This volume is a sammelband of two humanist writings.   

The first is a brief encyclopaedic treatise entitled De patientia, authored by Carmelite monk and humanist poet Battista Spagnoli of Mantua (Latinised as Baptista Mantuanus). Originally published in Brescia in 1497, the treatise presents the acceptance of pain as a way of purification and spiritual elevation. It also contains one of the earliest European printed references to America: in discussing the extent of the law of Christ, Spagnoli mentions lands that had been unknown to Strabo, Ptolemy, Pomponius Mela, and Pliny, but which had recently been found through the agency of the kings of Spain [this part has been amended from the Peter Harrington catalogue description of another edition of De patientia] Spagnoli often wrote about corruption in the Church, and contributed many hagiographies. As his books were often used in schools in England, he is referenced in some important sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English writers, including William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser.

The second work is entitled De origine et conversatione bonorum regum & laude civitatis Hierosolymae, meaning 'on the origin and manner of life of good kings, and on the glory of the city of Jerusalem'. The author Sebastian Brant, a German humanist and satirist, dedicated it to the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I, who is portrayed in a woodcut at the beginning of the work holding a sword given by God and a victory flagpole in front of Jerusalem's cityscape. Brant's De origine is one example of how Christian Europeans were reacting to the ascent to power of Muslim kingdoms after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. As the text includes a call to crusade, Brant was probably aware of Pope Innocent VIII's encyclical sent to all the powers of Europe in 1484, which emphasised the gravity and danger posed by Islam. At the time of publication, the Holy City was under Mamluk rule, with the Ottomans threatening to push through the borders of Christendom in the Balkan region.

The presence of early sixteenth-century annotations in a single hand suggests that the two texts were bound together shortly after publication (in 1499 and 1495 respectively).

Binding description
Goatskin on boards sewn on five cords, decorated with gilt fillets on board edges and turn-ins. Spine with gold silk endbands. Bound by McKensey.