mm. (6 1/4 x 3 3/4"). 5 p.l., 373 [1] pp. Appealing contemporary German goatskin tooled with silver gilt, the designs highlighted with black paint, covers with gilt roll border, central panel framed in black and tooled with an overall floral design of tulips and daisies, some painted black; raised bands, spine compartments with once-silver floral spray centerpieces, volute cornerpieces, one compartment lettered "MONAC [i.e., Munich] 1768," marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. With engraved allegorical frontispiece depicting the Virgin with a flower crown, and 12 engraved portraits of young male saints. Front pastedown with modern bookplate of M. Lugol; title page with ink inscriptions of two early owners. Sommervogel Bibliotheca Mariana 1468. Silver gilt mostly rather tarnished or rubbed, tiny wormhole at the tail of each joint, joints and extremities a bit rubbed, a couple of short scratches to upper cover, intermittent minor foxing (never offensive), otherwise an excellent copy, the text clean and fresh, and in a solid binding that retains much of its original charm. This hagiography of the lives of 12 young saints with a special devotion to the Virgin is described by the title here as the lilies of her garden, and its binding continues that floral motif. First published in 1716, the work by Jesuit scholar Leonhard Bachin recounts the lives of Alexius, Aloysius Gonzaga, Bernadinus of Siena, Casimir, Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury, Emeric of Hungary, Herman Joseph, Nicetas, Pelagius, Stanislaus Kostka, Thomas Aquinas (as a youth), and Ubaldus. Each essay is accompanied by a portrait of the saint as a youth, often with a lily or an image of the Virgin in the scene. In the frontispiece, Mary is depicted above a crescent moon, surrounded by putti and crowned with flowers, looking down on a earthly garden. The design of the binding is somewhat like a garden, with curving borders enclosing beds of flowers. The binding here is unusual, and although much of the silver gilt has oxydized, the volume has a very considerable enduring charm.