An incunable or incunabulum (pl.: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500.[1] Incunabula were produced before the printing press became widespread on the continent and are distinct from manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. Some authorities on the history of printing include block books from the same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type.
As of 2021,[update] there are about 30,000 distinct incunable editions known.[2] The probable number of surviving individual copies is much higher, estimated at 125,000 in Germany alone.[3] Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000.[4] Around 550,000 copies of around 27,500 different works have been preserved worldwide.[5]
Terminology
Incunable is the anglicised form of incunabulum,[6]reconstructed singular of Latinincunabula,[7] which meant "swaddling clothes", or "cradle",[8] which could metaphorically refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development".[9] A former term for incunable is fifteener, meaning "fifteenth-century edition".[10]
The term incunabula was first used in the context of printing by the Dutch physician and humanist Hadrianus Junius (Adriaen de Jonghe, 1511–1575), in a passage in his work Batavia (written in 1569; published posthumously in 1588). He referred to a period "inter prima artis [typographicae] incunabula" ("in the first infancy of the typographic art").[11][12] The term has sometimes been incorrectly attributed to Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (1591–1664), in his Latin pamphlet De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae ("On the rise and progress of the typographic art"; 1640), but he was quoting Junius.[13][14]
The term incunabula came to denote printed books themselves in the late 17th century.[15] It is not found in English before the mid-19th century.[9]
Junius set an end-date of 1500 to his era of incunabula, which remains the convention in modern bibliographical scholarship.[11][12] This convenient but arbitrary end-date for identifying a printed book as an incunable does not reflect changes in the printing process, and many books printed for some years after 1500 are visually indistinguishable from incunables. The term "post-incunable" is now used to refer to books printed after 1500 up to 1520 or 1540, without general agreement. From around this period the dating of any edition becomes easier, as the practice of printing the place and year of publication using a colophon or on the title page became more widespread.[citation needed]
Types
There are two types of printed incunabula: the block book, printed from a single carved or sculpted wooden block for each page (the same process as the woodcut in art, called xylographic); and the typographic book, made by individual cast-metal movable type pieces on a printing press. Many authors reserve the term "incunabula" for the latter.[16]
The spread of printing to cities both in the North and in Italy ensured that there was great variety in the texts and the styles which appeared. Many early typefaces were modelled on local writing or derived from various European Gothic scripts, but there were also some derived from documentary scripts like Caxton's, and, particularly in Italy, types modelled on handwritten scripts and calligraphy used by humanists.
Printers congregated in urban centres where there were scholars, ecclesiastics, lawyers, and nobles and professionals who formed their major customer base. Standard works in Latin inherited from the medieval tradition formed the bulk of the earliest printed works, but as books became cheaper, vernacular works (or translations into vernaculars of standard works) began to appear.[citation needed]
Many incunabula are undated, needing complex bibliographical analysis to place them correctly. The post-incunabula period marks a time of development during which the printed book evolved fully as a mature artefact with a standard format.[18] After about 1540 books tended to conform to a template that included the author, title-page, date, seller, and place of printing. This makes it much easier to identify any particular edition.[19]
As noted above, the end date for identifying a printed book as an incunable is convenient but was chosen arbitrarily; it does not reflect any notable developments in the printing process around the year 1500. Books printed for a number of years after 1500 continued to look much like incunables, with the notable exception of the small format books printed in italic type introduced by Aldus Manutius in 1501. The term post-incunable is sometimes used to refer to books printed "after 1500—how long after, the experts have not yet agreed."[20] For books printed in the UK, the term generally covers 1501–1520, and for books printed in mainland Europe, 1501–1540.[21]
The number of printing towns and cities stands at 282. These are situated in some 18 countries in terms of present-day boundaries. In descending order of the number of editions printed in each, these are: Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, England, Austria, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Hungary (see diagram).
The following table shows the 20 main 15th century printing locations; as with all data in this section, exact figures are given, but should be treated as close estimates (the total editions recorded in ISTC at August 2016 is 30,518):
Only about one edition in ten (i.e. just over 3,000) has any illustrations, woodcuts or metalcuts.
The "commonest" incunable is Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle ("Liber Chronicarum") of 1493, with about 1,250 surviving copies (which is also the most heavily illustrated). Many incunabula are unique, but on average about 18 copies survive of each. This makes the Gutenberg Bible, at 48 or 49 known copies, a relatively common (though extremely valuable) edition. Counting extant incunabula is complicated by the fact that most libraries consider a single volume of a multi-volume work as a separate item, as well as fragments or copies lacking more than half the total leaves. A complete incunable may consist of a slip, or up to ten volumes.[33]
In terms of format, the 30,000-odd editions comprise: 2,000 broadsides, 9,000 folios, 15,000 quartos, 3,000 octavos, 18 12mos, 230 16mos, 20 32mos, and 3 64mos.
ISTC at present cites 528 extant copies of books printed by Caxton, which together with 128 fragments makes 656 in total, though many are broadsides or very imperfect (incomplete).[citation needed]
Apart from migration to mainly North American and Japanese universities, there has been little movement of incunabula in the last five centuries. None were printed in the Southern Hemisphere, and the latter appears to possess less than 2,000 copies, about 97.75% remain north of the equator. However, many incunabula are sold at auction or through the rare book trade every year.[citation needed]
Major collections
The British Library's Incunabula Short Title Catalogue now records over 29,000 titles, of which around 27,400 are incunabula editions (not all unique works). Studies of incunabula began in the 17th century. Michel Maittaire (1667–1747) and Georg Wolfgang Panzer (1729–1805) arranged printed material chronologically in annals format, and in the first half of the 19th century, Ludwig Hain published the Repertorium bibliographicum—a checklist of incunabula arranged alphabetically by author: "Hain numbers" are still a reference point. Hain was expanded in subsequent editions, by Walter A. Copinger and Dietrich Reichling, but it is being superseded by the authoritative modern listing, a German catalogue, the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, which has been under way since 1925 and is still being compiled at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. North American holdings were listed by Frederick R. Goff and a worldwide union catalogue is provided by the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue.[34]
Notable collections with more than 1,000 incunabula include:
The Nuremberg Chronicle is an illustrated encyclopedia consisting of world historical accounts, as well as accounts told through biblical paraphrase. Subjects include human history in relation to the Bible, illustrated mythological creatures, and the histories of important Christian and secular cities from antiquity. Finished in 1493, it was originally written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel, and a German version was translated by Georg Alt. It is one of the best-documented early printed books—an incunabulum—and one of the first to successfully integrate illustrations and text.
The Berlin State Library is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany c. 1439. Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing.
Albrecht Pfister was one of the first European printers to use movable type, following its invention by Johannes Gutenberg. Working in Bamberg, Germany, he is believed to have been responsible for two innovations in the use of the new technology: printing books in the German language, and adding woodcuts to printed books. The typefaces of Pfister, although similar to Gutenberg's, have their own peculiarities.
The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) is an electronic bibliographic database maintained by the British Library which seeks to catalogue all known incunabula. The database lists books by individual editions, recording standard bibliographic details for each edition as well as giving a brief census of known copies, organised by location. It currently holds records of over 30,000 editions.
The Hebrew incunabula are a group of Hebrew books, papmphlets or broadside printed before the year 1501.
Ilona Hubay was a Hungarian specialist in incunabula and other early printed books.
The Heidelberg University Library is the central library of the Heidelberg University. Together with the 83 decentralized libraries of the faculties and institutes, it forms the University Library System, which is headed by the director of the University Library. The University Library holds special collections in literature concerning the Palatinate and Baden, egyptology, archeology, the history of art, and South Asia. It holds about 3.2 million books, 6,000 printed scientific periodicals, and about 500,000 other media such as microfilms and video tapes. The libraries of the faculties and institutes hold another 3 million printed books. In 2022, the University Library registered 43,600 active users who accessed more than 746,000 books. The conventional book supply is complemented by numerous electronic services, including approximately 152,00 electronic journals. The University Library provides around 1,100 reading- and workspaces in the main library in the old town and around 320 reading- and workspaces in the branch in the Neuenheimer Feld, including many IT-workstations and research stations equipped with PCs.
The Mainz Psalter was the second major book printed with movable type in the West; the first was the Gutenberg Bible. It is a psalter commissioned by the Mainz archbishop in 1457. The Psalter introduced several innovations: it was the first book to feature a printed date of publication, a printed colophon, two sizes of type, printed decorative initials, and the first to be printed in three colours. The colophon also contains the first example of a printer's mark. It was the first important publication issued by Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer following their split from Johannes Gutenberg.
Ludwig Friedrich Theodor Hain was a German editor and bibliographer.
The 36-line Bible, also known as the "Bamberg Bible", was the second moveable-type-printed edition of the Bible. It is believed to have been printed in Bamberg, Germany, circa 1458–1460. No printer's name appears in the book, but it is possible that Johannes Gutenberg was the printer.
A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library is a short-title catalogue of more than 5,600 incunabula held in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. Bod-inc. stands out among incunabula catalogues for its detailed listing of the contents of each edition being described. It was published on 7 July 2005 by Oxford University Press in six volumes.
Der Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke is an ongoing project of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and appears in conjunction with the print edition of the union catalogue of incunabula. The Gesamtkatalog serves as a bibliography or collection of cradle prints or incunabula. The word incunabula stems from the Latin word incunabulum. In the world of books, incunabula refer to books that were printed using metal type up to the year 1500. The work is based on the description of the individual prints, each complete description consists of the bibliographic note, the collation, the description in the narrower sense, the source, and the copy. The database contains all together 36,000 descriptions of incunabula, distributed over at least 3,900 articles. The Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke is available in part in print and in its entirety—in draft form—via an online database.
The Llibre dels àngels is a literary work that was written by Francesc Eiximenis in 1392 in Valencia in Catalan. It was dedicated to Pere d'Artés, who was a kind of Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Crown of Aragon, and who was a close friend of him. It has two hundred and one chapters, and it is divided into five treatises.
The Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) is a consortium of research libraries, primarily in Europe, that facilitates access to historians with an interest in the history of the book by providing online resources. The organisation also makes grants to librarians, holds seminars and workshops, and since 1998 has published a periodical called CERL Papers. It was founded in 1992 and since 2021 has been registered in the Republic of Ireland as a company limited by guarantee, based in Dublin.
As of 2018, five firms in France rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Éditions Lefebvre Sarrut, Groupe Albin Michel, Groupe Madrigall, Hachette Livre, and Martinière Groupe.
Italy is the home of two of the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Messaggerie Italiane and Mondadori Libri. Other large publishers include De Agostini Editore, Feltrinelli and the RCS MediaGroup.
As of 2018, ten firms in Germany rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: C.H. Beck, Bertelsmann, Cornelsen Verlag, Haufe-Gruppe, Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Ernst Klett Verlag, Springer Nature, Thieme, WEKA Holding, and Westermann Druck- und Verlagsgruppe. Overall, "Germany has some 2,000 publishing houses, and more than 90,000 titles reach the public each year, a production surpassed only by the United States." Unlike many other countries, "book publishing is not centered in a single city but is concentrated fairly evenly in Berlin, Hamburg, and the regional metropolises of Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Munich."
References
↑ Greenfield, Jane (2002). ABC of bookbinding: a unique glossary with over 700 illustrations for collectors and librarians. New Castle (Del.) Nottingham (GB): Oak Knoll press The Plough press. p.37. ISBN978-1-884718-41-0.
↑ According to Bettina Wagner: "Das Second-Life der Wiegendrucke. Die Inkunabelsammlung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek", in Griebel, Rolf; Ceynowa, Klaus (eds.): "Information, Innovation, Inspiration. 450 Jahre Bayerische Staatsbibliothek", K G Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN978-3-598-11772-5, pp. 207–224 (207f.) the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue lists 30,375 titles published before 1501.
↑ J. Green, F. McIntyre, P. Needham (2011), "The Shape of Incunable Survival and Statistical Estimation of Lost Editions", Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 105 (2), pp.141–175. doi:https://doi.org/10.1086/680773
↑ As late as 1891 Rogers in his technical glossary recorded only the form incunabulum: Rogers, Walter Thomas (1891). A Manual of Bibliography (2nded.). London: H. Grevel. p.195.
↑ The word incunabula is a neuter plural only; the singular incunabulum is never found in Latin, and is no longer used in English by most bibliographers.
↑ C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford 1879, p. 930.
1 2 Hadrianus Iunius, Batavia, [...], [Lugduni Batavorum], ex officina Plantiniana, apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1588, p.256, line 3.
1 2 Glomski, J. (2001). "Incunabula Typographiae: seventeenth-century views on early printing". The Library. 2 (4): 336. doi:10.1093/library/2.4.336.
↑ Bernardus a Mallinkrot, De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae dissertatio historica, [...], Coloniae Agrippinae, apud Ioannem Kinchium, 1640 (in frontispiece: 1639), p. 9, line 16. The term appears within a long passage of several pages (pp. 27–33; corresponding to Batavia, pp.253–58), set in italics to indicate a quotation, and attributed to Junius.
↑ Carter, John; Barker, Nicolas (2004). ABC for Book Collectors (8thed.). New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press and the British Library. p.172. ISBN1-58456-112-2. Archived from the original(PDF) on 21 November 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2010.
↑ BL.ukArchived 12 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine , consulted in 2007. The figures are subject to slight change as new copies are reported. Exact figures are given but should be treated as close estimates; they refer to extant editions.
↑ "2021 Jahresbericht"(PDF). Österreichische Nationalbibliothek. p.53. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
↑ А.В. Лихоманова; Н.В. Николаев, eds. (2015). Путеводитель по фондам Отдела редких книг Российской национальной библиотеки. Санкт-Петербург: РНБ. p.3. ISBN978-5-8192-0483-2.
↑ "Zahlen und Fakten" (in German). Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Archived from the original on 19 January 2021. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
↑ Whitesell, David (2006). First supplement to James E. Walsh's Catalogue of the fifteenth-century printed books in the Harvard University Library. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Library. p.xiii. ISBN978-0-674-02145-7. OCLC71691077.
↑ "Incunabula". National Library of the Czech Republic. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
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