Incunable

An incunable, or sometimes incunabulum (plural incunables or incunabula, respectively), is a book, pamphlet, or broadside printed in Europe before the 16th century. Incunabula are not manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. As of 2014, there are about 30,000 distinct known incunable editions extant, but the probable number of surviving copies in Germany alone is estimated at around 125,000.[1][2] Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000.[3]

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

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

Etymology

Incunable is the anglicised form of incunabulum,[4] reconstructed singular of Latin incunabula,[5] which meant "swaddling clothes", or "cradle",[6] and which metaphorically could and can refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development of anything".[7] A former term for incunable is fifteener, in the meaning of "fifteenth-century edition".[8]

The term incunabula as a printing term was first used by the Dutch physician and humanist Hadrianus Iunius (Adriaan de Jonghe, 1511–1575) and appears in a passage from his posthumous work (written in 1569): Hadrianus Iunius, Batavia, [...], [Lugduni Batavorum], ex officina Plantiniana, apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1588, p. 256 l. 3: «inter prima artis [typographicae] incunabula», a term ("the first infancy of printing") to which he arbitrarily set an end of 1500 which still stands as a convention.[9]

Only by a misunderstanding was Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (1591–1664) considered to be the inventor of this meaning of incunabula; the identical passage is found in his Latin pamphlet De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae ("On the rise and progress of the typographic art", Cologne, 1640): Bernardus a Mallinkrot, De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae dissertatio historica, [...], Coloniae Agrippinae, apud Ioannem Kinchium, 1640 (in frontispiece: 1639), p. 29 l. 16: «inter prima artis [typographicae] incunabula», within a long passage of several pages, which he (correctly) quotes entirely in italic characters (that is between quotation marks), referring to the name of author and work cited: «Primus istorum [...] Hadrianus Iunius est, cuius integrum locum, ex Batavia eius, operae pretium est adscribere; [...]. Ita igitur Iunius» (ibid., p. 27 ll. 27–32, followed by the long passage, «Redeo → sordes», ibid., p. 27, l. 32 – p. 33 l. 32 [= Batavia, p. 253 l. 28 – p. 258 l. 21]). So the source is only one, the other is a quotation.[10]

The term incunabula came to denote the printed books themselves in the late 17th century. John Evelyn, in moving the Arundel Manuscripts to the Royal Society in August 1678, remarked of the printed books among the manuscripts: "The printed books, being of the oldest impressions, are not the less valuable; I esteem them almost equal to MSS."[11] The convenient but arbitrarily chosen end date for identifying a printed book as an incunable does not reflect any notable developments in the printing process, and many books printed for a number of years after 1500 continued to be visually indistinguishable from incunables.

"Post-incunable" typically refers to books printed after 1500 up to another arbitrary end date such as 1520 or 1540. From around this period the dating of any edition becomes easier, as the practice of printers including information such as the place and year of printing became more widespread.

Types

There are two types of incunabula in printing: the block book, printed from a single carved or sculpted wooden block for each page, employing the same process as the woodcut in art (these may be called xylographic); and the typographic book, made with individual pieces of cast-metal movable type on a printing press. Many authors reserve the term incunabula for the latter kind only.[12]

The spread of printing to cities both in the north and in Italy ensured that there was great variety in the texts chosen for printing and the styles in which they appeared. Many early typefaces were modelled on local forms of writing or derived from the various European forms of Gothic script, but there were also some derived from documentary scripts (such as most of Caxton's types), and, particularly in Italy, types modelled on handwritten scripts and calligraphy employed 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.

Famous examples

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

The most 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.

Other printers of incunabula were Günther Zainer of Augsburg, Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein of Strasbourg, Heinrich Gran of Haguenau and William Caxton of Bruges and London. The first incunable to have woodcut illustrations was Ulrich Boner's Der Edelstein, printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg in 1461.[13]

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.[14] After c. 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.[15]

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."[16] For books printed in the UK, the term generally covers 1501–1520, and for books printed in mainland Europe, 1501–1540.[17]

Statistical data

Printing towns

Distribution by region

Distribution by language

The data in this section were derived from the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC).[18]

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, 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 May 2013 is 28,395):

Town or city	No. of editions	% of ISTC recorded editions
Venice [19]	3,549	12.5
Paris [20]	2,764	9.7
Rome [21]	1,922	6.8
Cologne [22]	1,530	5.4
Lyon [23]	1,364	4.8
Leipzig [24]	1,337	4.7
Augsburg [25]	1,219	4.3
Strasbourg [26]	1,158	4.1
Milan [27]	1,101	3.9
Nuremberg [28]	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 c 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.

In terms of format, the 29,000-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).

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.

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, 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.[29]

Notable collections, with the approximate numbers of incunabula held, include:

Library	Location	Country	Number of copies	Number of editions	Ref.
Bavarian State Library	Munich	Germany	20,000	9,756	[30]
British Library	London	UK	12,500	10,390	[31]
Bibliothèque nationale de France	Paris	France	12,000	8,000	[32]
Vatican Library	Vatican City	Vatican City	8,600	5,400 (more than)	[33]
Austrian National Library	Vienna	Austria	8,000		[34]
National Library of Russia	Saint Petersburg	Russia	7,302		[35]
Württembergische Landesbibliothek	Stuttgart	Germany	7,000		[36]
Bodleian Library	Oxford	UK	6,755	5,623	[37]
Library of Congress	Washington, D.C.	US	5,700		[38]
Huntington Library	San Marino, California	US	5,537	5,228
Russian State Library	Moscow	Russia	5,360		[39]
Cambridge University Library	Cambridge	UK	4,650		[40]
Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele III	Naples	Italy	4,563		[41]
The University of Manchester Library, The John Rylands Library	Manchester	UK	4,500		[42]
Berlin State Library	Berlin	Germany	4,431		[43]
Danish Royal Library	Copenhagen	Denmark	4,425		[44]
Harvard University	Cambridge, Massachusetts	US	4,389	3,627	[45]
National Library of the Czech Republic	Prague	Czech Republic	4,200		[46]
National Central Library of Florence	Florence	Italy	4,089		[47]
Jagiellonian Library	Kraków	Poland	3,671		[48]
Bamberg State Library	Bamberg	Germany	3,550		[49]
Yale University (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)	New Haven, Connecticut	US	3,525 (all collections)
Herzog August Library	Wolfenbüttel	Germany	3,477	2,835	[50]
Biblioteca Nacional de España	Madrid	Spain	3,159	2,298	[51]
Biblioteca Marciana	Venice	Italy	2,883
Uppsala University Library	Uppsala	Sweden	2,500		[52]
Biblioteca comunale dell'Archiginnasio	Bologna	Italy	2,500		[53]
Bibliothèque Mazarine	Paris	France	2,370		[54]
Bibliothèque municipale de Colmar	Colmar	France	2,300		[55]
Library of the University of Innsbruck (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek)	Innsbruck	Austria	2,122	1,889	[56]
National and University Library	Strasbourg	France	2,120 (circa) (7,000 destroyed by fire in the 1870 Siege of Strasbourg)		[57]
Morgan Library	New York	US	2,000 (more than)
Newberry Library	Chicago	US	2,000 (more than)		[58]
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma	Rome	Italy	2,000		[59]
National Library of the Netherlands	The Hague	Netherlands	2,000
National Széchényi Library	Budapest	Hungary	1,814
Heidelberg University Library	Heidelberg	Germany	1,800
Abbey library of Saint Gall	St. Gallen	Switzerland	1,650
Turin National University Library	Turin	Italy	1,600		[60]
Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal	Lisbon	Portugal	1,597		[61]
Library of the University of Padua	Padua	Italy	1,583		[62]
Strahov Monastery Library	Prague	Czech Republic	1,500 (more than)		[63]
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève	Paris	France	1,450		[64]
Walters Art Museum	Baltimore, Maryland	US	1,250		[65]
Bryn Mawr College	Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania	US	1,214
Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon	Lyon	France	1,200		[66]
Biblioteca Colombina	Seville	Spain		1,194	[67]
Ratsschulbibliothek	Zwickau	Germany	1,200		[68]
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign	Urbana, Illinois	US	1,100 (more than)		[69]
Bridwell Library	Dallas, Texas	US	1,000 (more than)		[70]
University of Glasgow	Glasgow	UK	1,000 (more than)		[71]
National and University Library in Zagreb	Zagreb	Croatia	1,000(circa)
Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon	Besançon	France	1,000 (circa)
Boston Medical Library	Boston, Massachusetts	US	882		[72]
Huntington Library	San Marino, California	US	827		[73]
Free Library of Philadelphia	Philadelphia	US	800 (more than)
Princeton University Library	Princeton, New Jersey	US	750 (including the Scheide Library)
Leiden University Library	Leiden	Netherlands	700
Bibliothèque municipale de Grenoble	Grenoble	France	654
Bibliothèque municipale^(fr)	Avignon	France	624		[74]
Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire	Fribourg	Switzerland	617	537	[75]
Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne	Paris	France	614 (including the Victor Cousin collection)		[76]
Bibliothèque municipale	Cambrai	France	600
Boston Public Library	Boston	US	583	555	[77]
National Library of Medicine	Bethesda, Maryland	US	580		[78]
Humanist Library of Sélestat	Sélestat	France	550		[79]
Médiathèque de la Vieille Île	Haguenau	France	541		[80]
Bibliothèque municipale^(fr)	Rouen	France	535
Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine	Kiev	Ukraine	524
Biblioteca del Seminario Vescovile	Padua	Italy	483		[81]
Univerzitná knižnica v Bratislave	Bratislava	Slovakia	465
Bibliothèque de Genève	Geneva	Switzerland	464
Bibliothèque municipale	Metz	France	463
L. Tom Perry Special Collections	Provo, Utah	US	450 (circa)	[82]
Folger Shakespeare Library	Washington, D.C.	US	450 (circa)		[83]
University of Michigan Library	Ann Arbor, Michigan	US	450 (circa)		[84]
Fondazione Ugo Da Como	Lonato del Garda	Italy	450
Brown University Library	Providence, Rhode Island	US	450		[85]
Bancroft Library	Berkeley, California	US	430
University of Zaragoza	Zaragoza	Spain	406
The College of Physicians of Philadelphia	Philadelphia	US	400 (more than)
Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin	Austin, Texas	US	380		[86]
National Library of Finland	Helsinki	Finland	375		[87]
State Library of Victoria	Melbourne	Australia	357		[88]
University of Chicago Library	Chicago	US	350 (more than)		[89]
Médiathèque de la ville et de la communauté urbaine^(fr)	Strasbourg	France	349		[90]
Bibliothèque municipale	Bordeaux	France	333		[91]
Smithsonian Institution Libraries	Washington, DC	US	320
Vilnius University Library	Vilnius	Lithuania	327		[92]
Bibliothèque universitaire de Médecine	Montpellier	France	300		[93]
Bibliothèque municipale	Douai	France	300
Bibliothèque municipale	Amiens	France	300
University of Seville	Seville	Spain	298		[94]
Bibliothèque municipale	Poitiers	France	289
National Library of Wales	Aberystwyth	UK	250		[95]
Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire	Strasbourg	France	238		[96]
State Library of New South Wales	Sydney	Australia	236		[97]
Library of the Kynžvart Castle^(cs)	Lázně Kynžvart	Czech Republic	230		[98]
Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America	New York	US	216		[99]
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto	Toronto	Canada	200 (more than)		[100]
Latimer Family Library at Saint Vincent College	Latrobe, Pennsylvania	US	200 (circa)		[101]
Stanford University Libraries	Palo Alto, California	US	178		[102]
Cardiff University Library	Cardiff	UK	173		[103]
Dartmouth College (Rauner Special Collections Library)	Hanover, New Hampshire	US	170		[104]
National Library of Greece	Athens	Greece	149
University College London (Special Collections)	London	UK	160	180	[105]
University of Leeds (Special Collections)	Leeds	UK	300 (more than)		[106]

See also

• Global spread of the printing press
• History of books
• Book collecting
• List of printers of incunabula

References

1. British Library: Incunabula Short Title Catalogue gives 30,518 editions as of August 2016, which also includes some prints from the 16th century though (retrieved 5 March 2020).
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, München 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. Still in 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.
5. The word incunabula is a neuter plural only; the singular incunabulum is never found in Latin and now no more used in English by most bibliographers.
6. C.T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford 1879, p. 930.
7. Oxford English Dictionary, 1933, I:188.
8. "Fifteener" is a coinage of the bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin, a term endorsed by William Morris and Robert Proctor. (Carter & Barker 2004, p. 130).
9. Glomski, J (2001). "Incunabula Typographiae: seventeenth-century views on early printing". The Library. 2 (4): 336. doi:10.1093/library/2.4.336.
10. Sordet, Yann (2009). "Le baptême inconscient de l'incunable: non pas 1640 mais 1569 au plus tard". Gutenberg Jahrbuch (in French). 84: 102–105.
11. Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn From 1641 to 1705/6.
12. Oxford Companion to the Book, ed. M. F. Suarez and H. R. Woudhuysen, OUP, 2010, s.v. 'Incunabulum', p. 815.
13. Daniel De Simone (ed), A Heavenly Craft: the Woodcut in Early Printed Books, New York, 2004, p. 48.
14. Walsby, Malcolm; Kemp, Graeme, eds. (2011). The Book Triumphant: Print in Transition in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Brill. p. viii. ISBN 9789004207233.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
15. Walsby & Kemp 2011, p. viii.
16. Carter, John; Barker, Nicolas (2004). ABC for Book Collectors (8th ed.). New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press and the British Library. p. 172. ISBN 1-58456-112-2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 November 2017. Retrieved 28 May 2010.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
17. Carter & Barker 2004, p. 172.
18. BL.uk, 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.
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68. "Ratsschulbibliothek Zwickau" (in German). Ratsschulbibliothek Zwickau. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
69. "Rare Books". Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Illinois. Archived from the original on 11 September 2011. Retrieved 22 August 2011.
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71. "Glasgow Incunabula Project". University of Glasgow. Retrieved 16 August 2012.
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74. "Médiathèque Ceccano" (in French). Mairie d'Avignon. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
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94. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 1 April 2008. Retrieved 19 April 2008.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
95. [Hand-list of Incunabula in the National Library of Wales compiled by Victor Scholderer (N.L.W. Journal Supplement Series 1, No. 1, 1940)]
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External links

• Centre for the History of the Book
• British Library worldwide Incunabula Short Title Catalogue
• Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW), partially English version
• History of Incunabula Studies
• UIUC Rare Book & Manuscript Library
• Grand Valley State University Incunabula & 16th Century Printing digital collections
• Incunable Collection at the US Library of Congress
• Digital facsimiles of several incunabula from the website of the Linda Hall Library
• Kristian Jensen (2016). "Introduction to the study of incunabula". 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. 14 (11th ed.). pp. 369–370.
• "An Introduction to Incunabula". Barber, Phil. Retrieved 6 July 2017.