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In 1492, a Lübeckian printer Stephan Arndes released an updated edition of a popular late medieval hagiographic collection Der Heiligen Leben in Middle Low German. From a few dozens of newly added legends, nine of them are about saints who were venerated only in Northern Germany and Scandinavia – or both. By adding these ‘Northern’ hagiographies, Arndes attempted to domesticate an otherwise rather universal collection – and not only among a Northern German but also a Scandinavian audience. By analysing these hagiographies, their possible Latin sources, and how Stephan Arndes got hold of these texts, the article shows that the edition in question is a testimony to transregional hagiographic knowledge transfer between Northern Germany and Scandinavia. Such an exchange was realized through specific editorial decisions, printing networks, and business connections, enabled by the wide usage of Middle Low German in the Nordic countries not only among foreign merchants but also locals, especially in legal and religious milieux. This case study of Stephan Arndes’ hagiographic print reveals that late medieval transregional devotional networks were bi-directional, unlike what is suggested by the centre-periphery paradigm, often applied when discussing medieval German influences on Scandinavian religious culture and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss the fate of six 15th-century books from the collection of Polish bishop and bibliophile Józef Andrzej Załuski (1702–1774). I aim to trace the migrations of incunabula in the 18th century before the mass movements of books in response to the suppressions of religious convents. An analysis of unexploited provenance materials, such as ownership and reading marks, will make it possible to determine the methods of the bishop-bibliophile and the ways by which he acquired valuable collections for the Załuski Public Library (one of the largest in Europe at the time), which he co-managed with his brother. I will moreover answer the question of what factors caused these volumes to survive to this day, unlike most of volumes from Załuski's book collection, which were burnt shortly after the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When short of money, one way for a library to acquire expensive books is by exchange for duplicates. In 1870 Henry Bradshaw, Librarian of Cambridge University Library, agreed with the London bookseller F.S. Ellis to exchange three duplicate English incunabula for a small group of books including an exceptionally fine copy, not previously recorded, of Colard Mansion’s edition of Boethius in French (Bruges, 1477). With this, Cambridge also acquired a book from the first press in Belgium and a Sammelband extensively annotated in the fifteenth century by a physician in Augsburg, Ulrich von Ellenbog. Hitherto unpublished correspondence gives details of the transaction. The three books from Cambridge were all subsequently acquired by the banker Henry Huth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the manuscripts and printed editions of Medieval and Humanistic works preserved in the library of Castiglione del Terziere, highlighting Bononi’s preference for writings in the historiographic genre, with specific regard to the history of Florence. Among the volumes examined – all ancient editions, incunabula and cinquecentine, extremely valuable and rare – we dwell above all on the exemplars (by Leonardo Bruni, Biondo Flavio, Iacopo Foresti) that bear Bononi’s autograph annotations, because they testify to his interest in the geographical area of Lunigiana and Dante’s biography.

The paper focuses on Andrea Caronti, an almost unknown librarian who worked at the University Library of Bologna from 1830 to 1882, author of numerous catalogues of great relevance. The paper traces his biography, based on both published and unpublished sources, and describes the most important works he carried out at the Library (above all, the author catalogue). The modernity and usefulness of Caronti’s catalogue is evident, proved by the fact that it is still used by the librarians. It should also be used to plan new (and necessary) cataloging projects for the incunabula owned by the University Library of Bologna.

The article describes the project for the survey of incunabula belonging to the Bolognese naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi. The Fifteenth-century printed editions, currently scattered within the collections of the BUB, have been identified through shelf checks and historical catalogs. The analysis and cataloging work of the incunabula started by inserting descriptions into the online catalog of SBN. All specimen data have also been recorded: marginalia, attention marks, owners, provenance, ownership notes, stamps, and binding. Noteworthy is the recent discovery of an incunabulum by Ulisse Aldrovandi, considered lost for many decades. The volume has finally returned to the massive heritage of the BUB and will undergo some conservation intervention in the coming months.

This work delves into the papers of the most significant and rare Petrarchian editions - including incunabula and cinquecentine - contained in the precious book collection of Jacopo Loris Bononi preserved in Castiglione del Terziere. It investigates the peculiar characteristics and cultural contexts that gave rise to the individual prints, the possession notes and the heterogeneous typology of annotations and marginal notes found in the volumes, opening up unprecedented scenarios of responsive readers interacting in various ways with the text.

The contribution traces an overview, necessarily partial and selective, of some valuable examples that testify to the presence of the Divine Comedy in the library of the castle of Castiglione del Terziere. From a Fourteenth-century bifolio containing passages from Purgatory to the first Foligno edition of 1472, from the first annotated and illustrated editions to some Sixteenth-century ones made unique by the presence of annotations and ex-libris, the article focuses on the peculiarities of each example, attempting where possible to reconstruct their 'movements' over time and paying particular attention also to the handwritten notes made by their last owner, Loris Jacopo Bononi.

Within the PRIN 2017 project, a reconnaissance work has been carried out from October 2020 at the Corpus Domini monastery in Bologna in order to identify how many manuscripts were still preserved by the nuns. The first results obtained confirmed the importance of the work conducted on this still unknown collection. To date, seventy manuscripts have been recollected as well as archival materials and ancient prints, including incunabula and sixteenth-century editions, which were barely known or even thought to be lost. This article aims to present the results of this first survey, with a particular focus on the manuscripts and printed books of greatest bibliological and historical interest.

Traditionally, it has been considered that the Ptolemaic or classical maps from the four editions of Ptolemy's Geography published in Rome (1478, 1490, 1507, and 1508) are apparently indistinguishable at first glance because they have been printed from the same plates. This poses a problem for antiquarians, collectors, and curators who wish to accurately date their copies. Recently, two very comprehensive articles have been published on the different paper watermarks associated with each edition, which would allow for the correct identification of each one. However, there are occasions when the maps do not display watermarks. This article aims to provide some keys to distinguish between the incunabula editions (1478, 1490) and those of 1507–1508 in cases of the absence of watermarks. In this process of detecting differences, we have used digitized images of the maps. The results show small modifications in the copper plates made between the editions of 1490 and 1507/08. Our findings reveal that seven previously unknown reworked maps have been identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides copies descriptions of two incunabula printed in Venice and preserved at Municipal Library «Fratelli Pellegrini» in Borgo a Mozzano (Lucca, Tuscany): a Divine Comedy of 1493 (ISTC ic00614000; GW online 6972) and a collection of Cicero’s works printed in the year 1500 (ISTC ic00614000; GW online 6972). Both come from the ancient library belonging to the Pellegrini, one of the most powerful families since the XVIIth century, which accumulated an extensive library and archive. The paper also focuses the attention on Prof. Francesco Maria Pellegrini (1855-1927), who engaged in a careful reordering of his family library.

The first Cyrillic printing house was founded in Cetinje and during a short period of its work published five incunabula: Octoechos of the First Tone (Oktoih prvoglasnik), Octoechos of the Fifth Tone (Oktoih petoglasnik), Psalter with Additions (Psaltir s posledovanjem), Breviary (Trebnik) and The Gospel (Četvorojevandjelje). The most deserving person for the existence of the Cetinje printing house was the ruler of Zeta, Đurađ Crnojević, while the technical editor of the books was Hieromonk Makarije. The Cetinje printing house was the first one among South Slavs, and printing in Cyrillic letters - the second of the kind in Europe. Contacts with the Serenissima were decisive since the printing press and typographic equipment were bought in Venice. Octoechos of the First Tone was published on January 4th 1494, as stated in its colophon. This book is of high quality, thus being the most important issue of Old Church Slavonic printing. Both the preface and epilogue underline the motives of Đurđe Crnojević for publishing liturgical books - preserving the faith and resistance against spiritual colonialisation. The Cetinje incunabula's main characteristics are their reliance both on Slavic manuscript tradition and Renaissance innovations (particularly in ornamentation), as well as high technical quality. Ornaments show an interweaving of Eastern and Western tendencies: the heritage of Serbian-Slavonic manuscripts on the one side and Gothic-Renaissance and pure Renaissance traditions on the other. The language is consistently Serbian-Slavonic, in the Ekavian dialect. These features of the contemporary Serbian church and literary language were maintained till the end of its use, sometime around the middle of the 18th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitzschia soratensis and N. inconspicua are two small diatoms that are extremely similar in the light microscope though separable in subtle aspects of valve and girdle ultrastructure. They are not closely related in molecular phylogenies and differ in their ecological preferences, though they sometimes co-occur in the same communities. To test further their functional equivalence, we investigated the reproductive biology of N. soratensis, for comparison with a previously published account of N. inconspicua. Both species are automictic, lacking pairing between gametangia and gamete exchange. Nuclear staining shows the presence of two nuclei in some auxospores of N. soratensis, which are smaller than the nuclei of vegetative cells and appear to be haploid, indicating prior meiosis. These auxospores, surrounded by incunabula containing tangles of silica strips, give rise to uninucleate initial cells 18–21 µm long. Frequently, however, small N. soratensis cells produce two spherical 'pseudogametes', some of which abort while others expand and form initial valves shorter than those produced by binucleate auxospores (maximum length 14.5 µm). Similar uniparental auxosporulation, with silica strip formation, occurs in N. aff. hantzschiana, N. acidoclinata, N. fonticola and N. angustata, which are close relatives of N. soratensis according to morphological and/or molecular evidence. This group and the N. inconspicua complex may be the diatom equivalents of apomictic angiosperms, e.g. dandelions, and likely contain a multitude of microspecies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este artículo hace un cuestionamiento al significado típico del término incunable. Primero porque las fechas que lo definen no tiene un fundamento sólido. Segundo porque definirlo desde la temporalidad excluye una serie de elementos que son claves para el nacimiento y la fijación del libro. En 1982, el historiador norteamericano Robert Darnton, en su célebre artículo, extendió la historia del libro más allá del objeto ampliándola a los circuitos de la comunicación y a los diferentes agentes relacionados con su producción y usos, a saber: autores, editores, impresores, proveedores, vendedores, lectores y encuadernadores (1982). Esta revisión bibliográfica recupera otras aristas que también definen al incunable pero que han sido desatendidas e intenta abordar el nacimiento del libro desde los circuitos de la comunicación y no solo desde la temporalidad. Igualmente, reúne hechos, discusiones y definiciones que se conocen poco en el idioma español, y que permitirán a especialistas y divulgadores tener una mayor claridad sobre los libros del siglo XV = This article questions the typical meaning of the term incunabula. Firstly, because the date that defines it does not have a solid foundation. Secondly, because defining it from temporality excludes a series of elements that are key to the birth and establishment of the book. The American historian Robert Darnton, in his famous article, extended the history of the book beyond the object, extending it to communication circuits and the different agents related to its production and uses, namely: authors, publishers, printers, suppliers, sellers, readers, and bookbinders (1982). This bibliographic review recovers other aspects that also define the incunabulum but that have been neglected and attempts to address the birth of the book from the circuits of communication and not only from temporality. Likewise, it brings together facts, discussions and definitions that are little known in the Spanish language, and that will allow specialists and communicators to have greater clarity about the books of the 15th century.

Copyright of Res Historica is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Res Historica is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article offers provenance details of the nine extant copies of the first printed book in the Frisian language, the incunable Freeska Landriucht [1484–1486]. It evaluates previous literature on the subject and contains results from archival research as well as codicological and paleographical analyses. A pattern in the profiles of the first known owners of the major part of the copies emerges: They were Frisian men of a relatively high social status – from both secular and clerical background – with legal tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between the manuscript translation of Mingxin baojian 明心寶鑑 (Precious Mirror for Enlightening the Mind) (circa 1590) by Juan Cobo (circa 1546–1592) and the Fujian book market in China. It explores the cultural implications of Cobo's translation by focusing on the commentary he provided in the marginalia of the manuscript. By investigating Cobo's translation and marginalia notes on three Chinese concepts—Chinese monks, dragons, and reincarnation—this article highlights the complex cultural issues present when the early Spanish missionaries in the Philippines negotiated with Chinese culture in their writings and publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article questions the typical meaning of the term incunabula. Firstly, because the date that defines it does not have a solid foundation. Secondly, because defining it from temporality excludes a series of elements that are key to the birth and establishment of the book. The American historian Robert Darnton, in his famous article, extended the history of the book beyond the object, extending it to communication circuits and the different agents related to its production and uses, namely: authors, publishers, printers, suppliers, sellers, readers, and bookbinders (1982). This bibliographic review recovers other aspects that also define the incunabulum but that have been neglected and attempts to address the birth of the book from the circuits of communication and not only from temporality. Likewise, it brings together facts, discussions and definitions that are little known in the Spanish language, and that will allow specialists and communicators to have greater clarity about the books of the 15th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Knihovna is the property of Library Institute of the Czech National Library and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Traditionally, it has been considered that the Ptolemaic or classical maps from the four editions of Ptolemy’s Geography published in Rome (1478, 1490, 1507, and 1508) are apparently indistinguishable at first glance because they have been printed from the same plates. This poses a problem for antiquarians, collectors, and curators who wish to accurately date their copies. Recently, two very comprehensive articles have been published on the different paper watermarks associated with each edition, which would allow for the correct identification of each one. However, there are occasions when the maps do not display watermarks. This article aims to provide some keys to distinguish between the incunabula editions (1478, 1490) and those of 1507–1508 in cases of the absence of watermarks. In this process of detecting differences, we have used digitized images of the maps. The results show small modifications in the copper plates made between the editions of 1490 and 1507/08. Our findings reveal that seven previously unknown reworked maps have been identified.

Submitted to the Journal of Data Mining and Digital Humanities, and accepted. Pending last revisions. Please cite: @article{gille_levenson_2023_towards, author = {Gille Levenson, Matthias}, date = {2023}, journaltitle = {Journal of Data Mining and Digital Humanities}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.7387376}, editor = {Pinche, Ariane and Stokes, Peter}, issuetitle = {Special Issue: Historical documents and automatic text recognition}, title = {Towards a general open dataset and models for late medieval Castilian text recognition (HTR/OCR)}, note = {Accepted, to be published.} } GILLE LEVENSON , Matthias, « Towards a general open dataset and models for late medieval Castilian text recognition (HTR/OCR) », Journal of Data Mining and Digital Humanities (2023) : Special Issue : Historical documents and automatic text recognition, eds. Ariane PINCHE and Peter STOKES, DOI : 10.5281/zenodo.7387376. Link to the data: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7386489

This contribution introduces the project Pages of Prayer: The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380-1550 [prayer] (erc Starting Grant, grant no. 101041517), which started at Leiden University on 1 March 2023. The aim of the project is to conduct the first large-scale investigation into the vast corpus of Middle Dutch prayer books of which the mainstay are books with one or more of the texts of ‘the Book of Hours’ in the translation ascribed to Geert Grote (1340-1384). Pages of Prayer aims to chart the entire ‘ecosystem’ in which the Dutch-language prayer books flourished and thrived. Apart from the shared transmission of texts in manuscripts and printed books, the project aims to map the inclusion of images, the roles of producers, owners, patrons, places, devotions, and the relations between all of these aspects over a long period of time by developing a cross-disciplinary approach: network philology. This approach aims to combine quantitative network analysis with advanced qualitative analysis to reach meaningful interpretations of the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Scripta is the property of Scripta and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 1862, José Bonilla Ruiz, the librarian of the University of Salamanca, developed a catalogue of the incunabula held by the University Library, but that work was never published. Although he had done this work partially on his own initiative, it was linked to other tasks he was carrying out in the Library, like quantifying collections, writing new bibliographic descriptions and working out new indexes. His work reveals an early attempt to describe the incunabula included in a collection, with innovative features, like copy details. On the other hand, this catalogue does not take into account the bibliographical tradition on incunabula which had developed since the Repertorium by Ludwig Hain. Likewise, the study of this catalogue and the comparison with the incunabula currently held by the University show that three of the copies described by Bonilla disappeared on an unknown date.

The article examines the history of the first three printed editions of Dante’s Commedia (1472; Foligno, Mantua, and Iesi/Venice), analyzing their respective vicissitudes from a socio-economic perspective. Specifically, through a joint analysis of the relevant academic literature, the local socio-economic history, and the material provenances recorded within numerous copies, the essay intends to highlight to what degree and form commercial events such as regional fairs influenced the development and distribution of typographic products in Italy in the 1470s.

The paper traces the events that led to the publication of the Catalogus historico-criticus Romanarum editionum saeculi XV – which the Dominican Giovanni Battista Audiffredi published in the context of the dispute with the French Francois-Xavier Laire and his essay on Roman typography – through the correspondence between the librarian of the Casanatense Library and the Augustinian Tommaso Verani. At the same time, the paper offers a picture of the erudite studies conducted by Verani and of the reorganizations he carried out in the archives and libraries of the Observant Congregation of Lombardy, activities that allowed him to come into contact with some of the greatest intellectuals of the Italian 18th century.

En el presente artículo se realiza el análisis filológico del volumen 3169 de la Biblioteca Nacional de España en el cual se encuentran foliados importantes manuscritos incunables de la cultura andina. En primer lugar, se revisan algunos de los fenómenos textuales que se repiten en los márgenes a lo largo de todo el volumen, proponiendo hipótesis inter-pretativas sobre su aparición y uso. Luego, se reflexiona acerca de las fechas y autoría de los manuscritos, distinguiendo aquellas reales de las que se ha propuesto a partir de datos contextuales con distinto grado de fiabilidad. Finalmente, se discute una hipótesis sobre el proyecto textual del volumen en cuestión. The present article performs a philological analysis of volume 3169 of the National Library of Spain, wherein numbered folios of incunabula of Andean culture can be found. First, some of the textual phenomena that recur throughout volume 3169 are examined and interpretive hypotheses about their appearance and use are proposed. Second, the dates and authorship of the manuscripts are discussed, distinguishing between those actually known and those that have been deduced from contextual data with varying degrees of trustworthiness. Finally, a hypothesis is put forward about what underlying project the creation of this volume would have intended to further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 1487, Martin Mareš studied with the financial support of his brother-in-law Václav of Rovné, a chancellor of the South Bohemian Rožmberk family, at the University of Bologna, where he received the degree of Doctor of Canon Law in 1494. He was one of the favourite students of the leading Italian Humanist Filippo Beroaldo the Elder, who dedicated the first edition of his collection Orationes et poemata to him in 1491. Martin Mareš worked as a parish priest in his native Český Krumlov from 1496 until 1498 while developing his ecclesiastical career in Wrocław, Silesia, where he had been, already as a student, appointed canon and, later in 1498, vicar general of the diocese. Nevertheless, he died there the next year, in 1499, before the age of thirty. Mareš's library is one of the most interesting Humanist collections of the Jagiellonian period. It mainly consists of Italian printed books, which he purchased during his studies. The reconstruction of Mareš's scattered library was carried out more than 50 years ago by the classical philologist Josef Hejnic. In the appendix, the author of the paper presents descriptions of six recently discovered incunabula and a complemented description of one previously known incunabulum (four are part of the collections of the National Library of the Czech Republic, one is deposited in the collections of the National Széchényi Library in Budapest, one in the Lobkowicz Library at Nelahozeves Castle and one in the Schwarzenberg Library at Český Krumlov Castle). In total, we know of one manuscript and almost seventy incunabula from Mareš's library. Most of them are editions of works by ancient authors, especially Roman poets. New discoveries have enriched Mareš's collection with Virgil, Horace and Justin. The equally large collection of works by Italian Humanists included i.a. Naldo Naldi and Francesco Filelfo. Surprisingly enough, Mareš's library contained only a few juristic and theological titles. We now know that he owned collected works of St Augustine and also the Digest, which was part of the codification of Roman law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article focuses on the history and contents of the former Franciscan convent library in Stadthagen, particularly examining its collection of incunabula, early prints, and manuscripts used as waste paper. Topics include the convent's establishment by Count Erich von Holstein-Pinneberg in 1486, its survival through the Reformation until the late 16th century, and subsequent transitions to becoming a school library. It also explores the presence of specific liturgical and canonical texts.

Johannes de Thurocz was the author of the only chronicle that did not circulate in manuscript form. The first edition appeared in the printing house of Konrad Stahel and Matthias Preinlein in Brno on 20 March 1488, and shortly afterwards, on 3 June 1488, another edition was printed in Augsburg in the printing house of Erhard Ratdolt. Both editions end with the mournful song of magister Rogerius lamenting the destruction caused by the Tartars during the invasion of 1241. The printing of the second edition of the Chronica Hungarorum may be the result of the lack of a history of the kingdom of Hungary on the market that also captures the history of Transylvania as part of the kingdom. There are differences between the two editions: in content (towards the end), in the composition of woodcuts, number of woodcuts, decorative elements or discomposing of letters. For the present research, we have turned to the editions found in the libraries in Cluj-Napoca and Alba Iulia, being particularly concerned with the way of penetration into book holdings and the ownership marks proving the European route of the copies in question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Acta Universitatis Carolinae Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis is the property of Charles University Prague, Karolinum Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Res Historica is the property of Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The bookbinding workshops operating in Bohemia and Moravia in the Jagiellonian period are often recorded in the Einbanddatenbank database; however, their location is usually not detailed. The first bookbinder documented in České Budějovice was Jan Benešovský (Hans Peneschauer). The study shows that Jan Benešovský can be very likely ascribed to a group of bindings from the workshop to which Einbanddatenbank attaches the Notname Lilien-Palmette II. The binding tools (32 stamps) helped to identify a total of 33 volumes that were bound by the workshop between the late 1470s and 1517. The provenance analysis of these manuscripts and early printed books determined beyond any doubt that the workshop had operated in the largest town in South Bohemia. The motif analysis of the workshop tools and the analysis of the compositional schemes of the decoration show that Jan Benešovský’s workshop would not yet adopt the Renaissance style of decoration. Further mapping of the activities of workshops outside Prague will hopefully clarify whether they were involved in the sale of printed books as actively as Jan Benešovský [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The essay outlines the state of knowledge on Francesco Griffo from Bologna and presents new and valuable archival evidences found in the State Archive of Padua. The already known documents are combined with the significant set of recently discovered papers, in order to investigate the decade that Griffo spent in Padua, a city that was crucial for his biographical and professional career. There he came as a goldsmith, attracted by the artistic fervor that surrounded the Basilica of Saint Anthony, and there Griffo made the gradual transition to the engraving of printing types, working for some of the protagonists of the early printing and establishing professional relationships that would prove decisive for his future, in Venice and elsewhere.

The essay offers a critical rereading of one of the most famous works by Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, published in 1936. The interpretation of printing proposed by the German philosopher, also if not referring to the fifteenth century, allows to shed new light on some cultural phenomena aroused in the early modern Europe by Gutenberg's invention. The opposition between the authenticity of the work of art (manuscript) and its reproduced equivalent (incunabulum), as well as the new «exhibition» of the printed book, allow us to better understand the forms of distrust or even rejection of printing by contemporaries. In the same way, Benjamin helps to understand the early segmentation of the printed book market divided in two opposite poles: the strenuous defense of the «aura» and the birth of popular publishing.

Incunabula are the texts printed mainly during the second half of 15th century that are a key cultural element in a revolutionary period of the history and evolution of the book and the printing. In these books, the identification of their origin largely affects its academic, cultural, patrimonial, and economical value. This paper proposes a process to automate the identification of the origin of a digitised incunable document using the Proctor/Haebler method, a commonly established procedure in the field. This process has been validated with a selected dataset obtained from the incunabula collection at the digital repository of the University of Zaragoza. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of punctuation in German incunabula is often described as arbitrary, irregular, and unsystematic (cf. Masalon 2014: 54–56). This concerns the inventory, frequency, and function of punctuation marks as well as pragmatic aspects such as how typesetters treated punctuation in their respective target texts. In this paper, punctuation is not seen as an independent linguistic subsystem, but as a means of text segmentation that – along with other measures (e. g. capital letters, pilcrows, and white space) – was used to structure a text with respect to its formal appearance, helping the reader to decode information. This case study is based on a corpus of German pamphlets written by the Bohemian astrologer Wenzel Faber and printed annually beginning in 1481 at various print shops, principally in Leipzig and Nuremberg. The analysis finds significant changes in the editions before and after 1490. These changes include an increasing consistency in the intensity of text segmentation, and a use of capital letters and punctuation marks developed from a polyfunctional to a monofunctional approach. Finally, different types of text segmentation are proposed, each characterized by a specific relationship between its frequency and its function. Despite this overall tendency, one must still take into account that typesetters followed individual punctuation practices in their search for suitable forms of text segmentation.

In the 15th century, at a time when codification via dictionaries and grammars had not yet taken effect, printers, editors, and compositors were already producing pamphlets and books that had to meet the new requirements of the letterpress, especially as regards the arrangement of white space and uniform line justification (even-margined on the left and right). The following analysis investigates five German editions of the Mirabilia Romae (Marvels of the City of Rome), a well-known pilgrim guide, all printed in 1500 for the contemporaneous Jubilee year and thus for short-term sale. The results show that compositors used different means for text alignment: In addition to deviations in line counts and the repositioning of lines, they chose extended or contracted spelling variants, predominantly on the second half of the page. The most frequent variants are abbreviations in the form of tildes. However, just a few spelling patterns with tildes were used. With respect to explanatory processes in a historical perspective, the results call for a closer consideration of page format, text layout (mise-en-page) and line justification when evaluating spelling variation in early book printing.

The article focuses on a recent gathering of the Berlin-Brandenburg Pirckheimer group at the State Library, where they explored a newly acquired 1498 Milanese incunable. Topics included an in-depth presentation by Ninon Suckow on the life and work of printer Simon Koch, highlighting his lesser-known contributions to early printing, particularly in Magdeburg, where he produced religious and instructional texts primarily in Low German during the late 15th century.

In our time of increasing reliance on digital media the history of the book has a special role to play in studying the codex form and the persistence of old media alongside the growth of new ones. As a contribution to recent work on the continued use of manuscript in the handpress era, I focus on some examples of manuscripts copied from printed books in the Rylands Library and discuss the motivations for making them. Some of these manuscripts were luxury items signalling wealth and prestige, others were made for practical reasons – to own a copy of a book that was hard to buy, or a copy that could be customized in the process of copying. The act of copying itself was also considered to have devotional and/or pedagogical value.

The paper presents the discoveries about a Venetian incunable studied during the cataloguing activities of incunables at the Regional Library in Catania (2018-2021). The aim of the paper is to inform the academic community about the crediting of the illuminations to the Maestro dei Putti; this results from a collaboration with Lilian Armstrong, professor of Art at Wellesley College, MA and specialist on Venetian Renaissance Book Illumination. This identification enriches the census of incunables with another copy, illuminated by the artist who was active between Venice and Padua in the 70s of XV century.

Study of the Cancionero de Ramón de Llavia (86*RL), one of the first collective incunabula cancioneros. We analyse the factors which Ramón de Llavia, compiler and publisher, took into an account in order to select the texts of the anthology: addressee, subject, and relation to the poems of other incunabula cancioneros. We also present variants and variations of texts regarding the incunabulum printed tradition.