Volume III Part 6 (1/2)

ARS MEMORANDI, &c. Here are not fewer than _five copies_ of this well known--and perhaps first--effort of block-book printing. These are of the earliest dates, yet with trifling variations. The wood cuts in all the copies are coloured; some more heavily than others; and in one of them you observe, in the figure of St. Matthew, that red or crimson glossy wash, or colour, so common in the earliest prints--and which is here carried over the whole figure. One of these five copies is unbound.

ARS MORIENDI. Here are two editions, of which one copy is indisputably the most ancient--like that in Lord Spencer's library,[52]--but of a considerably larger size, in quarto. There can be no doubt of the whole of this production being xylographical. Unluckily this fine copy has the first and last pages of text in ms. The other pages, with blank-reverses, are faintly impressed in brown ink: especially the first, which seems to be injured. A double-line border is round each page. This copy, which is bound in blue morocco, has also received injury from a stain. I consider the second copy, which is bound in red morocco, to be printed with moveable _metal_ types. The ink is however of a palish brown. I never saw another copy of this latter impression.

BIBLIA PAUPERUM. _In Latin_. I doubt whether this be the first edition; but at any rate it is imperfect. _In German_: with the date of 1470. Here are two copies; of which I was anxious to obtain the duplicate (the largest and uncoloured,) for the library in St. James's Place; but the value fixed upon it was too high; indeed a little extravagant.

The APOSTLES CREED. _In German_. Only seven leaves, but pasted together--so that, the work is an opistographised production. This is a very rare, and indeed unique volume; and utterly unknown to bibliographers. Each cut is about the same size, and there are twelve in the whole. There is no other text but the barbarous letters introduced at the bottom of the cut.

MIRABILIA URBIS ROMae. Another generally unknown xylographic performance; printed in the German language: being a small quarto. I have secured a duplicate of this singular volume for Lord Spencer's library, intending to describe it in the _aedes Althorpianae_.[53]

The LIFE OF ST. MEINRAT; _in German_, in a series of wood-cut representations. This Saint was murdered by two men, whose Christian names were Peter and Richard, and who were always afterwards haunted by a couple of crows. There is a German introduction of two pages, preceding the cuts.

These cuts are forty-eight in number. At the thirtieth cut, the Saint is murdered; the earlier series representing the leading events of his life.

The thirty-first cut represents the murderers running away; an angel being above them; In the thirty-second cut, they continue to be pursued. The thirty-third cut thus describes them; the German and the version being as follow; ”_Hie furt man die mord vo danne un wil schleisse vn redern die rappen volget alle zit hin nach vn stechet sy_.” ”Here they bring the murderers, in order to drag them upon the hurdle to execution, and to break them upon the wheel. The crows follow and peck them.”

In the thirty-fourth cut Peter and Richard are tied and dragged at the heels, of a horse. In the thirty-fifth they are broken upon the wheel.

The _Calendar of Regiomonta.n.u.s_--A decidedly xylographical production; the first date is 1475, the last 1525. A fine sound copy, but cropt. In a duplicate copy the name of the mathematician is given at the end.

CANTICA CANTICORUM. First edition. A beautiful copy; cropt, but clean.

Sixteen cuts, uncoloured. The leaves have been evidently pasted together.

Another copy, coloured; but of a later date. In fine preservation. A third copy; apparently the first edition; washed all over with a slight brown tint, and again coa.r.s.ely coloured in parts: This copy singularly enough, is intermixed with portions of the first edition (as I take it) of the _Apocalypse_: very clumsily coloured. A fourth copy, also, as I conceive, of the first edition; rather heavily coloured. The back grounds are uncoloured. This is larger than the other copies.

DEFENSIO IMMACULATae CONCEPTIONIS B.M.V. _Without place; of the date of 1470_. This is a Latin treatise; having four cuts in each page, with the exception of the first two pages, which exhibit only Saints Ambrose, Austin, Jerom and Gregory. At the bottom of the figure of St. Austin, second column, first page, it is thus written; ”_f.w. 1470_.” In the whole sixteen pages. The style of art is similar to that used in the Antichrist.[54] Of this tract, evidently xylographical, I never saw or heard of another copy.

The foregoing list may be said to comprise the _chief rarities_ among the BLOCK BOOKS in the Public Library at Munich; and if I am not mistaken, they will afford no very unserviceable supplement to the celebrated work of Heineken upon the same subject. From this department in the art of printing, we descend naturally to that which is connected with metal types; and accordingly I proceed to lay before you another list of _Book-Rarities_--taken from the earlier _printed volumes_ in this most extraordinary Library.

We will begin with the best and most ancient of all Books:--the BIBLE. They have a very singular copy of what is called the _Mazarine edition_: or rather the parent impression of the sacred text:--inasmuch as it contains (what, I believe, no other copy in Europe contains, and therefore M.

Bernhard properly considers it as unique) _four printed leaves of a table_, as directions to the Rubricator. At the end of the Psalter is a ms. note thus: ”_Explicit Psalterium, 61_.” This copy is in other respects far from being desirable, for it is cropt, and in very ordinary calf binding.

_Mentelin's German Bible_. Here are two copies of this first impression of the Bible in the German language: both of which have distinct claims to render them very desirable. In the one is an inscription, in the German language, of which M. Bernhard supplied me with the following literal version: ”_Hector Mulich and Otilia his wife; who bought this Bible in the year of Our Lord, 1466, on the twenty-seventh day of June, for twelve florins_.” Their arms are below. The whole is decidedly a coeval inscription. Here, therefore, is another testimony[55] of the printing of this Bible at least as early as the year 1466. At the end of the book of Jeremiah, in the same copy, is a ms. entry of 1467; ”_sub Papa Paulo Secundo et sub Imperatore Frederico tertio_.” The second copy of this edition, preserved in the same library, has a German ms. memorandum, executed in red ink, stating that this edition is ”_well translated, without the addition of a single word, faithful to the Latin: printed at Strasbourg with great care_.” This memorandum is doubtless of the time of the publication of the edition; and the Curators of the library very judiciously keep both copies.

A third, or triplicate copy, of Mentelin's edition--much finer than either of the preceding--and indeed abounding with rough edges--was purchased by me for the library in St. James's place; but it was not obtained for a sum beneath its full value.[56]

Here is a copy of _Eggesteyn's Latin Bible_, containing forty-five lines in a full page, with the important date of ”_24th May, 1466_”--in a coeval ms.

memorandum. Thus, you see, here is a date two years earlier[57] than that in a copy of the same Bible in the Public Library at Strasbourg; and I think, from hence, we are well warranted in supposing that both Mentelin and Eggesteyn had their presses in full play at Strasbourg in 1466--if not earlier. This copy of Eggesteyn's first Bible, which is in its original binding of wood, is as fine and large as it is precious.

I shall continue, miscellaneously, with the earlier printed books. _T.

Aquinas de Virtutibus et Vitiis_; printed by _Mentelin_ in his smallest character. At the end, there is the following inscription, in faded green ink; _Johannes Bamler de Augusta hui^9 libri Illuiator Anno 1468_. Thus Bamler should seem to be an illuminator as well as printer,[58] and Panzer is wrong in supposing that Bamler _printed_ this book. Of course Panzer formed his judgment from a copy which wanted such accidental attestation.

_Ptolemy_, 1462: with all the maps, coloured. _Livy_ (1469): very fine--in its original binding--full sixteen inches high. _Caesar_, 1469: very fine, in the original binding. _Lucan_, 1469: equally fine, and coated in the same manner. _Apuleius_, 1469: imperfect and dirty. The foregoing, you know, are all EDITIONES PRINCIPES. But judge of my surprise on finding neither the first edition of _Terence_, nor of _Valerius Maximus_, nor of _Virgil_[59]--all by Mentelin. I enquired for the first _Roman_ or _Bologna Ovid_: but in vain. It seemed that I was enquiring for ”blue diamonds;”[60]--so precious and rare are these two latter works.

Here are very fine copies of the _Philosophical works of Cicero, printed by Ulric Han_--with the exception of the Tusculan Questions and the treatise upon Oratory, of the dates of 1468, 1469--which are unluckily wanting. M.

Bernhard preserves _four_ copies of the _Euclid_ of 1482, because they have printed variations in the margins. One of these copies has the prefix, or preface of one page, printed in letters of gold. I saw another such a copy at Paris. Here is the _Milan Horace of 1474_--the text only. The _Catholicon by Gutenberg, of 1460_: UPON VELLUM: quite perfect as to the text, but much cropt, and many pieces sliced out of the margins--for purposes, which it were now idle to enquire after; although I have heard of a Durandus of 1459 in our own country, which, in ancient times, had been so served for the purpose of writing directions on parcels of game, &c.

_Catholicon of 1469 by G. Zeiner_; also UPON VELLUM, and equally cropt--but otherwise sound and clean. This copy contains an ancient ma.n.u.script note which must be erroneous; as it professes the first owner to have got possession of the book before it was _printed_: in other words, an _unit_ was omitted in the date, and we should read 1469 for 1468.[61]

Among the more precious ITALIAN BOOKS, is a remarkably fine copy of the old edition of the _Decameron of Boccaccio_, called the _Deo Gracias_--which Lord Spencer purchased at the sale of the Borromeo library in London, last year. It is quite perfect, and in a fine, large condition. It was taken to Paris on a certain memorable occasion, and returned hither on an occasion equally memorable. It contains 253 leaves of text and two of table; and has red ms. prefixes. It came originally from the library of Petrus Victorius, from which indeed there are many books in this collection, and was bought by the King of Bavaria at Rome. What was curious, M. Bernhard shewed me a minute valuation of this very rare volume, which he had estimated at 1100 florins--somewhere about 20. below the price given by Lord Spencer for his copy, of which four leaves are supplied by ms. Here is a magnificent copy of the _Dante of 1481_, with XX CUTS; the twentieth being precisely similar to that of which a fac-simile appears in the B.S. This copy was _demanded_ by the library at Paris, and xix. cuts only were specified in the demand; the twentieth cut was therefore secreted, from another copy--which other copy has a duplicate of the first cut, pasted at the end of the preface.

The impressions of the cuts, in the copy under description, are worthy of the condition of the text and of the amplitude of the margins. It is a n.o.ble book, in every point of view.

I was shewn a great curiosity by this able bibliographer; nothing less than a sheet, or _broadside_, containing _specimens of types from Ratdolf's press_. This sheet is in beautiful preservation, and is executed in double columns. The first ten specimens are in the _gothic_ letter, with a gradually diminis.h.i.+ng type. The last is thus: