INCUNABLES INCUNABLES 
" Incunabula" is the
special name given to European books printed from movable type before
1 January 1501 — that is, before the end of Gutenberg's own century.
The name comes from the ancient Latin word for "baby clothes" or the medieval
Latin one for "things of the cradle" and is often Englished as "incunables."
The printing centers of the New World had their own similarly revered
infancy periods, of course, starting for example in 1539 for Mexico, 1639
for what is now the U.S., 1660 for Guatemala, and 1766 for Argentina.
 By
extension, American imprints of these periods are sometimes called " New
World Incunables" and several of them usually appear below among their
elder, European brothers and sisters. |
Incunable “Golden Legend” — From the Printer of the
1483 Jordanus de Quedlinburg
Jacobus, de Voragine. Lombardica historia que a plerisq[ue] Aurea legenda sa[n]ctorum appellatur. [Arge[n]tine: {Printer of the 1483 Jordanus de Quedlinburg (Georg Husner)}, 1489]. Small folio (27 cm). [260 of 264] ff. 
Click any image where the hand appears on
page
for page reprints. The imprint information is from the colophon
on H5r.
This is an uncommon edition in the U.S. though heavily held in Europe; Goff and ESTC locate only two U.S. copies — this being one of them, deaccessioned.
The text is printed in double-column format in gothic type. 
In
this copy, virtually all of the initials are nicely accomplished in red or
blue.
• Copinger, II, 6452; ISTC ij00122000; Proctor 618; BMC, I, 138; Goff J122. 19th-century quarter German calf with black mottled paper sides. Various waterstaining throughout, with other stray stains; copy missing first two and final two leaves of text, and the leaves at front and back remargined (with some others repaired). Priced according to faults, not pleasures!
A QuintessentialMedieval/Renaissance Author
An Uncommon INCUNABLE Edition
Quintilianus, Marcus Fabius. Institutiones oratoriae. [colophon: Treviso: Dionysius Bononiensis & Peregrinus (de Pasqualibus) Bononiensis, 22 Oct. 1482]. Folio. a–q8r12; [140] ff. 
Single-click either image where the hand appears on
The editio princeps of Quintilian appeared at Rome in 1470 but apparently only three editions separate that first edition and the one described here—a very uncommon one. The Incunable Short Title Catalog locates 27 copies worldwide, but only one copy in the U.S.—at Yale. The work is printed in roman type with spaces left for capitals (no guide letters), some of which are supplied by an early hand in a utilitarian script, and scattered in the text are early examples of Greek type (e.g., k1r, k4v).
There is early marginalia almost throughout the volume. A binder has cropped it, and for some bizarre reason someone has erased some of it, but it is visible under black and other light sources.
Provenance: Bookplate of the Duke of Sussex (collection sold at auction 1844–45); bookplate of William Everett (American, ca. 1872).
• Not in Goff; Goff, Supplement, Q29a; BMC, VI, 899; IGI 8263; Hain-Copinger 1355 (II); Proctor 6504; Schweiger, Handbuch der classischen Bibliographie, II:841. 18th-century vellum over paste boards, a bit sprung. Leaf c8 cleanly torn and with an old, neat repair. Occasional dampstains or light browning. Small holes in inner margins of index leaves (i.e., final two). A good/good+ copy.
GUTENBERG — WOOLLY WHALE
(Gutenberg). Fuhrmann, Otto W., ed. Gutenberg and the Strasbourg documents of 1439. An interpretation by Otto W. Fuhrmann.... New York: Press of the Woolly Whale, 1940. Tall 8vo (26 cm, 10.25"). x pp., [1] f., 260 pp., [1] f. 
This basic source for the study of Gutenberg contains Fuhrmann's study, facsimiles, and transcriptions of the original Alsatian-language documents and translations of them into French, German, and English. The documents were part of a trial for breach of contract.
• Publisher's gilt-stamped cloth, top edge gilt, chipped glassine
dust wrapper; in a slightly rubbed and sunned slipcase. 
A very nice copy.
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