Early Printed BooksDuff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
History
Early Printed Books
Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
Incunabula -- Bibliography; Printing -- History -- Origin and antecedents
In 1489, printing was introduced into San Cucufat, into Coria, where
only one book was printed in the fifteenth century, the _Blason
general de todas las insignias del universo_, printed by Bartholomeus
de Lila (Lille), a Fleming; and it is usually said into Tolosa. The
history of printing in the latter town offers many difficulties.
Bibliographers have confused Toulouse in France with Tolosa in Biscay;
and the difficulty increases when we find that some Spanish books
were certainly printed at the former place. The best authorities seem
unfortunately to agree that the _Cronica de España_, by Diego de
Valera, is the earliest book; printed by Henry Meyer or Mayer in 1489.
M. Nèe de la Rochelle speaks of this _Chronicle_ as printed in 1488,
and also quotes a work by Guillaume de Deguilleville, a translation
into Spanish of the _Pelerinage de la vie humaine_, printed by the
same printer as early as 1480. The date should be 1490, but is given
as 1480 in the _Bibl. Hisp. vetus_ of Antonio (ii. 311), and also by
Hain (No. 7848). This Henry Mayer, however, was certainly a printer
of Toulouse in France, and not of Tolosa, so that all the remarks of
the bibliographers are beside the point. His name is found mentioned
in 1488 in registers at Toulouse; and he says in the colophon to the
_Boethius_ of the same year, ‘impresso en Tolosa de Francia.’ It is
not at all improbable that all the early books with ‘Tolosæ’ in the
colophon were printed in France, and that there was no fifteenth
century press at Tolosa.
The first book printed at Valladolid is the _Tractado breve de
Confession_ of 1492; but it has no printer’s name. In the following
year another book was printed, which gives the name of the printer as
Johan de Francour. The next two places, Cagliari and Monterey, have
each only one book printed in the fifteenth century. The book printed
at Cagliari is a _Speculum Ecclesiæ_, and was printed by Salvador de
Bolonga (Bologna), at the request of Nicholas Dagreda. The only known
copy is in the Municipal Library at Palma. The book printed at Monterey
was a _Missal_, printed by two partners, Gundisalvus Rodericus de la
Passera and Johannes de Porres. Granada (1496), Tarragona (1498), the
Monastery of the Blessed Virgin of Monserrat (1499), Madrid (1499), and
perhaps Jaen (1500), complete the list of places where printing was
practised in Spain before the end of the fifteenth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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