IFLA-preconference Munich, 19-21 August 2009 Early printed books as material objects Principles, problems, perspectives
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IFLA-preconference
Munich, 19-21 August 2009
Early printed books as material objects
Principles, problems, perspectives
Abstracts of conference papers
Methodological aspects (1): Principles
[1] Björn Dal (University Library, Lund, Sweden): Duplicates or unique objects: Changing
perceptions of books in the hand-press period
The library world has for centuries made a distinction between manuscripts, meaning unique
documents in handwriting or hand sketching, and printed material, duplicated through different
printing methods. This view of the material is connected with the fact that libraries have collected
texts (the content of the books), cataloguing them under author and title.
It is only in our day that book history research has sent us a different message - the whole object
is unique. With its marks and defects it is a source of information from which knowledge can be
obtained. Choice of material, design, notes, numberings, repairs and all other details tell the
story of the book as an object, regardless of which work the ink is conveying.
Until the mid 19th century, books were products of craftsmanship. Both the production process
and printing procedure generated prints which were not mass-produced, i.e. produced in a large
number of identical copies. By definition, the prerequisite for identical copies is a mechanical
production process. During the hand-press period, books were created with the help of simple
machinery, and the skill of the craftsmen was vital for the result. Each piece of paper was hand-
made; the colour was applied manually to the printing forme; the impression was done by hand –
there were never two identical printed sheets.
Many libraries have had the policy to weed books, preserving only one copy of each title and
edition – but for prints from the hand-press period such measures can never be justified by the
argument that the books are duplicates.
[2] Paul Needham (Scheide Library, Princeton, USA): Copy-specifics as produced in the
printing shop
The term “copy-specific” as related to the description of printed books usually refers to the marks
and features of books that came to them after they had left the printing shop. For example: fifty
random copies of Koberger’s 1493 Latin edition of Hartmann Schedel’s chronicle will provide
many hundreds of variations and distinctions with regard to such matters as binding; rubrication
(or lack of it); coloring of woodcuts (or lack of it); ownership marks of all kinds; readers’ marks,
emendations, and annotations. For that matter, it would not be surprising, in view of the varying
binding histories of these copies, if each copy had its own distinct leaf dimensions, although all
1started from more or less the same collection of uncut sheets of given sizes. The increasing at-
tention that has been brought to these features in the past generation has greatly enriched our
understanding of the world of early printing. In particular, these features are primary evidence for
investigating such questions as the sale and distribution of printed books, their histories of use,
and the histories of the libraries where they have resided over the past 500 years. It is not too
much to say that we now understand that each copy of an incunable may be looked upon as a
small archaeological site, and studied stratum by stratum.
It is important to realize that the term “copy-specific” applies equally to features of books that
they acquired in the printing shop itself, over the period of time when the entire edition — the
sum of all copies — was in course of production. These too create distinct strata that may be
chronologically “stacked,” and all these chronologies, brought together, are parts of the history of
that edition. Consider just two examples, one of type composition, and one of paper.
During the time a given forme (type-page or group of type-pages) is under the press, there may
be an earlier state when (say) a certain word is set improperly, and a later state, created when
the error is noted and corrected. Thus the forme will have two states (and, three or more states
are also possible, and have been found). If a similar situation occurs in two other formes, then
the surviving copies of that edition may represent any of eight possible combinations of varying
states; if in three other formes, sixteen combinations; and so on. For a substantial book that un-
derwent substantial in-press correction, the number of possible combinations will rapidly in-
crease far beyond the number of surviving copies that exemplify them; and there may be no one
copy that contains all the formes in corrected (or, in uncorrected) state.
As for paper, it was quite common in the 15th century for several — sometime many — paper
stocks to have been used to produce a single edition. In the printing of a single edition sheet,
there was often a change from one paper stock to another: and thus, one stock represents an
earlier stage of the print run than the other. Just as with variants in type composition, it is entirely
possible that no two surviving copies of an edition will have exactly the same pattern of paper
stocks when examined sheet by sheet.
These and similar production features — the presence of cancel leaves, for example — must
also be seen as “copy-specific”, for it is only from specific copies that we know of their existence.
And, just as with “post-production” copy specifics, these “in-production” copy specifics may tell
us much about the marketing and distribution of copies; therefore, they do not belong simply to
the history of the printing shop, but also to the global history of each edition, from the time it was
made down to the present.
[3] David Pearson (University of London, UK): The importance of the copy census as a
methodology in book history
The growing recognition of the importance of recording and interpreting copy-specific evidence
in books is manifesting itself in various ways: provenance and binding information is being noted
more systematically in catalogues, new databases and online tools are being compiled (e.g. the
Reading Experience Database, or the resources listed in the CERL provenance portal), and the
published literature on book ownership, marginalia, bookbinding and the history of reading is
steadily being augmented. One category of work in this field which is also increasing is the copy
census, based on the principle of taking one particular work or group of related works, and look-
ing at the copy-specific evidence in many surviving copies. It is then possible to draw out conclu-
sions about the way in which the book was being reacted to by early audiences, and what im-
pact it had.
Owen Gingerich’s worldwide survey of 600 or so copies of the first two editions of Copernicus,
De revolutionibus (1543 and 1566) is a well-known and leading example of the genre. He used
the evidence of ownership and annotation not only to show how quickly Copernicus’s ideas
2spread across Europe, but also how contemporary scientists networked with one another.1 Other
recent examples include Anthony West’s census of copies of the Shakespeare First Folio, Heidi
Hackel’s examination of marginalia in 150 copies of Sidney’s Arcadia, and Eamon Duffy’s work
on early English liturgical books; before Gingerich, there have been several earlier examples,
particularly among the work of incunabulists.2 I undertook a brief copy census myself for a paper
given at the 2006 London book trade history conference, based around three sixteenth- and sev-
enteenth-century editions of English translations of Julius Caesar.3 As I said then, I believe that
the copy census is a valuable concept to develop in taking forward the discipline of book history
– as Neil Harris put it when reviewing Gingerich, “the copy census is increasingly taking shape
as a logical and powerful extension of the bibliographical canon”.
My proposed paper will further develop this theme. It will:
• Review the development to date of copy censuses, summarising the trends and the kinds
of findings which have emerged;
• Revisit and further expand my Caesar copy census – for my 2006 paper, I was only able
to go so far in tracking down copies and gathering evidence, and I would extend my survey and
its conclusions;
• Suggest future directions for developing copy censuses;
• Consider the tools which we need to develop this kind of work (the recording of data in
catalogues, the availability of supporting reference literature), and summarise the extent to which
UK library catalogues are presently meeting requirements.
It will therefore have both a conceptual and a practical application – it will encourage more work
in this area, and it will also point to the importance of improving the systematic capture of copy-
specific data in catalogues, in order to foster that work.
Illustration: Hand decoration in incunabula
[4] Lilian Armstrong (Wellesley College, USA): Information from Illumination: Learning
from the Decoration of Incunabula in the 1470s
Thousands and thousands of incunabula were decorated with inscribed and flourished initials,
and with miniatures and borders painted in opaque colors and gold, or drawn in pen and ink and
lightly colored. Such decoration added by hand after the book had been printed provides rich in-
formation about the owners and about the movement of early printed books from country to
country.
Through analysis of copy-specific components in several Italian and German incunabula, I will
suggest how their decoration demonstrates the possession of early printed books by owners liv-
ing far away from the city in which the book was published. A first example is a Petrus de Abano,
Conciliator etc printed in 1472 in Mantua, now in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Rar. 853),
handsomely illuminated by a miniaturist working in Venice known as the Pico Master, but the
coat of arms is that of the Schedel family of Nuremberg. 4 This indicates that this volume was
1
Owen Gingerich, An annotated census of Copernicus’ De revolutionibus (Nuremberg, 1543 and Basel,
1566) (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
2
Anthony West, The Shakespeare first folio: the history of the book. Volume II: a new worldwide census
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Heidi Hackel, Reading material in early modern England (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), chapter 4 (p.137-195); Eamon Duffy, Marking the hours
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2006).
3
David Pearson, “What can we learn by tracking multiple copies of books?”, in R. Myers et al (eds),
Books on the move (London: British Library, 2007), 17-37.
4
Lilian Armstrong, “The Pico Master: A Venetian Miniaturist of the Late Quattrocento”, in Studies of Re-
naissance Miniaturists in Venice, London, 2003, I, pp. 233-338, esp. p. 318, cat. no. 16 (originally publi-
shed as “Il Maestro di Pico: un miniature veneziano del tardo Quattrocento”, Saggi e memorie di Storia
3owned by Hermann Schedel before it passed on to his cousin, Hartmann Schedel, well-known
compiler of the Nuremberg Chronicle.
A second example is a copy of Cicero, Orationes printed by Adam de Ambergau in Venice in
1472 and now in the Wellesley College Library (f Inc C-543).5 Its binding is pale pigskin, com-
mon in Germany; its opening text-page is hand-illuminated in a German style and includes the
coat of arms of Hilprand Brandenburg; an ex-libris inscription names the Carthusian monastery
in Buxheim, and pasted onto a guard-leaf is one of the earliest woodcut bookplates known, also
with the Hilprand Brandenburg coat of arms.
Yet another exchange between Italy and Germany is dramatically demonstrated by an incunable
in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, a Clemens V, Constitutiones, printed on vellum in Mainz by
Peter Schoeffer in 1467 (Auct. 4.Q.I.1).6 The opening folio is decorated with a painted acanthus-
leaf border in a style found in other Mainz books, but at the bas-de-page is a Venetian coat of
arms typically encircled by a green wreath. On an inserted but contemporary vellum leaf is a
masterful pen and ink drawing of Hercules and Antaeus attributable to the painter Marco Zoppo,
who was active in Venice in the late 1460s and 1470s.7
Together with even more elaborately decorated incunables, these few examples demonstrate
that observation of bindings, ex-libris inscriptions, coats of arms, attached woodcuts, and styles
of border decoration can vastly enrich the early history of a particular volume and should be
carefully noted in any catalogue in order to distinguish the volume from others of the same edi-
tion.
[5] Mayumi Ikeda (Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, UK): The First Experi-
ments in Book Decoration at the Fust-Schöffer Press
If Gutenberg is credited with inventing typography in the West, it was his immediate successors,
Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, who turned this invention into a successful publishing business
through technical improvements and adoption of new ideas, such as the multi-colour printing, in-
troduction of the publisher’s device and the establishment of branch offices. Among the many
ideas tried out at this press was the different ways in which to provide its products with decorat-
ive initials and illuminations.
An observation of the early publications by the Fust-Schöffer press shows a variety of experi-
ments carried out to decorate its products. Particularly important in these experiments is an em-
ployment of an illuminator known as the Fust Master, whose relationship with this Mainz press
has been demonstrated by Eberhard König. A close analysis of the decoration in the press’ early
publications, which will be presented in my paper, allows us to see a more precise relationship
between the Fust-Schöffer press and the Fust Master, including when and how the Fust Master
was involved, or not involved, in the publications of the press. Through my analysis, I aim to
present a clear picture of this Mainz press’ changing strategy in providing decorations to its
products.
dell’Arte, 17 (1990), pp. 7-39); and Ulrike Bauer-Eberhardt, “Et Hi Tres Unum Sunt: Bartolomeo del Tin-
tore, Bartolomeo di Benincà und der ‘Maestro di Pico’”, Rivista di storia della miniatura, 5 (2000), 109-
118, esp. fig. 1.
5
Paul Needham, “The Library of Hilprand Brandenburg”, in Bibliothek und Wissenschaft, 29 (1996), pp.
95-125, esp. p. 111, cat. no. 55 (cited from a London, Maggs, catalogue 656 [1938], no. 163.
6
A Catalogue of Books Printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the Bodleian Library, by Alan Coates,
Kristian Jensen, Cristina Dondi, Bettina Wagner, and Helen Dixon, Oxford, Oxford University Press,
2005, C-360.
7
Lilian Armstrong, “A North Italian Drawing of Hercules and Antaeus in a German Incunable: Marco Zo-
ppo (?) and Drawings in Renaissance Books”, in Tributes to Jonathan J. G. Alexander: The Making and
Meaning of Illuminated Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, Art and Architecture, ed. by. Susan
L’Engle and Gerald B. Guest, London and Turnhout, 2006, pp. 5-20.
4[6] Christine Beier (Universität Wien, Austria): Painted decoration in printed books. The
Role of the Monasteries in Central Europe
For centuries monasteries had been the most important owners of books and were, though with
a considerable decrease since the 13th century, involved in book production, usually for their
own use. Also in the fifteenth century the inhabitants of some monasteries not only copied texts
but also added decorated initials and made the bindings. The know-how was still there in the
decades after Gutenberg, and it was used for manuscripts as well as for printed books. This can
be observed for example in books from the Carthusians in Žiče (Slovenia), the Augustinians in
Vorau (Austria) and the Augustinians of the Windesheim congregation in Eberhardsklausen
(Germany). In the libraries of these and other monastic houses, there was also a considerable
quantity of books which had been decorated and/or bound in other places, particularly in Nurem-
berg and Augsburg, the big south German centres for book production.
I would like to show how far the printed and completely decorated incunabula from other places
were used as models, and how important local tradition was for the monastic illuminators or flor-
ators. Another question is whether relations between the houses of a specific order had implica-
tions for the treatment and completion of books. The focus will be on the decoration of the
pages, but the bindings and inscriptions on pastedowns and flyleaves will also be of crucial im-
portance for the argument.
Bindings (1): Fragments of manuscripts and printed books in bindings
[7] Eric White (Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA): The Guten-
berg Bibles that Survive as Binder's Waste
Johannes Gutenberg’s 42-Line Bible is universally recognized as the harbinger of a new epoch
in book production, one that introduced the concept of the “edition” to early modern Europe. Al-
though we know that Gutenberg’s new technology made it possible to distribute multiple and vir-
tually identical copies of a text among many readers for the first time, an essential question re-
mains: how many Bibles did Gutenberg print? Despite more than a century of learned discussion
and estimation concerning this question, scholars still have not utilized all of the contemporary
evidence that is available to them. To date, the only known contemporary document mentioning
actual quantities of copies, the “Piccolomini Letter” of 1455, remains an ambiguous witness: it
testifies to the availability in October, 1454, of 158 or perhaps 180 copies. Seeking verification in
physical evidence, in 1985 Paul Needham used the Bible’s watermarked papers to demonstrate
that Gutenberg had supplies sufficient to print roughly 130–140 copies on paper (36 survive in-
tact). Combined, these figures allow for a vellum issue ranging anywhere from 18 to 50 copies
(12 survive intact).
Searching for more precise evidence for the number of vellum copies printed, my research fo-
cuses on the little-known fragments of the Gutenberg Bible that were once used as binder’s
waste. This work expands upon that of Paul Schwenke, who before his death in 1921 suggested
that the two-dozen Bruchstücke known to him belonged to at least 6 lost vellum Bibles (and as
many paper copies), and that of Needham, who in 1985 estimated that the 30+ fragments he
had traced represented “at least a dozen vellum copies” and a handful of copies on paper. Fol-
lowing extensive revisions by Needham and myself, the census now stands at 41 recorded vel-
lum fragments (of which 36 still survive) and 6 paper fragments. Using a complete set of digital
images to compare their distinctive styles of rubrication – their identifying “fingerprints” – I have
sorted the 42 extant fragments for the first time into groups that represent individual long-lost
Gutenberg Bibles. Instead of counting only the 48 “intact” copies of this book, my illustrated
census takes account of all of the copies that survive, regardless of their condition, arriving at
5the first complete census of Gutenberg Bibles, and providing the best physical evidence for
measuring the vellum issue of Europe’s first printed edition – and thus the entire edition – more
accurately.
[8] Falk Eisermann (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Germany): Wasted Words in Pasted
Boards. A Large Complex of Manuscript Fragments from 16th Century Bookbindings at
Leipzig University Library
During routine preservation measures in summer 2005 at Leipzig University Library, a large
complex of manuscript and print fragments was found in a number of damaged mid-16th century
pasteboard bindings ('Klebepappen'). Each binding consisted of dozens of sheets of waste pa-
per and turned out to be a treasure trove of material. The first binding which was removed for
restoration revealed 25 half or full pages from a manuscript of a rare German 'Trojaroman' of the
mid-15th century, two hand-written leaves from a Latin exercise book, 22 leaves from a
manuscript of Nicolaus Stoer's 'Expositio officii missae' (with colophon), etc. The print fragments
included a substantial part of GW 12426 (Hieronymus: 'Epistolae'. Venice: Antonio Miscomini,
22.I.1476). The most important findings were three letters adressed to the very bookbinder from
whose workshop the pasteboards had originated. These letters not only disclose the name of the
the binder, Meister Jörg, they also show that he was not active in Leipzig, as previously as-
sumed, but in Meissen. As Leipzig UL owns more than 200 books from this shop, Meissen now
has to be added to the important bookbinding centres in mid-16th century Saxony. In addition,
the letters belong to an extremely rare type of text. To the best of my knowledge, no similar cor-
respondence has survived. The letters not only provide an interesting glimpse into Meister Jörg's
workshop, they also shed new light on various aspects of Saxony's Reformation history.
[9] Claire Bolton (University of Reading, UK): Links between printer and binder in the 15th
century
This paper will discuss the information discovered that demonstrates strong evidence of links
between the printer Johann Zainer, and the bookbinder and printer Conrad Dinckmut, both work-
ing in Ulm in the 1470s and 1480s. From my research into the printing practices of Johann Zain-
er I noticed that many of the copies of his editions were bound by Dinckmut. Dinckmut also used
waste sheets from Zainer’s editions as pastedowns in many of his bindings. This raised the
question of how far their working collaboration extended.
The paper will discuss the locating of over 430 surviving Dinckmut bindings in various libraries,
mainly by using INKA and the EBDB. These data bases have provided invaluable sources of in-
formation, giving binding workshop, provenance, pastedowns, and occasionally dimensions of
the finished bound copy. This has all helped build a picture of how the two workshops were
linked. Examination of individual copies has added further information.
Bindings (2): Binding databases and methods of description
[10] Ulrike Marburger (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Germany): The Database of historical
bookbindings (EBDB): Aims and perspectives of a co-operative research tool
The database of historical book bindings (EBDB) was started in 2001 as a cooperation project of
libraries which hold substantial collections of rubbings of bindings. These are entered into a My-
SQL-Database with the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). The present
partners are
6• Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (Collection Ilse Schunke; Collection Paul Schwenke; database
hosting)
• Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt (Collection Darmstadt)
• Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München (Collection München)
• Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart (Collection Ernst Kyriss)
• Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel (Collection Wolfenbüttel)
The Einbanddatenbank (EBDB) focuses on bindings of the 15th and 16th centuries which are dec-
orated with stamps, roles and panels. The collected rubbings represent the motifs in their origin-
al scale. To complete the exact descriptions of the tools digital images are taken. These data are
indispensable for any identification – and furthermore for the localisation or dating of the binding.
Multiple search options are offered to users of the database in order to retrieve information on
decoration tools, binding workshops and provenances. Clicking on several links leads to the full
information on the tools, the workshop, holding institution, bibliographical data or the proven-
ance. It is also possible to display all tools showing the same iconographic motive or those used
by the same workshop or bookbinder.
As a steadily growing information pool EBDB serves all those who are involved in the multi-fa-
cetted research of the history of the book: librarians, art historians, provenance researchers, an-
tiquarian booksellers, to name but a few. By integrating additional partners from Germany and
abroad EBDB is to become the central electronic and terminological resource for Gothic and
Renaissance bindings.
The talk’s focus will be put on the collections represented in EBDB as well as on search
strategies in everyday practice:
How to find a motive or a workshop/bookbinder?
Does the database also contain documents from my own institution?
Combined Search: search tips, relevant combinations of search keys
Provenances in the EBDB (supralibros, handwritten/printed notes, dedications etc.)
Thesauri: Terminological basics for the EBDB; default terms for descriptions of historical
book bindings in general
[11] Scott Husby (Princeton, USA): The database of the bookbindings on incunabula in
American library collections
Since 1999 I have been building a database of bookbindings on incunables in American library
collections. At this point some 14,000 records have been generated, and it appears there is
roughly a 20–25% survival rate for copies with original or contemporary bindings on this side of
the Atlantic. Part of the rationale for the database is to establish the extent to which there is truth
in our understanding that printed texts traveled before being bound, an idea put forward compel-
lingly in 1928 by E. Ph. Goldschmidt in his Gothic and Renaissance Bookbindings. I have found
that the picture is more complex than first thought. While binderies in Erfurt and Salzburg, for ex-
ample, indeed bound texts from far-flung printing shops, a different picture emerges for other
binding centers (Augsburg and Cologne are notable), where high percentages of printed texts
were bound close by. This paper will offer the evidence so far found in American collections.
The surviving late gothic bindings provide valuable evidence for the distribution of early-printed
texts, and localizing the binding shops of individual copies contributes to our understanding of
the distribution of particular editions. While bookbinding researchers have often identified binding
shops primarily on the basis of decorative stamping, I have been recording a number of forward-
ing details of the bindings that add to our ability to localize them. Several forwarding methods of-
fer the first clues to a binding’s locale and can at least place the binding generally when the
stamps are not identifiable or there is no decoration at all. There are groups of bindings in the
American database for which the stamps do not appear in any of the resources, including EBDB,
but which can be attributed to a region, if not to a specific shop, by details such as fastenings
7and hardware, endbands, sewing structure, boards (both wood species and shaping),
pastedowns and flyleaves, and other forwarding practices. I will illustrate how structural details
such as these can confirm, and in some cases call into question, the localization of bindings
based on the stamping.
[12] Yann Sordet (Bibliothèque interuniversitaire Sainte-Geneviève, Paris, France):
On printed books as well as on manuscripts : a database for blind-tooled bindings in the
Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (Paris)
The database (http://bsg-reliures.univ-paris1.fr/) is devoted to the description and the reproduc-
tion of blind-tooled bookbindings in the collections of the BSG. It provides access to approximat-
ively 400 bindings, covering manuscripts as well as printed books. The oldest being 12th century
Roman creations, and the most recent, mid-18th century German. More than 60% are of French
origin, 30% of German origin; the others are Flemish, Italian, English and Spanish. The data-
base has been set up in a PHP/Mysql architecture, connecting two specific databases. The first
one gathers bibliographical records related to the works : author, title, address, printer, publisher,
date of the copy or of the printing. The second one gathers records related to the bindings them-
selves: material, technique, tool’s type (small tools, rolls or panel stamps), iconography, proven-
ance of the volume, geographic origin (country, as far as possible region and town, and book-
binder), references. Searches may use combined terms related to both series. Each binding has
a descriptive record linked to one or several indexed, digitized rubbings. Hyperlinks have been
systematically drawn to this database from the online general catalogues : Calames for the
manuscripts (records in EAD : www.calames.abes.fr), and the OPAC for the printed books (re-
cords in UNIMARC : http://www.sudoc.abes.fr ; http://www-bsg.univ-paris1.fr). The database is a
work in progress : identifications can be updated according to new researches in History of
bookbinding ; digitized pictures of all the bindings, even of details as back, guts, clasps or ties
when required, are currently (feb. 2009) loaded in order to complement the digitized rubbings ;
its connection with other databases, and its opening to other types of historical bindings is under
study.
[13] Helena Strömquist Dal (University of Lund, Sweden): Proposing a manual for describ-
ing and recording bookbindings
In the field of humanities, history and cultural studies the materiality of human life and culture is
a field of increasing interest and research. Historians are becoming more and more aware of the
fact that cultural practices are carried and transmitted through artefacts. The material aspects of
these artefacts; their production, distribution, form, function and consumption play an important
role in our understanding of the processes and mechanisms involved in our use of them and the
impact they have on our lives.8 Bookhistorians know that most books are the result of a decision
to publish, which is a commercial act. We are also well aware of the fact that there is a material
aspect of communication.9 Consequently the bibliographical science has developed a number of
rigorously defined terms for the description of printed documents as material objects. IFLA’s IS-
BDA: International standard bibliographic description for older monographic publications (anti-
8
Here are a few examples: Consumption and the world of goods. Consumption and society in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries. Ed. Johan Brewer & Roy Porter. London 1993; Gender, Taste and ma-
terial culture in Britan and North America1700-1830. Ed. John Styles and Amanda Vickery. 2006; Karin
Wurst, Fabricating Pleasure. Fashion, Entertainment and Cultural Consumption in Germany 1780-1830.
Detroit 2005; Maxine Berg, Luxury and pleasure in Eigteenth-Century Britain. Oxford 2005.
9
Th. R. Adams & N. Barker, ”A New Model for the Study of the Book”, A Potencie in Life. Books in Soci-
ety. Ed. N. Barker. London 1993.
8quarian) 2 ed. (1991) is one such tool readily available to anyone working in the field. A corres-
ponding terminology and instrument for the description of books as artefacts, that is the binding,
is currently not at hand. For that reason I will present a fairly simple method to document and de-
scribe bookbindings as material objects. I will also argue for the development of a manual and
method for the description of bookbindings aimed at scholars and institutions working with books
from the hand-press period.
Provenances (1): Private libraries in the 16th century
[14] Chris Coppens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium): An album amicorum from a
sixteenth century Antwerp private library of a lawyer
When working on a post-mortem inventory of an Antwerp lawyer, grandson and grand grandson
of the architects of the cathedral there, and married with the granddaughter of Petrus Aegidius,
the friend of Erasmus and Thomas More, who conceived his Utopia in Antwerp staying with Ae-
gidius, there was no evidence of any provenance of this remarkable library. As the owner had
died at the age of around fifty six years in 1576, some books certainly must have come from his
father, grandfather and possibly great-grandfather, but the major part obviously was collected by
himself, from when he studied in Leuven until very shortly before his death.
A chance discovery was brought about by Roger Stoddard’s magnificently produced catalogue
Marks in Books (1985), which almost unbelievably reproduced one page of the album amicorum
(today kept in the Houghton Library at Harvard) of the owner of this library, Dominicus
Wagemaekers. As so often it is an interleaved emblem book, for instance containing entries by
the nephews of Granvelle who were studying in Leuven at that moment. This only identifiable
item with a provenance from this private library allows to shed some light on the ambitions stu-
dent and the formation of his library.
[15] Angela Nuovo (University of Udine, Italy): Private libraries in 16th-century Italy
In the second half of the 16th century, the number and size of private libraries in Italy reached un-
precedented proportions. Along with the increase in quantity there was also an increase in the
awareness of the library owners (often erudite and scholarly) of the main problems linked to the
management and organization of large library collections. Through testimony regarding the most
important libraries of the period (Ulisse Aldrovandi, Gian Vincenzo Pinelli, Prospero Podiani,
Aldo Manuzio Jr.) and the peculiarities of the individual copies possessed by the great collectors,
this paper tries to evaluate the legacy of Late Italian Humanism in the area of book and library
culture.
[16] Raphaële Mouren (École nationale supérieure des sciences de l'information et des
bibliothèques, Lyon, France): The Vettori library and questions of provenance
Since the late 18th century, the Vettori library is preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
München. This collection of c. 650 manuscrits and printed books with annotations had been
created over nearly three centuries by a family of scholars. Generally, the composition of the
collection is attributed to the humanist Piero Vettori (1499-1585), though several members of his
family have owned, copied or annotated these books, including flyleaves, which are of particular
research interest.
By attributing each book to its original owner or annotator, it has become possible to better
characterize the method applied by Piero Vettori for the preparation of his courses at the Studio
9in Florence and of his editions of Greek and Latin authors. Further progress in the study of the
intellectual history of the 17th and 18th centuries will be made through the identification of the
handwriting of the different members of this family.
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek supports such research by cataloguing its manuscrits and
incunabula in great detail and by making the catalogues as well as the documentation of
secondary literature (previously only available in the reading room) accessible on the internet.
Taking the Vettori library as an example, and considering the importance which the identification
of owners and handwriting can have for researchers as well as for librarians, rare book librarians
should think about tools that can be made available internationally in order to facilitate access to
such material.
Provenances (2): Practices for recording owners and authority files
[17] Michaela Scheibe / Ruth Weiß (Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Germany): The "biography
of copies": Provenance description in online catalogues
Provenance traces (evidences) may appear in many different forms: exlibris, stamps, handwrit-
ten notes, dedications, bookbinders’ labels, supralibros, edge decorations, price quotations, mar-
ginalia written by the author or by the reader(s), stage directions, etc.
Correspondingly the increasing interest in provenance research and description comprehends a
wide spectrum of aspects:
• Provenance research is part of biographic research: Which books did a person read? Is it
possible to reconstruct his or her library, fully or at least in parts? Secret love affairs or solicit-
ous parental care may be documented in affectionate dedications …
• Provenance research is also important for political and especially social history: Which books
were read by certain groups of people (e.g. English physicians in the 17th century, or German
Jews in the age of enlightenment, by women, children, inhabitants of great cities or people in
the country in their time)?
• Provenance traces often provide valuable information for the history of the book trade, e.g. in-
formation about book prices.
Provenance research always deals with the relation between the content of the work, the indi-
vidual or corporate owner(s) and the history of the very copy in hand.
The talk’s focus will be put on the description of provenance in everyday practice:
How can provenance traces be accounted for in a standardized form in electronic catalogues?
How can general information (e.g. biographic data) be provided? An emphasis is put on the
model of provenance description developed at Herzogin Anna-Amalia-Bibliothek (Weimar) http://
aad.gbv.de/empfehlung/aad_provenienz.pdf
Finally, perspectives for imminent issues will be outlined: How can copy specific data be re-
trieved beyond the boundaries of single libraries? How can general (e.g. biographic) information
be combined with authority files? And how can images be connected with authority forms or
copy specific information?
10[18] Ivan Boserup (Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark): The Royal Identification Marks
- From security measure to tool for provenance research
In the 1970s a large number of rare books were stolen from The Royal Library. Not until thirty
years later, in 2003, was the identity of the thief revealed, and in his home c. 1500 books from
the Royal Library (primarily 16th-18th century prints) were found. However, a considerable num-
ber of old books were still missing from the stacks of The Royal Library, and since 2005 the lib-
rary has maintained a list of missing books on its website.
The list of missing books is based on old shelflists, where copy-specific information is the excep-
tion rather than the rule. As a result the list will only rarely make it possible to determine whether
a particular copy is indeed a book that belongs to the Royal Library. In order to remedy this in-
herent weakness, it was decided to produce a digital exhibition of characteristic features of older
books of the Royal Library - features such as the library's marks of ownership, shelfmarks, bind-
ings, marks of previous ownership etc. The basic idea was to provide a tool which could help
auction houses and antiquarian book dealers to identify books belonging to the Royal Library.
Conceived primarily as a security measure, this tool, entitled Royal Identification Marks
(http://www2.kb.dk/kb/missingbooks/marks/index.htm), also has wider perspectives. For one
thing it may be useful as an aid for research into the history of The Royal Library with respect to
changing strategies of systematization, shelfmarking, and bindings. Moreover, it may serve as
framework and vehicle for new provenance research. The paper will primarily be concerned with
this aspect, exemplified by the collection of Gottorp books that was incorporated in the Royal
Library in mid-18th century.
The library of the dukes of Gottorp (c. 10.000 printed books and c. 350 mss) is one of the most
important acquisitions in the history of the Royal Library. It was conquered by Danish troops in
1713 and brought to Copenhagen some decades later. Today, however, we are only able to
identify those of the Gottorp books that are equipped with the ducal coat of arms. How the rest of
them should be recognized, has not been subject to systematic research. However, recent at-
tempts to combine old catalogue information with binding embellishments have led to new in-
sights. It turns out that a number of distinguishing features of Gottorp books (binding character-
istics, names of previous owners) can be drawn up, which makes it possible to identify many
more Gottorp books in the stacks of the Royal Library than hitherto. The Royal Identification
Marks is not only a convenient vehicle for presenting images of characteristic Gottorp features. It
also provides a platform for further investigation into distinguishing features of Gottorp books
and, as a consequence, into the history of the Gottorp library.
After a brief description of the Royal Identification Marks as outlined above, the paper will fo-
cus on the methodological considerations involved in establishing characteristic features of Got-
torp books and the perspectives for further provenance studies offered by using an illustrated di-
gital tool such as the Royal Identification Marks.
[19] David Shaw (Consortium of European Research Libraries, UK): Resources for
provenance research in the CERL Thesaurus
In addition to its HPB Database (printed books from the beginning of printing to c.1830), the
Consortium of European Research Libraries offers other databases for research on the history of
European written and printed heritage. The CERL Thesaurus is a multi-lingual resource, freely
available on the internet, which offers hyperlinked data on names related to the European prin-
ted book. Contributing libraries and projects have offered data on place names (printing and
publishing towns) and persons and institutions (authors, editors, translators, printers, book-
sellers, etc.). A recent development at CERL has been the development of an interest in proven-
ance research, with a special section of the CERL web site devoted to this topic. The CERL
Thesaurus now contains data relating to former owners of books, which have been contributed
11by a number of libraries, research projects and individual scholars. The talk will demonstrate the
use of the CERL Thesaurus for provenance research and will invite contributions of new data.
Manuscript notes in printed books
[20] Patricia Osmond (Iowa State University, USA / Rome, Italy): Pomponio Leto’s unpub-
lished commentary on Sallust: five witnesses
This paper will examine the manuscript annotations in the margins and endleaves of five copies
of Pomponio Leto’s edition of Sallust’s Opera (Rome: Eucario Silber, 1490), now in the collec-
tions of five different libraries: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; Biblioteca Comunale, Fermo; Bibli-
oteca Estense, Modena; Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; and Glasgow University Library.
While the Vatican incunable, Rossiano 441, preserves Pomponio’s autograph commentary on
the De coniuratione Catilinae and De bello Iugurthino, the other copies contain similar, but not
identical, versions written in other late 15th-century humanist hands. The same commentary is
found in a manuscript (Novacella, Kloster Neustift, MS 780), apparently transcribed from an
already annotated printed edition and a few of the same individual notes appear, too, in other
copies of the 1490 edition.
Pomponio’s commentary was never printed but the surviving witnesses provide ample evidence
of its circulation among students and fellow scholars. They also raise interesting questions re-
garding the reception of Sallust, a major school author throughout the Middle Ages and Renais-
sance, the process of note-taking and transmission both in and outside of the classroom, the
identity of these compilers, and the value that manuscript annotation, as well as decoration and
marks of ownership, added to the printed text. Each copy represents not only a repository of an-
cient learning, or handbook of Roman history and antiquities, but a personal and prized testi-
mony to Pomponio‘s teaching and scholarship.
[21] Armin Schlechter (LBZ / Pfälzische Landesbibliothek Speyer, Germany): Leonardo da
Vinci’s Mona Lisa in a marginal note in a Cicero incunable
Incunabula and their copy-specific features can be of very different value as historical sources.
Some copies lack all information about their history and provenance, contain no marginal notes
and have lost their original bindings. In other copies, the information outside the printed text is of
much greater value than the printed text itself. An outstanding example of the latter type is an in-
cunable printed in 1477 in Bologna which contains Cicero’s ‘Epistulae ad familiares’. Of out-
standing interest to art historians is a marginal note dated October 1503 in this book, which
refers to Leonardo da Vinci and his portrait of Mona Lisa and recently attracted world-wide atten-
tion. But the marginal annotations are much more copious, and other notes provide fascinating
insights into the history of this copy, especially autobiographical entries and two separate notes
of ownership. These entries show that the book is one of the so-called ‘Codices postillati’ cre-
ated by the famous humanist Angelo Poliziano and his students in Florence. These volumes are
of outstanding importance to the history of philology, particularly to the development of textual
criticism. Furthermore, other manuscripts and printed books from the library of one of the pos-
sessors of the Cicero incunable, Agostino Nettucci, survive, which yield further information about
his biography.
The later history of the Cicero incunable is also of considerable interest: In the 17th century, the
book was bought by the Dutch classical philologist Nicolaus Heinsius. After his death, Johann
Georg Graevius used the incunable and its marginal notes for his edition of the ‘Epistulae ad
familares’ which remained a key publication for Cicero scholars until the late 18th century.
12[22] Cristina Dondi (University of Oxford, UK): The Venetian Booktrade: a Methodological
Approach to and First Results of Book-based Historical Research
Based on the research conducted on 1387 copies of the 1123 Venetian 15th-century editions
now in the Bodleian Library using data offered by the Bodleian Catalogue of Incunabula (Bod-
inc.), from which records will be exhibited and explained.
The paper will present parameters of analysis, and some provisional results of historical re-
search which can be successfully carried forward by using carefully collected data pertaining to
the physical evidence of 15th-century (or later) books. The results pertain to the history of print-
ing, of trade and manufacturing, of economic and social studies, of the transmission of texts.
Methodology: based on combined evidence from inscriptions, heraldry, binding, decoration, and
manuscript notes, information on the use of Venetian incunabula in the 15th and 16th centuries
has been gathered for 86% of the total sample of Venetian incunable editions in the Bodleian
Library. At least 24% of the items were identified with particular geographical locations on the
basis of evidence from the physical description of the books, i.e. without an ownership inscrip-
tion.
Results: About 40% of the books were distributed around Italy, mainly classics, education and
history; while another 40% was exported to Germany and England, mostly law and theology to
Germany, science and philosophy to England.
These first results confirm what we already suspected about the distribution of Venetian editions;
what the paper demonstrates is how to base these conclusions on solid evidence from the books
themselves. Awareness of this methodology in the cataloguing of other collections should en-
courage an attention to the physical description of books with a view to establishing their proven-
ance and producing better evidence for the distribution of books after publication. The paper is
thus aimed at both scholars and librarians in hopes of realizing the potential of library practices
to sustain and make valuable contributions towards a wide range of evidence-based historical
research.
Methodological aspects (2): Perspectives
[23] Wolfgang Undorf (National Library, Stockholm, Sweden): A Book is a Book is a Book
- Multiple books: case studies and general thoughts
Early printed books sometimes represent more than just one plain, single object related history.
Books produced during the hand press period accumulate copy-specific features not only as a
result of production and reshaping processes initiated and executed by printers and book bin-
ders. Equally important are individual and institutional handling and usage of printed objects as
bearers of texts and grahics and as physical object in connection with other books and whole
book collections. Finally, individual books might have been regarded as examples of aesthetical,
historical and antiquarian processes and value systems, which in their turn too might have had
influence on the physical shape of physical objects. All this can change the physical object itself
and what might be regarded as its identity. Therefore, individual books quite often represent
more than just one specific book, binding or text.
Books which point more or less physically to other, yet now lost, books or which combine physi-
cal elements originated from different copies of the same edition or from other sources, might be
called books with multiple identities.
The paper will present a few case studies for a variety of physical multiplicities of identities, star-
ting with the ideology behind the reconstruction of the oldest printed Swedish books. In a period
when bibliography was being instrumentalized by nationalism, leaves of shattered books were
reassembled (rather than to say that copies were reconstructed) in order to create more or less
13complete bibliographical units. The new national copies started a life on their own, in catalogues
and bibliographies suppressing the identities of older, consumed and disembodied objects. So
far, this fact hasn't attracted the attention of Swedish cataloguers and bibliographers.
Producers, booksellers, readers, libraries, and book historians, all participate in processes of
shaping and re-shaping physical objects which might assemble a multiplicity of individual
aspects during their history. This fact is a methodological challenge for everyone who is part of
processes that lead to statements and, finally, decisions on questions of identity. There seems to
be an increasing awareness of questions of multiple identities in historical disciplines, at least on
the field of art history. This paper is an attempt to discuss its methodological and theoretical fra-
mework.
[24] Marina Venier (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Rome, Italy): Many into one: identifica-
tion methods for single libraries being part of a wider collection
The starting point of the lecture is the result of the work-experience in the peculiar setting up of
the historical collection of the National Library of Rome and in the “book in hand” cataloguing of
the older books in SBN-Antiquarian, the database of the Italian National Library Service.
The books of 69 monasteries were merged in one bigger library constituting the first nucleus of
the National Library. SBN-Antiquarian manages the archive of the owners and provenances. The
“book in hand” cataloguing of part of the collection of the National Library enabled to check each
of about 115.000 copies and recognize the evidences of their history over the centuries. There
are many ways for identifying the owners: stamps, ex-libris, hand written notes, older shelf
marks, bindings may be meaningful signs. The older catalogues of some monastic libraries, now
kept in the National library, are highly useful as well for a virtual rebuilding of the older libraries.
[25] Kristian Jensen (British Library, London, UK): Creating a better past - collectors of in-
cunabula in the 18th century
During the eighteenth century the past was radically reassessed in order to understand and to
influence changing political and social structures. The consequences of the invention of printing,
long celebrated as a crucial event in European history, were rethought in the light of contempor-
ary concerns: as a result opinions were polarised. As books from the earliest years of printing
were increasingly investigated as physical evidence of the invention, categories of books previ-
ously neglected became very expensive indeed. This changed the relationship between schol-
ars, craftsmen, traders, collectors and institutions, who all now had a claim to be taken seriously
when speaking about books. This new multipolarity was a challenge to the authority of those in-
stitutions or groups which felt that it was their privilege to assess books, to judge them good or
bad.
The lecture explores and compares reactions in the two leading centres of the market for early
books, Paris and London. Although the market for a new-found luxury was remarkably unified,
different mechanisms for social control in each centre meant that tensions were addressed dif-
ferently. The lectures discuss the political and commercial impact of the French Revolution on
these two centres, underlining the complex interplay between politics, the marketplace, and cul-
tural values. It was in this period that books from the fifteenth century emerged as a coherent,
marketable commodity, as incunabula. This depended on a new, systematic discipline, created
outside universities and academies, which saw books as physical, not textual, evidence of the
past. As fifteenth-century books became incunabula in the eighteenth century, they were re-
quired to fulfil the expectations of their new owners, not only as texts, but especially as objects
whose fate was to be physically transformed.
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