Incunable

"Incunabula" redirects here. For other uses, see Incunabula (disambiguation).

An incunable or incunabulum (plural 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. 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.

Page from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, printed in red and black by Peter Schöffer (Mainz, 1471). The page exhibits a rubricated initial letter "U" and decorations, marginalia, and ownership stamps of the "Bibliotheca Gymnasii Altonani" (Hamburg).

Illumination with doodles and drawings (marginalia), including an open-mouthed human profile, with multiple tongues sticking out. Copulata, "De Anima", f. 2a. HMD Collection, WZ 230 M772c 1485

Image of two facing pages from "Phisicorum", fols. 57b and 58a, with doodles and drawings. HMD Collection, WZ 230 M772c 1485

As of 2021,^[update] there are about 30,000 distinct incunable editions known.^[1] The probable number of surviving individual copies is much higher, estimated at 125,000 in Germany alone.^[2] Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000.^[3] Around 550,000 copies of around 27,500 different works have been preserved worldwide.^[4]

Terminology

Incunable is the anglicised form of incunabulum,^[5] reconstructed singular of Latin incunabula,^[6] which meant "swaddling clothes", or "cradle",^[7] which could metaphorically refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development".^[8] A former term for incunable is fifteener, meaning "fifteenth-century edition".^[9]

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").^[10][11] 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.^[12][13]

The term incunabula came to denote printed books themselves in the late 17th century.^[14] It is not found in English before the mid-19th century.^[8]

Junius set an end-date of 1500 to his era of incunabula, which remains the convention in modern bibliographical scholarship.^[10][11] 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.^[15]

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]}

Famous examples

 

First incunable with illustrations, Ulrich Boner's Der Edelstein, printed by Albrecht Pfister, Bamberg, 1461

Famous incunabula include two from Mainz, the Gutenberg Bible of 1455 and the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam of 1486, printed and illustrated by Erhard Reuwich; the Nuremberg Chronicle written by Hartmann Schedel and printed by Anton Koberger in 1493; and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili printed by Aldus Manutius with important illustrations by an unknown artist.^{[citation needed]}

Other printers of incunabula were Günther Zainer of Augsburg, Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein of Strasbourg, Heinrich Gran of Haguenau, Johann Amerbach of Basel, William Caxton of Bruges and London, and Nicolas Jenson of Venice. The first incunable to have woodcut illustrations was Ulrich Boner's Der Edelstein, printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg in 1461.^[16]

A finding in 2015 brought evidence of quires, as claimed by extensive research, printed in 1444–1446, possibly assigned to Procopius Waldvogel in Avignon, France.

Post-incunable

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.^[17] 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.^[18]

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."^[19] For books printed in the UK, the term generally covers 1501–1520, and for books printed in mainland Europe, 1501–1540.^[20]

Statistical data

 

Printing towns

 

Incunabula distribution by region

 

Incunabula distribution by language

The data in this section were derived from the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC).^[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):

Town or city	No. of editions	% of ISTC recorded editions
Venice^[22]	3,549	12.5
Paris^[23]	2,764	9.7
Rome^[24]	1,922	6.8
Cologne^[25]	1,530	5.4
Lyon^[26]	1,364	4.8
Leipzig^[27]	1,337	4.7
Augsburg^[28]	1,219	4.3
Strasbourg^[29]	1,158	4.1
Milan^[30]	1,101	3.9
Nuremberg^[31]	1,051	3.7
Florence	801	2.8
Basel	786	2.8
Deventer	613	2.2
Bologna	559	2.0
Antwerp	440	1.5
Mainz	418	1.5
Ulm	398	1.4
Speyer	354	1.2
Pavia	337	1.2
Naples	323	1.1
TOTAL	22,024	77.6

The 18 languages that incunabula are printed in, in descending order, are: Latin, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Catalan, Czech, Greek, Church Slavonic, Portuguese, Swedish, Breton, Danish, Frisian and Sardinian (see diagram).

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.^[32]

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.^[33]

Notable collections with more than 1,000 incunabula include:

Library	Location	Country	Number of copies	Number of editions	Ref.
Bavarian State Library	Munich	Germany	19,717	9,381	^[34]
British Library	London	UK	12,500	10,390	^[35]
Bibliothèque nationale de France	Paris	France	12,000	8,000	^[36]
Vatican Library	Vatican City	Vatican City	8,600	5,400 (more than)	^[37]
Austrian National Library	Vienna	Austria	8,030		^[38]
National Library of Russia	Saint Petersburg	Russia	7,302		^[39]
Württembergische Landesbibliothek	Stuttgart	Germany	7,093		^[40]
Bodleian Library	Oxford	UK	6,755	5,623	^[41]
Library of Congress	Washington, D.C.	US	5,700		^[42]
Russian State Library	Moscow	Russia	5,360		^[43]
Huntington Library	San Marino, California	US	5,000 (more than)		^[44]
Cambridge University Library	Cambridge	UK	4,650 (more than)		^[45]
Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III	Naples	Italy	4,563		^[46]
Danish Royal Library	Copenhagen	Denmark	4,500		^[47]
John Rylands Research Institute and Library	Manchester	UK	4,500		^[48]
Berlin State Library	Berlin	Germany	4,496		^[49]
Harvard University	Cambridge, Massachusetts	US	4,389	3,627	^[50]
National Library of the Czech Republic	Prague	Czech Republic	4,200		^[51]
National Central Library of Florence	Florence	Italy	4,089		^[52]
Leipzig University Library	Leipzig	Germany	3,800		^[53]
Jagiellonian Library	Kraków	Poland	3,671		^[54]
Library of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich	Munich	Germany	3,598		^[55]
Bamberg State Library	Bamberg	Germany	3,550		^[56]
Yale University (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)	New Haven, Connecticut	US	3,525 (all collections)		^[citation needed]
Herzog August Library	Wolfenbüttel	Germany	3,477	2,835	^[57]
University Library Freiburg	Freiburg im Breisgau	Germany	3,448		^[58]
Wrocław University Library	Wrocław	Poland	3,250 (more than)		^[59]
Biblioteca Nacional de España	Madrid	Spain	3,159	2,298	^[60]
Göttingen State and University Library	Göttingen	Germany	3,100		^[61]
Library of the University of Würzburg	Würzburg	Germany	3,100		^[62]
Palatina Library	Parma	Italy	3,042		^[63]
Basel University Library	Basel	Switzerland	3,000 (more than)		^[64]
Biblioteca Marciana	Venice	Italy	2,887		^[65]
Frankfurt University Library	Frankfurt	Germany	2,800		^[66]
Uppsala University Library	Uppsala	Sweden	2,500		^[67]
Biblioteca comunale dell'Archiginnasio	Bologna	Italy	2,500 (circa)		^[68]
Bibliothèque Mazarine	Paris	France	2,400	2,120	^[69]
Braidense National Library	Milan	Italy	2,368		^[70]
Library of the University of Cologne	Cologne	Germany	2,350		^[71]
Les Dominicains de Colmar [fr]	Colmar	France	2,300		^[72]
Newberry Library	Chicago	US	2,200 (more than)		^[73]
Casanatense Library	Rome	Italy	2,200		^[74]
National Library of the Netherlands	The Hague	Netherlands	2,200		^[75]
Library of the University of Tübingen	Tübingen	Germany	2,148		^[76]
Library of the University of Innsbruck (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek)	Innsbruck	Austria	2,122	1,889	^[77]
National and University Library	Strasbourg	France	2,120 (circa) (7,000 destroyed by fire in the 1870 Siege of Strasbourg)		^[78]
Nuremberg Public Library [de]	Nuremberg	Germany	2,100		^[79]
Library Angelo Mai	Bergamo	Italy	2,100		^[80]
Morgan Library	New York	US	2,000 (more than)		^[citation needed]
Library of the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg	Erlangen	Germany	2,000 (more than)		^[81]
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma	Rome	Italy	2,000		^[82]
National Széchényi Library	Budapest	Hungary	1,800 (more than)		^[83]
Heidelberg University Library	Heidelberg	Germany	1,800		^[84]
Estense University Library	Modena	Italy	1,662		^[85]
Turin National University Library	Turin	Italy	1,600 (more than)		^[86]
Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt [de]	Halle (Saale)	Germany	1,600		^[87]
Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal	Lisbon	Portugal	1,597		^[88]
Biblioteca Universitaria di Padova [it]	Padua	Italy	1,583		^[89]
Zentralbibliothek Zürich	Zürich	Switzerland	1,562		^[90]
Strahov Monastery Library	Prague	Czech Republic	1,500 (more than)		^[91]
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève	Paris	France	1,500		^[92]
Universitätsbibliothek Salzburg [de]	Salzburg	Austria	1,385		^[93]
Baden State Library	Karlsruhe	Germany	1,365		^[94]
University Library of Bonn	Bonn	Germany	1,338	1,307	^[95]
Biblioteca Augusta	Perugia	Italy	1,330		^[96]
University Library in Genoa	Genoa	Italy	1,321		^[97]
Trivulziana Library	Milan	Italy	1,300		^[98]
Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon	Lyon	France	1,300		^[99]
Library of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt	Eichstätt	Germany	1,290		^[100]
Walters Art Museum	Baltimore, Maryland	US	1,280		^[101]
Verona Municipal Library	Verona	Italy	1,230		^[102]
Bryn Mawr College Library	Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania	US	1,225 (more than)		^[103]
Library Teresiana	Mantua	Italy	1,281	1,083	^[104]
Ratsschulbibliothek Zwickau [de]	Zwickau	Germany	1,200		^[105]
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign	Urbana, Illinois	US	1,200 (more than)		^[106]
Biblioteca Colombina	Seville	Spain	1,194		^[107]
Queriniana Library	Brescia	Italy	1,158		^[108]
Central Library of the Region of Sicily	Palermo	Italy	1,136		^[109]
University of Graz Library	Graz	Austria	1,115		^[110]
Angelica Library	Rome	Italy	1,100		^[111]
University of Glasgow	Glasgow	UK	1,062		^[112]
University Library in Bologna	Bologna	Italy	1,021		^[113]
Bridwell Library	Dallas, Texas	US	1,000 (more than)		^[114]
Library Passerini Landi	Piacenza	Italy	1,000 (more than)		^[115]
Abbey library of Saint Gall	St. Gallen	Switzerland	1,000		^[116]
Library Intronati	Siena	Italy	1,000 (circa)		^[117]
National Library of Serbia	Belgrade	Serbia	1,000 (circa)		^[118]^[119]
National and University Library in Zagreb	Zagreb	Croatia	1,000 (circa)		^[citation needed]
Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon	Besançon	France	1,000 (circa)		^[citation needed]

See also

• Global spread of the printing press
• History of books
• Book collecting

References

1. The British Library Incunabula Short Title Catalogue 12 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine (retrieved 16 August 2021) gives 30,518 editions, though this includes some which have been re-dated to the early 16th century.
2. 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, ISBN 978-3-598-11772-5, pp. 207–224 (207f.) the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue lists 30,375 titles published before 1501.
3. 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
4. Badische Landes-Bibliothek (in German)
5. As late as 1891 Rogers in his technical glossary recorded only the form incunabulum: Rogers, Walter Thomas (1891). A Manual of Bibliography (2nd ed.). London: H. Grevel. p. 195.
6. 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.
7. C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford 1879, p. 930.
8. "incunabula, n.". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
9. "Fifteener" was coined by bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin, a term endorsed by William Morris and Robert Proctor. (Carter & Barker 2004, p. 130).
10. Hadrianus Iunius, Batavia, [...], [Lugduni Batavorum], ex officina Plantiniana, apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1588, p. 256, line 3.
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External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Incunabula.

• British Library worldwide Incunabula Short Title Catalogue 12 March 2011 at the Wayback Machine
• Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW), partially English version
• History of Incunabula Studies
• UIUC Rare Book & Manuscript Library
• Incunable Collection at the US Library of Congress
• Digital facsimiles of several incunabula 8 June 2017 at the Wayback Machine from the website of the Linda Hall Library
• Kristian Jensen (2016). . Lyon: Ecole Nationale Superieure des Sciences de l'information et des Bibliotheques, Institut d'histoire du livre. Archived from the original on 27 November 2017. (Includes annotated bibliography)
• "Rinascimento: Manuscripts & Incunabula". Research Guides. US: Harvard University Library.
• Pollard, Alfred W. (1911). "Incunabula" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). pp. 369–370.
• "An Introduction to Incunabula". Barber, Phil. Retrieved 6 July 2017.