1. BIBLIA LATINA. Moguntiae, Johannes Fust et Petrus Schoeffer, 14
August, 1462.
[Folio. 481 leaves, 2 columns, 48 lines to the column, gothic letter,
without signatures, catchwords or pagination.]
Leaves 204, 205 containing Judith xiv. 17--Esther iv. 4.
_Fol. 204^b, col. 1_ (red): expl_icit_ liber iudith secundu_m_
ieronimu_m_. Incipit p_r_ologus in libru_m_ hester. _Col. 2_ (red):
Explicit p_r_olog_us_. Incip. liber hester. Hain *3050. Pellechet
2281. Copinger 4. Brit. Mus. 15th cent., I, p. 22. Burger pl. 74.
De Ricci 79.
Five-line initial of prologue and fourteen-line initial I of Esther i. 1
supplied in colors. Heading of leaf in alternate red and blue capitals.
Initial-strokes in red on text capitals. Measurement 16-1/4 × 11-1/2 in.
The fourth printed Bible, and the first in which place, printers' names
and date are given. These details, which are wanting in so many of the
books of the early printers, Fust and Schoeffer--and Schoeffer when he
carried on the business alone--rarely failed to add to anything large
enough to be called a book that came from their press. This is their
fifth book and the colophon attached to the first, the famous Psalter of
1457, was repeated in them all, with no essential change beyond the
date, and continued to do duty for ten years longer. In the present
Bible among the typographical differences found in the copies are three
varieties of the colophon, two of which however are identical in
language and differ only in the printers' use of contractions and
capitals. The more common of the forms affirms that: "This present work
by the ingenious invention of printing or stamping letters without any
scratching of the pen has been thus fashioned in the city of Mainz and
to the worship of God has been diligently brought to completion by
Johann Fust citizen and Peter Schoeffer clerk of the same diocese in the
year of the Lord 1462, on the eve of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary."
In Seymour de Ricci's "Catalogue raisonné des premières impressions de
Mayence (1445-1467)," Mainz, 1911, 61 known copies of this Bible, 36 of
them on vellum, are enumerated and 41 copies which cannot now be traced.
The fragment in our possession is entered (No. 115) as one leaf only,
instead of two.
The second dated Bible, the eleventh in the series of printed Bibles,
was that of Sweynheym and Pannartz, Rome, 1471; the third was a reprint
by Schoeffer in 1472 of the present edition, page for page, line for
line and in the same type.
2. JUSTINIANUS. Novellae constitutiones, sive Authenticum. Consuetudines
feudorum. Codicis libri X-XII. Moguntiae, Petrus Schoeffer, 21
August, 1477.
_Fol. 1^a._ [Text (red)]: In no_m_i_n_e d_omi_ni n_ost_ri ih_es_u
chr_ist_i. de heredib_us_ et falcidia _con_st_ituti_o prima si heres
legata soluere noluerit Incipit co_n_stitutio Imp_er_atoris Iustiniani.
a. Ioha_n_ni p_a_pe secu_n_do. [Commentary]: [I]N nomine d_omi_ni.
Iustinianus opus suu_m_ laudabile deo attribuit. _Fol. 169^b._ Explicit
liber aute_n_ticor_um_. _Fol. 170^a._ [Text (red)]: Incipiu_n_t
_con_suetudines feudor_um_. _Fol. 206^a._ [Text (red)]: Codicis d_omi_ni
iustiniani sacratissimi principis perpetui augusti repetite
p_re_lectionis incipit liber decimus. _Fol. 300^b_, COLOPHON (red): Anno
incarnac_i_o_n_is d_omi_nice .M.cccc.lxxvii. xii. kale_n_dis septembrijs!
Sanctissimo in chr_ist_o patre ac d_omi_no, d_omi_no Sixto p_a_pa .iiii.
po_n_tifice maximo. Illustrissimo noblissime domus austrie d_omi_no,
d_omi_no Friderico Romanorum Imp_er_atore inuictissimo, monarchie
chr_is_tiane d_omi_nis! Reuerendissimo deoq_ue_ amabili in Chr_ist_o
p_at_re ac d_omi_no, d_omi_no Diethero archip_re_sule Maguntino; in
ciuitate Maguncia impressorie artis inue_n_trice atq_ue_ elimatrice
p_ri_ma .x. collac_i_onu_m_ triu_m_q_ue_ libroru_m_ Codicu_m_ opus
egregiu_m_, Petrus Schoiffer de Gernsheim, glorioso faue_n_te deo suis
consignando scutis, feliciter finiuit. [PRINTER'S DEVICE in red.]
Folio. 1. Novellae: quires [1^{10}, 2^8, 3-6^{10}, 7-8^6, 9^{10},
10^8, 11-12^{10}, 13^8, 14^{10}, 15^8, 16^6, 17-18^{10}, 19^{10-1}
(the blank second leaf cut away)], 169 leaves. 2. Consuetudines
feudorum: quires [1-3^{10}, 4^6], 36 leaves. 3. Codicis libri
X-XII: quires [1^8, 2^{10}, 3-5^8, 6^{10}, 7^8, 8^4, 9-10^{10},
11^{10+1} (the additional leaf prefixed)], 95 leaves. In all 300
leaves, two columns of text and two of commentary, 51 lines of text
and 66 of commentary to the column, gothic letter, without printed
signatures, catchwords or pagination. Two- to six-line spaces, some
with guide-letters, left for capitals. Two pinholes, the use of
which Schoeffer was thought to have abandoned a little earlier than
the date of this volume. Titles and colophon printed in red. The
text type is that of the Bible of 1462. Hain *9623. Brit. Mus. 15th
cent., I, p. 33 (IC. 217).
The first page of each of the three works is ornamented with a floral
scroll border in colors. At the head of the several books are thirteen
initials in gold and colors. Chapter initials in alternate red and blue;
initial-strokes in red in both text and commentary.
The present volume agrees in contents with the fifth and last volume of
the Corpus juris as it is found arranged in the medieval MSS., except
for the omission of the Institutiones, already sufficiently accessible
in separate editions, of which no less than fifty were printed in the
15th century, the first of them by Schoeffer himself in 1468. The first
three volumes of the Corpus were occupied by the Digests, the fourth by
the Codex lib. i-ix. The last three books of the Codex relate mainly to
public law and having lost much of their importance were transferred to
the fifth volume.
That the order of the three parts in the present copy, viz. 1. Novellae,
2. Consuetudines, 3. Codex lib. x-xii, is that intended by the printer,
is clear both from the position and from the language of the
colophon--the position because the colophon is attached to the Codex,
and the language because it describes the volume as consisting of "the
ten Collations and the three books of the Codes." The Novellae were
usually divided by the commentators into nine Collations, perhaps, as
Savigny suggests, to parallel the first nine books of the Codex.
Sometimes, however, as in the present case, the Consuetudines feudorum
were joined with them and reckoned as a tenth collation. Notwithstanding
these plain indications, in the copy described by Hain *9623, and in the
British Museum copy (as at present, though not as originally, bound),
the Codex x-xii is placed between the Novellae and the Consuetudines,
thus removing the colophon from its natural place at the end of the
volume. In the first edition of these works, printed by Vitus Puecher,
Rome, 1476, they were placed in the order last named, but the colophon
was there attached to the Consuetudines.
After the death of his father-in-law and partner Fust, late in 1466 or
early in 1467, Schoeffer conducted the press alone until his death in
1502. After 1478, however, his activity as a printer was much
diminished.
The present large and fine copy (leaf 15-3/4 × 11-1/4 in.), with the
manuscript signatures still in part preserved, is from the library of
Sir John Hayford Thorold (1773-1831) of Syston Park, Lincolnshire, sold
in December, 1884. In the Meerman sale at the Hague, 1824, this same
copy, bound as at present in russia gilt, sold for 64 florins.
3. ISIDORUS HISPALENSIS. Etymologiarum libri XX. [Strassburg, Johann
Mentelin, c. 1473.]
_Fol. 1, blank._ _Fol. 2^a_: INCIPIT EPISTOLA ISIDORI IVNIORIS
HISPALENSIS EPISCOPI AD BRAVLIONEM CESARAVGVSTANVM EPISCOPVM. [Three
other letters to the same and two replies; tabula generalis.] _Fol. 3^b,
col. 2_: INCIPIVNT CAPITVLA PRIMI LIBRI. INCIPIT LIBER PRIMVS
ETHIMOLOGIARVM ISIDORI HISPALENSIS EPISCOPI. DE DISCIPLINA ET ARTE.
_Fol. 27^b, col. 1_: INCIPIVNT CAPITVLA LIBRI QVARTI. _Fol. 27^b, col.
2_: PREFACIO. [D]Omino et filio syseputo ysidor_us_..... INCIPIT LIBER
YSIDORI DE RERVM NATVRA AD SISEPVTVM REGEM. _Fol. 37^a, col. 2_:
INCIPIVNT CAPITVLA LIBRI QVARTI. INCIPIT LIBER QVARTVS DE MEDICINA.
_Fol. 142^a_, COLOPHON: EXPLICIT LIBER ETHIMOLOGIARVM ISIDORI
HISPALENSIS EPISCOPI.
Folio. Quires [1-13^{10}, 14^{12}], 142 leaves, the first blank, 2
columns, 51 lines to the column, without signatures, catchwords,
pagination, printer's name, place or date. Gothic lower-case type,
roman capitals. Book and chapter headings printed wholly in
majuscules. Large woodcut diagrams. Three-to nine-line spaces left
for chapter and book initials, also spaces for occasional Greek
words (mostly left unsupplied) and for small diagrams. Two
pinholes, which in Mentelin's use point to a date not later than
1473. Hain *9270. Brit. Mus. 15th cent., I, p. 57 (IC. 586). Burger
pl. 170.
On the first page large illuminated initial with floral border ornament,
and similar initials at the head of the several books. Chapter initials
supplied in red or blue; initial-strokes in red throughout the volume.
Blank first leaf wanting.
Incorporated with the present edition of the Etymologiae by way of
supplement, though not named in the table of contents, is an earlier
treatise of Isidore's entitled _De natura rerum_, written at the request
of Sisebut, king of the Visigoths, 612-621, and dedicated to him. It
contains the sum of the physical philosophy of his time, and, being
largely astronomical, is sometimes found in the MSS. under the title
_Liber de astronomia_. In order to bring it into immediate connection
with the corresponding section of the Etymologiae, it is placed
immediately after the third book (devoted to the _quadrivium_, the last
division of which is astronomy) and given irregularly the heading "Liber
quartus," the regular _Liber quartus (De medicina)_ beginning twenty
pages later. Two of the 48 chapters of which it is composed are wanting
here, but by the subdivision of other chapters the number is raised to
58. Zainer of Augsburg, the printer of the first edition of the
Etymologiae, dated 19 November, 1472, followed it the next month with an
edition of _De responsione mundi et astrorum ordinatione ad Sesibutum
regem_, which is the work in question under another title. Printed with
the same type and the same number of lines to the page, it was in effect
treated as a supplement to the Etymologiae.
According to the testimony of a fellow printer, de Lignamine, in the
"Chronica summorum Pontificum," Rome, 1474, Mentelin as early as 1458
was printing at Strassburg 300 sheets a day. The third Latin Bible
(1460-1461) and the first German Bible came from his press, but the
first work to which he affixed his name and a date was the _Speculum
historiale_ of Vincent of Beauvais in 1473. He died in 1478.
The Wodhull copy, bought at "Hayes's sale" in 1794 for £5.5s., and bound
in russia gilt, with Wodhull arms on side, by Mrs. Weir for £1.2s. Leaf
15-3/4 × 11 in.