Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Michael Garabedian is of course right that in post-mediaeval times the
"fountain of love" metaphor has most commonly been used of Mary, and the
sense in which it is so used perhaps prompted the misreading of several list
members, as if the phrase were "aeternus fons amoris". But "love eternal"
has a more cosmological ring, as we see it, for example, at the beginning of
a motet by Johann Adolph Hasse composed in the 1730s for the alto Angela
Brissini to be sung at San Salvatore in Venice (see S.H.Hansell, Works for
solo voice of J.A.Hasse, Detroit 1968):
qui caeli regis astra
aeterni fons amoris
"who [masculine] dost rule the stars of the sky, fountain of love eternal".
I don't of course suggest that whoever commissioned the 19th-century binding
had in mind this somewhat obscure source, but the phrase is very specific.
Sevin Seydi
Sevin Seydi Rare Books