Incunable


An incunable, or sometimes incunabulum, is a book, pamphlet, or broadside printed in Europe before the 16th century. Incunabula are not manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. 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. Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000.

Etymology

Incunable is the anglicised form of incunabulum, reconstructed singular of Latin incunabula, which meant "swaddling clothes", or "cradle", and which metaphorically could and can refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development of anything". A former term for incunable is fifteener, in the meaning of "fifteenth-century edition".
The term incunabula as a printing term was first used by the Dutch physician and humanist Hadrianus Iunius and appears in a passage from his posthumous work : Hadrianus Iunius, Batavia, , , ex officina Plantiniana, apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1588, p. 256 l. 3: «inter prima artis incunabula», a term to which he arbitrarily set an end of 1500 which still stands as a convention.
Only by a misunderstanding was Bernhard von Mallinckrodt 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 : Bernardus a Mallinkrot, De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae dissertatio historica, , Coloniae Agrippinae, apud Ioannem Kinchium, 1640, p. 29 l. 16: «inter prima artis incunabula», within a long passage of several pages, which he quotes entirely in italic characters, 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». So the source is only one, the other is a quotation.
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." 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 ; 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.
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, 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 began to appear.

Famous examples

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.

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

Statistical data

The data in this section were derived from the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue.
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.
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 :
Town or cityNo. of editions% of ISTC recorded editions
Venice3,54912.5
Paris2,7649.7
Rome1,9226.8
Cologne1,5305.4
Lyon1,3644.8
Leipzig1,3374.7
Augsburg1,2194.3
Strasbourg1,1584.1
Milan1,1013.9
Nuremberg1,0513.7
Florence8012.8
Basel7862.8
Deventer6132.2
Bologna5592.0
Antwerp4401.5
Mainz4181.5
Ulm3981.4
Speyer3541.2
Pavia3371.2
Naples3231.1
TOTAL22,02477.6

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.
Only about one edition in ten has any illustrations, woodcuts or metalcuts.
The "commonest" incunable is Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493, with c 1,250 surviving copies. 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 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.
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. Studies of incunabula began in the 17th century. Michel Maittaire and Georg Wolfgang Panzer 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.
Notable collections, with the approximate numbers of incunabula held, include:
LibraryLocationCountryNumber of copiesNumber of editionsRef.
Bavarian State LibraryMunichGermany20,0009,756
British LibraryLondonUK12,50010,390
Bibliothèque nationale de FranceParisFrance12,0008,000
Vatican LibraryVatican CityVatican City8,6005,400
Austrian National LibraryViennaAustria8,000
National Library of RussiaSaint PetersburgRussia7,302
Württembergische LandesbibliothekStuttgartGermany7,000
Bodleian LibraryOxfordUK6,7555,623
Library of CongressWashington, D.C.US5,700
Huntington LibrarySan Marino, CaliforniaUS5,5375,228
Russian State LibraryMoscowRussia5,360
Cambridge University LibraryCambridgeUK4,650
Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele IIINaplesItaly4,563
The University of Manchester Library, The John Rylands LibraryManchesterUK4,500
Berlin State LibraryBerlinGermany4,431
Danish Royal LibraryCopenhagenDenmark4,425
Harvard UniversityCambridge, MassachusettsUS4,3893,627
National Library of the Czech RepublicPragueCzech Republic4,200
National Central Library of FlorenceFlorenceItaly4,089
Jagiellonian LibraryKrakówPoland3,671
Bamberg State LibraryBambergGermany3,550
Yale University New Haven, ConnecticutUS3,525
Herzog August LibraryWolfenbüttelGermany3,4772,835
Biblioteca Nacional de EspañaMadridSpain3,1592,298
Biblioteca MarcianaVeniceItaly2,883
Uppsala University LibraryUppsalaSweden2,500
Biblioteca comunale dell'ArchiginnasioBolognaItaly2,500
Bibliothèque MazarineParisFrance2,370
Bibliothèque municipale de ColmarColmarFrance2,300
Library of the University of Innsbruck InnsbruckAustria2,1221,889
National and University LibraryStrasbourgFrance2,120
Morgan LibraryNew YorkUS2,000
Newberry LibraryChicagoUS2,000
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di RomaRomeItaly2,000
National Library of the NetherlandsThe HagueNetherlands2,000
National Széchényi LibraryBudapestHungary1,814
Heidelberg University LibraryHeidelbergGermany1,800
Abbey library of Saint GallSt. GallenSwitzerland1,650
Turin National University LibraryTurinItaly1,600
Biblioteca Nacional de PortugalLisbonPortugal1,597
of the University of PaduaPaduaItaly1,583
Strahov Monastery LibraryPragueCzech Republic1,500
Bibliothèque Sainte-GenevièveParisFrance1,450
Walters Art MuseumBaltimore, MarylandUS1,250
Bryn Mawr CollegeBryn Mawr, PennsylvaniaUS1,214
Bibliothèque municipale de LyonLyonFrance1,200
Biblioteca ColombinaSevilleSpain1,194
RatsschulbibliothekZwickauGermany1,200
University of Illinois at Urbana–ChampaignUrbana, IllinoisUS1,100
Bridwell LibraryDallas, TexasUS1,000
University of GlasgowGlasgowUK1,000
National and University Library in ZagrebZagrebCroatia1,000-
Bibliothèque municipale de BesançonBesançonFrance1,000
Boston Medical LibraryBoston, MassachusettsUS882
Huntington LibrarySan Marino, CaliforniaUS827
Free Library of PhiladelphiaPhiladelphiaUS800
Princeton University LibraryPrinceton, New JerseyUS750
Leiden University LibraryLeidenNetherlands700
Bibliothèque municipale de GrenobleGrenobleFrance654
Bibliothèque municipaleAvignonFrance624
Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaireFribourgSwitzerland617537
Bibliothèque de la SorbonneParisFrance614
Bibliothèque municipaleCambraiFrance600
Boston Public LibraryBostonUS583555
National Library of MedicineBethesda, MarylandUS580
Humanist Library of SélestatSélestatFrance550
Médiathèque de la Vieille ÎleHaguenauFrance541
Bibliothèque municipaleRouenFrance535
Vernadsky National Library of UkraineKievUkraine524
Biblioteca del Seminario VescovilePaduaItaly483
Univerzitná knižnica v BratislaveBratislavaSlovakia465
Bibliothèque de GenèveGenevaSwitzerland464
Bibliothèque municipaleMetzFrance463
L. Tom Perry Special CollectionsProvo, UtahUS450 -
Folger Shakespeare LibraryWashington, D.C.US450
University of Michigan LibraryAnn Arbor, MichiganUS450
Fondazione Ugo Da ComoLonato del GardaItaly450
Brown University LibraryProvidence, Rhode IslandUS450
Bancroft LibraryBerkeley, CaliforniaUS430
University of ZaragozaZaragozaSpain406
The College of Physicians of PhiladelphiaPhiladelphiaUS400
Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at AustinAustin, TexasUS380
National Library of FinlandHelsinkiFinland375
State Library of VictoriaMelbourneAustralia357
University of Chicago LibraryChicagoUS350
Médiathèque de la ville et de la communauté urbaineStrasbourgFrance349
Bibliothèque municipaleBordeauxFrance333
Smithsonian Institution LibrariesWashington, DCUS320
Vilnius University LibraryVilniusLithuania327
Bibliothèque universitaire de MédecineMontpellierFrance300
Bibliothèque municipaleDouaiFrance300
Bibliothèque municipaleAmiensFrance300
University of SevilleSevilleSpain298
Bibliothèque municipalePoitiersFrance289
National Library of WalesAberystwythUK250
StrasbourgFrance238
State Library of New South WalesSydneyAustralia236
Library of the Kynžvart CastleLázně KynžvartCzech Republic230
Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of AmericaNew YorkUS216
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of TorontoTorontoCanada200
Latimer Family Library at Saint Vincent CollegeLatrobe, PennsylvaniaUS200
Stanford University LibrariesPalo Alto, CaliforniaUS178
Cardiff University LibraryCardiffUK173
Dartmouth College Hanover, New HampshireUS170
National Library of GreeceAthensGreece149
University College London LondonUK160180
University of Leeds LeedsUK300