Downside Abbey and School, 1814-1914; Illustrated in Photogravure, with a Short Historical Introduction by D. Leo Almond, O.S.B.
Exeter: A. Wheaton & Co. / Paternoster Press, 1914. Oblong (8 3/8 by 11 1/2 inches), original olive cloth, beveled boards, brown coated endpapers, gilt front board, top edge gilt, original cardboard box hand-titled in red-and-black. Very slight wear to corners. About Fine. Item #1606
"THE ABBEY AND SCHOOL OF ST. GREGORY THE GREAT"
Sumptuous pictorial history marking One Hundred Years of Downside Abbey and School—celebrating the "Gregorian Century" of the senior monastery of the English Benedictines. Complete as published with the original cardboard box, hand-lettered in Gothic red-and-black.
Illustrated in photogravure with 65 plates, including a frontispiece portrait of Philip de Caverel, the seventeenth century founder of the Benedictine monastery at Douai ("Downside will never be so modern as to forget") and 64 additional plates, all complete with their original tissue-guards. With a mix of portraits and exterior views, the interior plates capture this landmark of the Gothic Revival, especially the stunning sequence of large views of The High Altar (28), The Lady Chapel (29), The Altar of the Blessed Sacrament (30), The Chapel of St. Benedict (31), and The Chapel of St. Isidore (32). A Short Historical Sketch, by D. Leo Almond, O.S.B., describes the School of St. Gregory the Great as "the most striking achievement of the Gregorian century." The second half of the plates captures a period of Benedictine ascendancy in English education, when Downside and Ampleforth challenged (and largely supplanted) the Jesuit institutions of Stonyhurst and Beaumont. Printed by the Paternoster Press with a title page in red-and-black.
Price: $150.00