Illustrated books -- Bibliography; Illustration of books; Printing -- History
German Royal Commission for a General Catalogue of Incunabula are
German, this rough estimate must be largely increased, and it may be
proved that Germany was as prolific as Italy itself.
Considerable as was this output of German printing at home, it was
probably nearly equalled by the work done by German printers in the
other countries of Europe to which they hastened to carry the new art.
Turning first to Italian incunabula we find that the first book printed
in Italy has perished utterly. The cruel little Latin grammar which
passed under the name of _Donatus_ had, as we have seen, been frequently
printed in Holland and by the first Mainz printers, and there are
several later instances of an edition of it being produced as soon as a
press was set up, merely to show the printer's types. This was done by
Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz, the two Germans who began printing
at the monastery of Saint Scholastica at Subiaco, some forty miles from
Rome, in 1465, or perhaps in the previous year. Being a school-book, the
_Donatus_ was thumbed to pieces, so that no copy now survives, and it is
only known from the printer's allusion to it as the book "_unde
imprimendi initium sumpsimus_" in a list of their publications drawn up
in 1472. Of the three other books printed by them at Subiaco, Cicero's
_De Oratore_ has no printed date, but a copy described by Signor
Fumagalli bears a manuscript note dated Pridie Kal. Octobres M.cccclxv.,
i.e. 30 September, 1465, the authenticity of which has, however, been
challenged, though probably without good reason. The two others both
bear printed dates, the works of _Lactantius_, that of 29 October, 1465,
and S. Augustine's _De Ciuitate Dei_, 12 June, 1467. Probably even
before this last book was completed the printers were already moving
some of their material to Rome, where they found shelter in the palace
of Pietro de' Massimi, for their edition of the _Epistulae Familiares_
of Cicero was completed there in the same year, probably in or before
November. Even so it is not certain that this was the first book printed
at Rome, for Ulrich Han, a native of Vienna and citizen of Ingolstadt,
whose later work, like that of Michael Wenssler at Basel, shows a
tendency to imitate Schoeffer, completed an edition of the
_Meditationes de vita Christi_ of Cardinal Turrecremata on the last day
of the same year, and Mr. Proctor (after the publication of his _Index_)
assigned to Han's press and to an even earlier date than the
_Meditationes_ a bulky edition of the Epistles of S. Jerome, which must
certainly have taken a year to print.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account