THE SAINTLY ELIZABETHS, IN A CONTEMPORARY PRIZE BINDING OF THE ENGLISH COLLEGE OF LIÈGE? 8vo. (32) pp including terminal blank. With woodcut emblem on title and a handful of woodcut initials in text. [bound as a separately-issued appendix to]: Serenissimi Alberti Belgarum Principis Elogium et Funus.. Brussels: Jan Pepermans, 1622. 102 pp, (10). The second title in a continuous register to the first but with separate title-page. Bound in contemporary gilt-ruled calf with the arms of the City of Liege on both covers and remains of gilt ornaments on spine; all edges gilt and gauffered. With a remarkable, octagonal engraved ex-libris on pastedown – probably also contemporary, and apparently depicting a view of the English Jesuit College in Liege with a group of students in the foreground. Binding (especially spine) rather rubbed; contents well-preserved. Large, contemporary engraving of Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia in the habit of a Third Order Franciscan nun (signed Petrus de Jode) laid onto rear pastedown, probably by a later reader. Very rare sole editions of two charming products of the Brussels press of J[e]an Pepermans – the first, an elegy on the recent death of Archduke Albert (1559-1621) and the second addressed directly to his widow, the de-facto ruler of the Spanish Netherlands, Archduchess Isabella (1566-1633). Following the death of her husband, Isabella took the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis and became an important patron of various convents. In the present work, the courtier and local historiographer Aubert Miraeus gathers together biographies of four saintly examples of her namesake: St. Elizabeth the mother of John the Baptist; St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231); St. Elizabeth of Portugal (1271-1336); and St. Isabelle of France (1224-1270). Miraeus was the scion of an illustrious family (his uncle was the Bishop of Antwerp) and was well-known as an unofficial court historian. In 1611 he had been appointed Librarian to the royal couple, and here seeks further patronage from Sor Isabella in the wake of her husband’s death. The British Library database of bookbindings gives a helpful summary of the present item, with a list of references (excised here): “Liège book prizes were given from 17c by the city authorities. A workshop which maintained a monopoly on book prizes 1608-1637, is known. Another example with the same coat-of-arms is reproduced in 1) Quatre siècle, 1989, p. 98-99, n. 38 […] The city allowed a yearly sum to the [Jesuit] college director to buy books provided with the town coat-of-arms and offered in his name.” To support the growing numbers of Recusants taking up residence in Flanders and Northern France, Father John Gérard was tasked in 1614 with founding a new English College in Liege. The site chosen was Favechamps, to the northwest of the city and not far from the Prince-Bishop’s Palace. By 1616, the building was habitable, and the English congregation began instructing young men in the traditional ‘high school’ curriculum of philosophy, theology, mathematical sciences, and astronomy. A decade later, however, the College would receive a substantial endowment from Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, prompting the Jesuits to call themselves the ‘Anglo-Bavarian College’ for the next century. Based on the view in the curiously-shaped engraved bookplate, it seems like that the building depicted is indeed the English College, although it is impossible to ascribed a date to it. OCLC shows one US copy of this work (both titles), at the Cincinnati Public Library. The STCV notes that the individual titles are often found bound separately. * STCV 6596964; and for the binding, compare BL shelfmark c67c2.