
INCUNABLES
[
]
"Incunabula" is the
special name given to European books printed from movable type before
1 January 1501 that is, before the end of Gutenberg's own century. The
name comes from the ancient Latin word for "baby clothes" or the medieval
Latin one for "things of the cradle" and is often Englished as "incunables."
The printing centers of the New World had their own similarly revered
infancy periods, of course, starting for example in 1539 for Mexico, 1639
for what is now the U.S., 1660 for Guatemala, and 1766 for Argentina.
By
extension, American imprints of these periods are sometimes called " New
World Incunables" and they occasionally appear below among their elder,
European brothers and sisters. |

It Looks Like
What an Incunable is SUPPOSED to Look Like
Antoninus, Saint, Archbishop of Florence. Summa theologica. [colophon: Argentina {i.e., [Strassburg}: Johannem {Reinhard} Grüninger, 1496]. Folio (32.5 cm; 12.5"). Vols. I & II (in one volume) of V. I: [173 of 174] ff. (lacking first leaf of vol. 1); [225 of 226] ff. (without the final blank].
$8000.00
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“The Summa Theologica (1477), more properly the Summa Moralis, is the work upon which [St. Antoninus's] theological fame chiefly rests . . . [it] is probably the first — certainly the most comprehensive — treatment from a practical point of view of Christian ethics, asceticism, and sociology in the Middle Ages” (NCE, I, 647).
After his ordination in 1413 (at Cortona, where he was sent for the Dominican novitiate along with artists Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo!), Antoninus (1389–1459) swiftly attained prominence in the Church; returning to his native Florence, he consecrated the Convent of San Marco in 1443 and was appointed Archbishop of that city just a few years later. A great yet humble reformer whose writings were widely published even in the incunable period, Antoninus was
hailed as a Doctor of the Church in the bull for his canonization.
The Summa, completed shortly before his death, is divided into four parts: the first is concerned with the soul and its faculties, passions, sin, and law; the second addresses different types of sin and redress; the third considers various states and professions in life, with treatises on ecclesiastical offices and censures; and the fourth contemplates the cardinal virtues, religious morals, and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Although the text draws heavily on earlier theological works by St. Thomas Aquinas, among others, it is regarded as
“a new and very considerable development in moral theology” (NCE online), and it contains
a wealth of matter for the student of 15th-century history.
Printed in Gothic type, double-column format, with most capitals supplied in red or blue manuscript in plain style, the text here has red markings to aid in reading and navigation. Topics addressed in these volumes include sin, penance, canon law, will, original sin, privilege, lying, pride, avarice, anger, and infidelity, among several others.
Goff and ISTC find only one complete set of all volumes in American libraries — at the Countway in Boston. All other U.S. libraries, save the Newberry, report owning one or two of the volumes. The Newberry has volumes I–IV.
Provenance: Old illegible European library stamp in lower margin of first leaf of vol. I; in 20th and early 21st century in the library of the Pacific School of Religion (properly deaccessioned).
ISTC ia00878000; Goff A878; BMC, I, 109; GKW 2192. Contemporary calf over bevelled wood boards, recently rebacked and new endpapers supplied; lacks a blank and a title leaf. Leather of boards elaborately and richly tooled in blind using rolls, rules, and individual stamps of a rose, a fleur de lis, and a saint; small area of leather on front board missing and substitute leather inserted. Evidence of bass and leather clasps, remnants of vellum guide tabs. Text and boards of binding wormed, mostly with many pinhole wormholes, and text with some meandering; no great losses. Some small tears in a few margins and one lower margin with an old repair; stamp as above; browning to many margins. A good, solid volume, one with some condition issues but at the same time a good example of these productions and the era's printing. (33734)

Printed by Gutenberg? Play It Safe & Say
Printed by the Printer of the Catholicon
Balbus, Johann. Single leaf from a paper copy of the Catholicon. [Mainz: Printer of the Catholicon, not before 1469]. Royal folio (36.5 x 28.5 cm, 14.365" x 11.25"). [1] f.
[SOLD]
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Scholars have pondered and theorized about the printing history of “The Mainz Catholicon” for decades. For a long time it was thought that the Catholicon was printed in 1460 and very possibly by Gutenberg, but this view has changed. As the notes for its ISTC record observe: “Three issues can be distinguished in spite of identical typesetting: a) printed on vellum or Bull's Head paper; b) on Galliziani paper; c) on Tower & Crown paper. This has given rise to the theory that issue a) was printed in 1460, issue b) in 1469 and issue c) about 1472; see P. Needham, in BSA 76 (1982) pp. 395–456 and the articles “zur Catholicon-Forschung” in Wolfenbütteler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte 13 (1988) pp.105–232. For an alternative theory that all three states were printed about 1469, see L. Hellinga in G[uten]b[erg] J[ahr]b[uch]1989 pp. 47–96 and in the Book Collector (Spring 1992) pp. 28–54.
In March of 1286 Balbus, a Dominican friar, completed this study of five aspects of the Latin language: orthography, prosody, grammar, etymology, and rhetoric. Four-fifths of the work is devoted to etymology, making it more a dictionary than any other type of reference book, but it did provide a one-volume reference work for the study of Latin. It was most definitely
the dictionary most used by Boccaccio, Petrarch, and other writers of the early Renaissance.
The present leaf is unwatermarked, so we do not know to which issue it belongs. It is printed in double-column format, using a small font used here for the first time and cast in imitation of a fine semicursive Gothic hand, with 66 lines per column.
It is nicely rubricated with numerous small initials and pilcrows.
Goff B20; HC 2254*; Stillwell, Gutenberg and the Catholicon of 1460; IGI 1154; BMC, I, 39; GKW 3182. Removed and with irregular margins. Very good. (38154)

One of the NICEST Books of This Sort that We've Ever Seen
(“Relinquishing . . . Prospects of a Brilliant Worldly Career”)
Gregorius I. Dialogus beati Gregorii Pape [uniform title: Dialogorum libri quattuor]. [colophon: Parisiis: Udalrici Gering et Berchtoldi Renbolt, 1494/5]. 4to (21.2 cm; 8.375"). [79] pp. Lacks final blank (only).
[SOLD]
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Discussion of the miracles and works of various 6th-century Italian holy men, including an entire book dedicated to Saint Benedict, as well as thoughts on the immortality of the soul. Pope Gregory I (540–604), described as “one of the most commanding figures in ecclesiastical history,” turned his father's mansion into a Benedictine monastery before becoming pope following Pelagius II's death from the bubonic plague. In the mansion-turned-monastery he worked to improve the lives of Roman peasants and coordinated an expansion of Catholicism
through massive amounts of correspondence (Holweck, F. G., A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints, pp. 446–47).
The text is printed in Gothic type in a single column with marginal notes. A scribe has
completed all of the capitals which had been left blank with guide letters still visible. He has also provided guidance to the reader via underlining, paragraph markers, alternating use of red and blue, and touches of yellow; the first initial below the incipit is accomplished in a combination of the first two colors and every “C” in the word “Capi[tulum]” at the beginning of a new chapter has been highlighted in the third. A red silk fore-edge tab marks the first page of text and a blue one marks the Tabula.
Not only was this book carefully printed, it was afterwards embellished with remarkable, even lovingly careful consistency.
The title-page contains a woodcut printer's device with two men in front of a tree: In this copy one man's codpiece has been altered by providing him with a short black “skirt.”Provenance: From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.
This is the last Paris-printed edition in the incunable period and the next to the last of all printed in that era.
ISTC ig00406000; Goff G406; BMC, VIII, 29; GKW 11402. Later limp vellum, light dust-soiling, lacking final blank as above. Title-page and first two leaves of text with marginal repairs, the former with a small reddish stain and starting to separate from gathering; some dust-soiling and chipping to leaves, especially at start and end of text, and a single pin-type wormhole through perhaps a third of the text's bottom margins.
With hand-coloring, ribbon tabs, and “personalization” of title-page as above. (37735)

ENGLISH INCUNABLE LEAF — Wynkn de Worde, 1498
Jacobus de Voragine Golden legend [single leaf]. [Westmynster: Wynkyn de Worde, 1498]. Chancery folio (26 x 17.4 cm; 10.25" x 6.75"). [1] f.
[SOLD]
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The collection of saints' lives called the Legenda sanctorum, or Golden Legend (Legenda aurea) — “worth its weight in gold”! — was composed in the 13th century by the Dominican hagiologist Jacobus de Voragine (ca. 1230–98, elected Archbishop of Genoa in 1292), and first printed in Latin at Basle in 1470 with William Caxton printing the first English version in 1483. This is folio cliiii of the 1498 London (Westminster) edition
printed by Wynkyn de Worde (a.k.a., Jan van Wynkyn), England's first typographer and successor to Caxton, whose press he formally took over in 1495 after a difficult three years of litigation following Caxton's death.
This leaf of The Golden Legend has on its recto the end of the life of St. Eutrope and the beginning of “The Lyf of Saynt Marcyall” which continues on the verso. Saint Marcial, commonly known as “the Apostle of the Gauls” or “the Apostle of Aquitaine,” was the first bishop of Limoges. He was one of those saints whose legend grew greatly across time, until (as here) he was baptized by St. Peter himself and could cast out fiends and raise the dead. The text is printed in double-column format in
English gothic type.
Provenance: From the incunabula leaf collection of the Grabhorn press.
English incunable leaves are increasingly difficult to obtain.
STC (rev. ed.) 24876; ESTC S103597; Duff 411; Copinger 6475; Goff J-151. Sometime removed from a bound volume and trimmed without touching text; foremargin (recto) closely trimmed and both upper corners trimmed on the angle. Browning to the upper outer corner and across top; old soiling to verso.
A striking relic recounting multiple miracles. (38262)

Adventures in Africa from the
First Venetian Printers
Livy, Johannes Andreae, ed. Leaf extracted from Historiae Romanae decades. [Venice]: Vindelinus de Spira, 1470. Folio (37.8 cm, 14.875"). [1] f.
$450.00
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As a close friend of the emperor Augustus, Livy set out to write a history of Rome from the era of legends relating to Aeneas's arrival after the fall of Troy to Livy's own time, i.e., the reign of the emperor Augustus. This leaf is from one of the first three printed editions of Historiae Romanae decades and is from the “decade” covering General Scipio's adventures in Africa.
The text is unadorned and printed in single columns of 49 lines with ample margins in a beautifully crafted roman type.
German printer Vindelinus de Spira (a.k.a. Wendelin de Speier or Speyer) was, alongside his brother John, in 1468 one of the first to bring printing to Venice from Germany, where their use of roman type was considered innovative. Trevitt & Steinberg note in Five Hundred Years of Printing that the brothers' publications “were well produced and show discrimination in their choice of authors” (p. 31).
Provenance: From the incunabula leaf collection of the Grabhorn press.
Goff L238; IGI 5771; BMC, V, 154; ISTC il00238000; GKW M18494. Leaf disbound and mounted along the top edge to a dark gray pasteboard. Very light dust-soiling overall, with none on the side facing the mounting; age-toning along edges with a few small spots; text block gently skewed. Faint bibliographical information pencilled in bottom margin. An attractive early leaf from an early press. (38326)

A BALLI-Printed Broadside Mexico, 1590
Notarial form. Carta de poder. [Mexico: Pedro Balli, before 14 September 1590]. Folio. [1] f.
$1875.00
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The text of this power of attorney is contained on the recto and has these printing characteristics: Type face: gothic. Imprint area: 250 x 140 mm. Number of lines of text: 44. First line: SEpan quantos esta carta vieren,como yo Last line: forma d[e] d[e]recho. E para lo auer por firme obligo mi persona y bienes Blank space between the first and second lines of text: 30 mm. Woodcut initial: None.
The verso blank.
Use of capitals in text for words: Generalmente, Magestad, Senores, Presidente, Oydores, Reales, Alcaldes, Juezes, and Justicias.
The manuscript completions were sworn in Puebla de los Angeles on 14 September 1590, before the notary Marcos Reyes. Francisco Hernandez de Tinoco, a citizen of Puebla, gives power of attorney to Hernan Perez, a “procurador de causas,” who is not present.
Our attribution to printer is based on the type used and stylistics of composition.
Edwin A. Carpenter, A Sixteenth-Century Mexican Broadside (i.e., The Valtón Collection), possibly type 14, 15, or 16. Not in Szewczyk & Buffington, 39 Books and Broadsides Printed in America before the Bay Psalm Book. Removed from a bound volume with worming in margins and into text, touching but not costing letters; age-toning. Light waterstain in upper margin.
A good example of a Mexican incunable broadside. (34744)

SAVONAROLA
A Florentine Incunable — Savonarola Put Forth
in the
Vernacular Italian
Savonarola, Girolamo. [drop-title] Proemio di frate Hieromymo da Ferrara dellordine de p[re]dicatori nella expositio[n]e del psalmo lxxviiii. Tradocto in lingua fiorentina da uno suo familiare. [colophon: Firenze: apresso a sancta Maria maggiore {i.e. Lorenzo Morgiani and Johannes Petri}, 8 June 1496]. Small 4to (21.5 cm; 8.5"). [8] ff.
$10,000.00
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First Italian translation of Savonarola's Expositio in Psalmum LXXIX “Qui regis Israel” (Florence: Francesco Bonaccorsi, for Piero Pacini, 28 Apr. 1496). The study is of St. Ambrose's rendering of that psalm into a hymn on the Virgin Birth, and this translation appeared only six weeks after that Latin-language edition. Written and published during Savonarola's reign over Florence, it is not one of his writings banned by the Index Librorum Prohibitorum; it represents Savonarola at a peak of his worldly and rhetorical powers, and it was several times reprinted.
This book is “around” in libraries; ISTC locates 12 U.S. copies.
But on the market, it is a different story!
Goff S222; H 14436; HC(+ Add) 14439; Audin 126; CIBN S-107; IGI 8739; Sallander 2430; Pr 6361; BMC, VI, 684; GKW M40472; ISTC is00222000. 20th-century grey boards, lightly discolored, with caramel-color leather label on front one. Text very clean. (27042)

Dove
andro? A
chi mi volgero? — “Where
Shall I Go?
To Whom Can I
Turn?”
Savonarola,
Girolamo. [drop-title] Expositione
di frate Hieronymo da Ferrara sopra el Psalmo L, Miserere mei Deus. [Florence:
Printer of the 'Caccia di Belfiore', after 23 May 1498]. Small 4to (18.7cm;
7.5"). [14] ff., with final blank.
$10,000.00
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Vernacular, Italian translation of Savonarola’s highly personal
commentary and meditation on “Miserere mei Deus,” the Penitential
Psalm (50 according to Septuagint numbering, 51 in Masoretic numbering), in
which he implores God to “do what He will” to him (our translation,
f. [13]r), accompanied on the final page by a
speech
Savonarola delivered on the day of his execution, 23 May 1498,
wrestling with his conscience and asking God, and everyone, to pardon the temporal
and spiritual errors he had unwittingly committed — the priest's final
sad statement following his having confessed, after standing three trials and
under extreme torture, to crimes he originally believed and swore he did not
commit, i.e., heresy and promoting schism within the government. Following the
speech on the same page is Psalm 1 in Latin (first line) and Italian.
Savonarola wrote this painful document in prison, completing it on or before
8 May 1498. Significantly
one
of the most widely read and reprinted of Savonarola's works,
it was in its original Latin version immediately distributed in Florence and
quickly translated into Italian, this particularly early version at the instance
of “certain devoted women” (our translation, f. [1]r). Indeed
Giovannozzi lists a total of 32 printings in four languages from 1498 to 1581,
ISTC noting of this one that it is “printed in a later state of the
type associated with the Printer of the Caccia di Belfiore, who is identified
as Lorenzo Morgiani and Johannes Petri by A. Tura, in La Bibliofilia 101 (1999)
pp.1–16.”
A
neat, handsome incunable production.
Provenance: Probably from
Lathrop C. Harper (its binding style, see below).
ISTC locates 8 copies in libraries in the U.S., 5 in Britain, 15 on the Continent,
and 1 in Australia.
Goff S216; BMC, VI 695; IGI 8737; ISTC is00216000;
HR 14428; HC 14429?; Audin 145; CIBN S-104; GKW M40538; Pr 6305;
Giovannozzi 104 (“S.n.t [sec. XV]”); Ridolfi, I, 389, & II,
220. 20th-century grey boards, lightly discolored, with caramel-color
leather label on front board. Text very clean. (27045)

Florence & Rome
WILL Be Punished
Savonarola, Girolamo, pseudo. [drop-title] Expositione sopra el psalmo Verba mea. [Florence: Printer of Pseudo-Savonarola, 'Esposizione sopra il salmo Verba mea', 1500?]. Small 4to (19.6 cm; 7.75"). [8] ff.
$8895.00
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Commentary on Psalm 5, in Italian with citations in Latin. The author describes his generation as worse than Noah's, more lecherous still than the population of Sodom & Gomorrah. The commentary
explicitly rages at Florence and Rome for killing Savonarola. The priest's death polluted their hands, and proved Savonarola's prediction that the cities would be punished by God: “La morte del frate sia causa di verificare le cose predecte . . . El signore torra via & punira te Firenze che hai pollute le mani tue del sangue iusto . . . Anchora el signore punira te Roma” (ff. 4v–5r).
The Vatican Incunabula catalogue notes that this commentary was, “In fact written after Savonarola's death, probably by the Dominican Simone (or Placido) Cinozzi”; ISTC adds, “The Dominicans ordered an enquiry into its authorship and publication on 24 May 1499.” Placido (Lorenzo) Cinozzi (1464–1503) is famous for his Epistola of 1501–03, considered the earliest extant biography of Savonarola; he first heard Savonarola preach at San Lorenzo in 1484 and later knew him at San Marco, where Cinozzi joined the Dominican order in 1496.
Evidence of readership: Early ink manicule in the margin of f. 3v, pointing to a passage beseeching God to free His people, who are in great danger; and some letters finished with the same ink (ff. 3v–4r).
Provenance: Probably from Lathrop C. Harper (its binding style, see below).
ISTC locates five copies in libraries in the U.S., two in Britain, and ten on the Continent.
Adams S485 (“c. 1501”); Goff S203; HCR 14410; H14409?; CIBN S-151 (“about 1500”); IGI, VI, 131 (“after 1500”); Audin 128; Pr 6453; BMC, VII, 1209; GKW M40467; ISTC is00203000; Proctor 6453; Isaac 13494; Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae, Incunabula, III, S-120 (see above); C. Olschki, “Un codice savonaroliano sconosciuto,” in La Bibliofilia 23 (1921), pp. 154–65, at p. 163; R. Ridolfi, Vita, II, p. 669, n. 22 (“about 15 May 1499”); Walsh 3035e. On Cinozzi, see: Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani online. 20th-century grey boards, lightly discolored, with caramel-color leather label on front board, and blue edges; rectangle of offsetting to paper of back cover, probably from a similar label on a similar book once this one's neighbor! Text very clean. (27040)



Bird & Bull Press — Incunables STUDIED HERE
Schulz, Ernst. The study of incunables: Problems and aims. Philadelphia: The Philobiblon Club, 1977. 8vo (24 cm; 9.25"). vii, 28, [1 (colophon)] pp.
$30.00
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Schulz (1897–1944) was a distinguished collector of books and manuscripts and an important employee of the international bookselling firm of Jacques Rosenthal where he was a research associate. The present essay is a translation of his Aufgaben und Ziele der Inkunabelforschung, written when he was only 27: In it he “summarizes his particular approach to the study of incunabula” (Introduction, p. iv). It was published in 1924 in an edition of only 40 copies on the occasion of Jacques Rosenthal's 70th birthday.
The introduction is by Bernhard Bischoff (the distinguished paleographer, historian, and philologist) and the work's editor was Rudolf Hirsch (the dynamic librarian of the University of Pennsylvania, identified in the “Editorial Note” merely by his initials); both men knew Schulz.
“Five hundred copies of this essay have been printed at the Bird & Bull Press, North Hills, Pennsylvania. Copies 1-200 for distribution to members of the Philobiblon Club of Philadelphia.” The work is printed in Baskerville type on Strathmore Artlaid paper.
Taylor & Morris, Twenty-one Years of Bird & Bull, B8. New. As issued in brown textured paper wrappers with a paper spine label on the front cover. (35762)
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