‘ . ye ax? a “i 5 f ~ ’ ¥ fy . bib r, r 7d ihe 4] ne Ex 3 sy seit waka gre \ a ts im p ; f are H Ae : * ¢ F; € . MBER3O. 23 TO SE fs ear A COMMENTARY BY GEORGE PARKER WINSHIP: Litt.D. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY: ON THE VOLLBEHR COLLECTION OF THREE THOUSAND TITLES OF INCUNABULA DISPLAYED AT THE NATIONAL ARTS CLUB OF NEW YORK : MCMXXVI Poamotst WENTY: THIRD TO SEPTEMBER THIRTIETH HE BOOKS of the fifteenth century are the abiding monument to the most perplexing and the most instructive of historical eras. No other hundred years was packed fuller of things which it would be well for mankind to think about, and there is no equal period which the people of later times find so hard to understand. It was then that many of the things which are recognized as the characteristic features of modern civilization had their visible beginnings, and of these all the essential facts are known with the amplitude of detail which has blossomed into the newspaper accounts of current hap- penings. That was also the century in which much that was typical of the Dark Ages and of Mediaevalism died, and of these dying things, contemporaneous to the new life of the Renascence, less than nothing is known, for blank igno- rance would be better than the deceptive misconceptions which reward the gleanings of most of those who have tried to understand the welter and turmoil that made European life from 1400 to 1500. The books showall this more plainly than anything else; indeed, they alone survive to perpetuate adequately its glory and its dismal discouragement. No other era has provided anything comparable to these books inimpressive- ness, of equal power to grip the imagination of future ages, so that the word incunabula has become the synonym for all that is finest and most abiding in the world of books. Behind these inspiring heights, lies the mass of fifteenth century printed matter like an arid desert waiting for some- one to supply the stream of comprehension without which it can neither blossom nor bear fruit. The word Incunabula has come to have almost talismanic significance among book-lovers. It comes from the Latin nursery —‘‘cradle-books” is the usual translation— but it was long ago adopted by the students of book-making and given a strictly technical meaning, to cover anything printed before the end of the year 1500, 7. ¢. all fifteenth century books. The attempt at anglicizing “incunable” has not met with as general acceptance as it would have, if it had not taken most of the poetry out of the word. What ought not to be allowed, is the use of this word, which has a definite and accepted meaning, as covering fif- teenth century books, for anything else. It is occasionally and increasingly being taken forall sorts of early efforts, until its proper meaning is in danger of being lost. An exhibition of Incunabula ought to combine the charm of the forest with the delight of the trees, giving the visitor a comprehensive impression of what that marvellous fif- teenth century was like. It should enable him to appreciate the countless ways in which the books produced before the year 1501 offer inspiration and guidance to the twentieth century. Any book of that time will inspire veneration by its appeal to the imagination. The effect is cumulative when one is privileged to look at a number of them, and when the number isa carefully chosen selection from a comprehensive collection, the educational effect increases proportionally. 2 The National Arts Club has had the good fortune to have at its disposal just such a collection, with the privilege of choosing the books which seemed to its committee most significant, and of arranging them soas to bring out the mean- ing both of the individual volumes and of certain groups in which each book needs to be seen in relation to its fellows before its influence can be realized. The selection has been made fromacollection of more than three thousand volumes each of which was printed in the fifteenth century. Estimates vary widely as to the total number of works printed before 1g01, but the number, of which examples still survive, is somewhat over 30,000, so that this remarkable collection comprises about ten per cent of all the recorded “fifteeners.”’ Thesignificance of this percentage becomes clearer when one learns from the detailed catalogue that 800 of the 3000 are not foundin Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum, fora hun- dred years the standard authority on fifteenth century books. What is even more significant—there are 466 which have not been described in any of the supplementary authorities which have been accumulating the data that escaped Hain. This is undoubtedly a very high showing of books of which many must be well-nigh unique; but the more significant point is that this is probably about the proportion, one in six, of books known only from one or two copies, which would hold true of the whole 30,000 recorded Incunabula. HE invention of printing divides the fifteenth century 5 eae halves. The making of the first printed book began during the year 1450, and it was completed five years later. But the development of this epochal innovation 1s easier to understand, if the century is taken by thirds. During the first of these, the European world, or that portion of it which sought the stimulation of thought as embodied in books, got along as best it could by copying each for himself or by buying the hand-written products of professional orreligious 3 scribes. In one strip of Europe, along the banks of the Rhine, there was during these decades a steadily increasing demand for booksaboutall sorts of subjects that people were interested in talking about. At the same time it became more and more difficult to find scribes competent to make these books in sufficient numbers to supply the demand. At Strassburg, by 1439, a young man had wasted his 1n- heritance doing something with great secrecy, but with suffi- cient success to bring him occasional profit. A dozen years later, he had returned to his native city of Mainz, where he induced a money-lender to advance hima considerable sum, which he was unable to repay after another five years. Then, before the midsummer of 14.56, several of the churches and religious establishments in that portion of the Rhineland acquired new Bibles. These must have been a great novelty, for they had been made bya newmethod, slowand laborious, but possessing the inestimable advantage of almost un- limited duplication—a hundred, possibly evena hundredand fifty copies, all more or less alike. Slowly and laboriously other books were made, smaller than the Bible and taking only two years to complete. By the end of the decade, rival establishments had got to work, more or less secretly and with much less technical skill than characterized the productions of the shop at which the Bible had been produced. Thencamea political upheaval at Mainz; the archbishop was driven out by a rival claimant and the city suffered from the excessive jubilation of the victors. In the confusion, some of the workmen who had acquired the knowledge of how to make books in the new way, went away to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Followed a decade of experimentation, the trial of new ideas, many failures, and an amazingly high percentage of successes. By14.70in Germany, and ten years later throughout Europe, printing had ceased — to be a novelty. 4 PSS oh : SSN ) ,1492 lan 1 ifteenth century musicians Mantegatius, M F Theortca Musice, Ugh sous, “e[NsY op stuvsatoy TY, uinj1q1josy{y) ayvsstpy ayy jo Adood ayatduios AjUG Bi inengeg one AOR ewig Gunes Cues conga *pnge EES ar ORAS SOR CNS Crt eens a unnsnp uke ape Warne UR AR UUs ang! Heaeag GeapUNRAN WAR ga EUS HUES quaip sey pony CORR Cawinin te, cxapenn I Sop TRENT + chun SREB cle Caney pea TNS SARTRRUD HOGS UA edt BOAUWE Cane cee es Bee og saciviall «oqnommunae Un Re einlie corsmentioae fe MIPLAYy Cavum itor Rew compe RADIA ie aa Kenn doe ena aan dicsian sun Pee The last third of the century saw printing take on many _ of its lasting aspects. In the larger centers it became a highly developed industry, divided into the branches which still mark the allied trades. One man developed a specialty of supplying paper, while others devoted their skill to casting type. Another found an outlet for his talents in organizing the distribution of books to the retail shops, and built up an international trade. Books became an article of commerce, and the center of the business shifted from the Rhine to the Adriatic. Venice became the seat of great wholesale ven- tures, of splendid undertakings and of all sorts of devices for cheapening the costs of production. The prototype of everything which has been said to be responsible for the bad book-making of succeeding periods, can be found there be- fore the business of making books by machinery was fifty years old. oBoDy knows who made the first printed book. No one N put his name toa copy,so far as has been discovered, or laid personal claim to it as his work. The man whose name it commonly bears, with unquestionable right, is Johann Gutenberg. Much is found in the record about his earlier struggles and his financial difficulties which continued until the ruling archbishop allotted him a pension as areward for services rendered—but with never a word as to what these were. He died in 1468 and we know that he had the use of a printing outfit then, for a friendly physician laid claim to it as his personal property. The two men who carried on the business after the first Bible was completed were Johann Fust, the money lender with whom Gutenberg had dealt five years earlier,and Fust’s son-in-law, Peter Schoeffer. They had copies of the Bible for sale, and used the type with which it had been printed, but neither of them left on record any claim to have shared in the invention of printing. On the other hand, they were 5 very proud of the books they produced, and with good reason. Schoeffer was the most skilful printer of his time, and maintained his leading position for half a century. In contrast to the secrecy which was persisted in by many of his rivals, Schoeffer put his name and his mark at the end of almost every book for which he was responsible. He fre- quently added a statement that his books were made without the use of pen or stylus, but by a new and most wonderful method, the discovery of which was one of the great glories of the city of Mainz. Clearly, nobody ever realized the im- portance of the invention of printing more fully than these two men, who were concerned in its earliest development, but for some reason that has nevercome to light,they didnot mention the name of the man to whom the credit was due. Peter Schoeffer, with the backing of his father-in-law, pro- duced a series of splendid Psalters, according to the varying use of the neighboring dioceses. He printed also many secu- lar works, but his finest efforts were devoted to books for his ecclesiastical patrons. Besides the service books, he spe- cialized in works on the canon law. His magnificent pages, on which the requisite amount of text is surrounded by the elucidations of commentators—text and commentary being never twice of the same length—have been the despair of typographers and the envy of editors ever since. After every allowance has been made for the cheapness of labor, the long hours of work, and the undisturbed patience of interested craftsmanship, a large share of credit remains due to the masterly ingenuity and resourcefulness of the directing mind, which achieved these unmatched triumphs of the printing art. HILE Fust and Schoeffer, in their secure position with \ \ fullest experience, the largest plant, and the wealthiest patrons, were producing masterpieces of printing, various rival establishments started up, to supply a wider need. At. 6 Strassburg, where Gutenberg lived during the years when the invention was being perfected, it is likely the knowledge of how it was done was possessed by some of his helpers. However strictly he may have sworn them to secrecy, it is not likely that they refrained from trying their hand at imi- tating what was being done at Mainz. The early Strassburg books are especially interesting because they are so crude a contrast to those of Schoeffer. The first Strassburg printers, Johann Mentelin, and his son-in-law, Adolf Rusch, both showed the greatest reluctance to signing their work. Most of Rusch’s books have until very lately been hidden in bibliographies under the anonymous heading of “the R printer,” so slightis the evidence, still far from certain,which connects the man who used a peculiar type with Rusch’s shop. Despite their deficiencies, Mentelin and Rusch were both men of considerable business ability,and they were re- sponsible not only for many monumental volumes, but also for some of the early steps by which the craft became an organized business. Ruschapparently realized his proper field of activity, and neglected printing to become the first regular “middleman” in the industry as a wholesale dealer in paper for book-making. Cologne is another city at which printing was well-estab- lished before the appearance of the first book to be signed or dated there. As at Strassburg, many of the printers mod- estly refrained from recording their names in their books. The little that can be found out about the different presses has to be gleaned by minute comparison of the types and the presswork.Cologne was a university city, and the larger part of its publications were small books designed for the use, and the purses, of students. These little volumes were issued and re-issued in a confusing succession of scarcely distinguishable editions. There is no other place whose books offer a more enticing subject for detailed study, with 7 so great a prospect that the reward will be a fuller under- standing of the educational system which produced the men who became the leaders in the reform movements of the six- teenth century. The first Cologne printer was Ulrich Zell, and he capped a long life of active work by contributing a statement about the invention of printing to the Cologne Chronicle of 1499. This has rarely been bettered as a fair presentation of the probable facts. Cy” R men who knew how to print, who were anxious to make their way in the world,went up the Rhine to Basle, and across country to Augsburg, Nuremberg, Buda Pesth, Cracow, Lubeck, and to a dozen more German speaking cities before 1475. Two—Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz—led the way over the mountains into Italy, and after a brief stop at the Benedictine Monastery at Subiaco to show what they could do, settled at Rome, where they found a competitor in anotherGerman printer, Ulrich Hahn. Meanwhile, John and Wendelin of Speier had established themselves at Venice and laid the foundations which within a decade made that city the world’s center of book-making, a position which it held for a full century. From Basle three German craftsmen were called to Paris, to set up a press in the Sorbonne, while others took the road to Lyons. From this great trading center they spread out to Avignon anda score of other places in southern France, and over the Pyrenees into Spain. Behind these forerunners, their more conservative fellows moved along from townto town, until there was scarcely a place of importance in Ger- many, Italy, Holland or Flanders, which had not sharedin the excitement of seeing its first piece of printing produced. At Bruges, an English merchant, William Caxton, had a book printed in his native language. When he returned to England in 1477 hewas accompanied by Wynkynde Worde, — a Skilled craftsman. Wynkyn succeeded to the business after 8 Collecte rem.APunera ergo mibt vebes ob talemenitit ci nbt vit a3 reftt tueri.ec? yrous dolo et fraudib? fidé adibbuit ac nepbas one ~ Argumentit.xiij.Be attucia yrozis cuiufdam vineators ma) CHlieres dolofe citiffime fraudes z médatia exco- pa citare {cifitde quoaudibocarguméti ‘WPerrex Ait quide3 rufticus ve fuaz vindemearet vineam yr €4| lebat)diunus mozaturum ctimiffo nuncio (ud yo- cabatamicum quem yementem dapib? ct potu bit = ~ refecit yt venert foztius valerct obfequiacadit au tem yt marit? 9 ramo yitisin oculo percuffus ye nibil de illo vide- ret/cito domi rediret et boftta pulfarct.quod intelligens yroznt- mu cerrita amict abfco dit in camera/ocnde marito apperuit bo- ftium.quiintrans grautter po oculo mits z volens camera wiflit parartcileceum Rernt ve poffct quiefcere. Limuit autem yrozne i trafamichlancdcé videret orxigs ull Cur em fettinas 9d lectét vic tis pz? obfir nbi quare ficturberis aio Mlle vero rorumags fibi accide rat yrounarrauit. Zit lla peomitte mquit commnx sinanamime ve q Wy The tree of forbidden fruit Aesop's Fables, Michel Furter, Basel, 1490 ee —herg tr deur (cynee lag aclen : An accident on the Papal journey to Constance Augsburg, 1483 Caxton’s death, and maintained a lively and profitable com- petition with a rival from northern France, Richard Pynson. T is difficult for the twentieth century to realize that the I reason why the majority of fifteenth century books are in Latin and religious, is because religious matters were what interested people most deeply, and Latin was the common language which was generally understood. There were differ- ences of opinion about matters of scholastic theology which were as vital and as closely allied to questions of life and death in the later fifteenth century decades, as anything for which blood was spilled in Franceatthe end of the eighteenth or at the beginning of the twentieth in Russia. As for the language, it was an exact, supple, effective medium of com- munication capable of being used foreverynecessary purpose and generally understood,even bya good proportion of those who could not read it, or anything else. Latin was killed by those who thought they were its only true friends, the purists whofoughtvaliantly and violently for the language of Cicero, and would tolerate no compromise. Their victory gave them the most efficient instrument for educating youth which has yet been devised, the study of classical Latin, but they de- stroyed its usefulness as a means of human communication. Whatit might have been, is shown by the way in which it has held its place as the scholar’s language and the dingua franca of the Roman Church. The press maintained a neutral position between the Ciceroneans and their opponents, serving both with equal readiness in accordance with their means. It took sides, un- consciously, and unintentionally, in fostering the vernacular languages, and it enabled these to get the strength which was eventually to complete the downfall of Latin. The unifying influence of printing, more than any other single factor, cre- ated the national languages of Europe. So long as each book was an independent creation, there was no strong impulsion 9 to break down the dialectical individuality of each locality. With printing, everything depended then, as it still depends now, upon quantity production. There has to be a market for many copies all alike, before the single books can be sold cheaply. When William Caxton set up his press in England, he had to decide which one of a dozen varieties of the spoken language should be adopted as the standard. It was this deci- sion,controlled no doubt by other factors,which fixed the lit- erary language. Similarly as between High and LowGerman, northern and southern French, and the Italian and Spanish dialects, the printers exerted an irresistible pressure which submerged local peculiarities so faras the written and printed language is concerned. The result was that each nation gained forthwith a unity which could only come through a common medium of communication. ae E books which were printed in Latin and in vernacular tongues divide into three large groups. Most numerous of the books which have survived the vicissitudes of four centuries are those which concern religion. Next in conven- tional importance are the works of literature, chiefly the ancient classics, including works in Hebrew. Lastly—a group which has suffered far more than the others from the wastage of time and neglect—are the texts which were printed because they had a contemporaneous interest,the ephemera which seem so unimportant after they serve their imme- diate purpose, but which posterity cherishes as the priceless evidence of what the past was really like. Each of the three split up into countless smaller groups. Most important of the religious works is the Bible, the first — book to be printed and never since displaced as the “best seller” of every year. Impressive as is the typographic splendor of the early editions, it yields in this respect to the long succession of church service books, Missals, Psalters, Antiphonaries, and the others which were commissioned IO by the local Episcopate to meet the needs of the differing uses, and upon which the printers lavished their devotion to Mother Church and to their craft. The writings of the church fathers, St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as the then new Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis, next to the greatest of all in lasting in- fluence upon the spiritual life of humanity, with innumerable others possessing a less universal appeal, were produced in successive editions. They prove better than any argument how hungry the thoughtful reading public of that time must have been for spiritual consolation and enlightenment. The spiritual guidance of the world required, then no less than now, a vast amount of administrative machinery and the services of many different sorts of men and women. The press served these as readily as any others in their dif- ferences of opinion or belief and in their current clerical requirements. Among all the fifteenth century printers there _ were two whose books are scorned by the collectors because they are cheap things, poorly printed, small and unimpres- sive. But these two, Stephan Plannck and Eucharius Silber, were active rivals for more than twenty years for the official printing of the Roman court. Any one handling a few score of the insignificant quarto tracts that were rushed from their presses—four of the slightest of these supplied a demand for the text of an epistle telling that a New World had been discovered, the priceless Columbus Letter—will understand more clearly what the pre-Reformation world was like. _ The classics speak for themselves. They have long been the pride of collectors and the envy of students. A genera- tion which no longer reads Horace and which never knew that the Ovid of the Metamorphoses was once more widely known for his De arte amandi et de remedio amoris, neverthe- less shows no falling off in its respect for and its desire to possess the volumes in which Homer and Vergil, Aristotle Il and Pliny, Thucydides and Livy, Herodotus and Tacitus, Plato and Seneca, Aristophanes and Terence, were read in those days of the early Renascence, when all the learned world was bursting with new things. But it is not alone the ancient classics,whose first editions possess an ever-increasing power to fascinate and to inspire those who are privileged to gaze upon them. Boccaccio and Petrarch did their full share in reviving the ancients, but they did more for posterity, although they may not have guessed it, by telling tales and making verses in the language of the vulgar commonalty. Dante is on a still more exalted plane, the peer of any, ancient or modern. France contribu- ted the Roman de la Rose and other romances of chivalry, Spain its coplas,centones and cancioneros rivalling the chansons of southern France, and Germany the more vigorous verse of the troubadour epics Parsival and Titurel by Wolfram von Eschenbach and Alfred von Scharffenberg. The struggle for the spiritual and temporal control of the archbishopric of Mainz vitally affected the course of the development of typography, in more ways than the one which is described in all the treatises on the history of ty- pography. Both contestants used the press to assist them in informing the public of what was going on. Placards ap- peared on the streets, giving the text of the communications, papal bulls and official decrees, designed to influence the citizens to choose one side or the other. It was propaganda and it was news, two of the things upon which printing ever since has depended for its profitable existence. Naturally these and similar broadsides, single sheets, folders of two or four or a few more leaves, which were intended to serve a need or supply a demand which passed almost before it could be supplied, made no claim to be preserved for posterity. Sometimes one was accidentally slipped between the leaves of a book and luckily forgotten. Others were put away or 12 ~The first Czecho-Slovakian book Printed at New Pilsen, Bohemia, 1476 — j= =, f . U HN BAS nh: me! AN Ey ey A fifteenth century autopsy Fasciculus Medicinae, Gregorius, Venice, 1495 bound in a volume with others of like inconsequence, on the chance that they might be wanted later. Most of them went the way of waste paper; but fortunately waste paper has always had a certain value, and in those days it had one par- ticular use, which has been of inestimable importance in preserving for more appreciative eyes a very small fraction of what bibliographers would like to recover of the early specimens of printers’ work. Such of these as have been preserved,were saved because the book binders liked to use for the covers paste-board made by pasting together waste sheets of paper. From these pasted sheets, subsequently sep- arated, have been recovered many fragments of books which have otherwise entirely disappeared as well as much precious evidence of how the printers worked, as shown for instance by the mistakes they made on the sheets that were thrown away. From such things—proof sheets, cancels, mistakes in impression, imperfect work of any sort—the researcher reconstructs the details of the past. oo were many other kinds of books on many other subjects. Most books were printed in order to be sold, and human nature has not changed its desires to any notice- able degree, nor its habit of spending money for what it wants, in the brief span of four or five centuries. Theitinerant pedler was then the commonest means of distribution, and many books show by their titles even more than in their con- tents that they were designed to meet the requirements of roving merchants or of those who occupied booths on mar- ket day. Fewindeed of such things have survived, but [/Son- aglio delle Donne, Contrasto degli Uomini et delle Donne,and Le malitie delle Donne, are suggestive of what they were like. Each age has its own taste in fiction, and there may be com- fort in the reflection that the popular novels of the fifteenth century can be read today about as easily as those of the eighteenth century or of the mid-Victorian era. Certain of 13 the fifteeners enjoyed a wide popularity, calling for many editions, so that occasional copies can still be found of the Dialogus Salomonis et Marcophih, or the Liber gestorum Bar- laam et Iosophat. One novel enjoyed a most respectable vogue,and a corresponding good fortune in being preserved more often for later generations. This was the Historia de duobus amantibus Euryalo et Lucretia, which was written by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini long before he dreamed that he was to become Pope Pius II. Better than any systematic statement about duly ordered subjects, for the purpose of showing how like the fifteenth was to other centuries before and since, may be a culling of odd volumes on all sorts of matters. First of these should come the treatise of Marcus Gabius Apicius Caelius De Re Coquinaria, valued as a medical incunabulum, but of wider interest because it is the corner stone of any collection of cookery books. With food goes drink, as one may learn from a Tractatus de vino or the Contrasto dell ’acqua e del vino, both from Italian presses. Then relaxation, and the perusal of the famous early book on chess, Solatium ludi schacorum by Jacobus de Cessolis might be better for digestion thana well- fought game. There are many treatises on serious fighting, De re militari, mostly from Italian shops, although France characteristically contributed Instruction de Chevalrie et ex- ercise de guerre. The great fighters of every age have likewise been great builders, and for these there is the treatise De re aedificatoria by Leo Baptista de Albertis, dedicated by An- gelus Politianus in 1485 to Lorenzo de Medici. With this belongs the De omnibus ingeniis augendae memoriae libellus of Johannes Albertus. OTHING Shows the national characteristics of different N countries more distinctly than the pictures which ap- pear in books that were intended to appeal to a general book buying public. Sometimes it was merely a cut to attract at- 14 tention to the title leaf; in Germany, on an elementary text book, a picture of a school room with the scholars working diligently, or a charging warrior ona tract which turns out to bean appeal for contributions to help overcome the heathen; in France a delightfully intricate trade mark of the printer or book seller; and in Spain the impressive coat of arms of a patron. Another common practice was to provide at the begin- ning of each section a small cut, the width of the column of text, giving a pictorial summary of the subject matter. The contrast between the national styles can be seen most clearly in the pictures in the vernacular German and Italian Bibles, each telling the story in naive simplicity and straightfor- wardness, with equal effectiveness but markedly different technique. The rival Venetian editions of Dante, also, show this method of illustration atits best. The artists utilized the limited space at their disposal most cleverly, showing the progress of the narrative by representing each character two, three, or even four times in a single picture, preserving their individuality without confusing the eye or lessening the picturesque quality. There is no question of superiority between the Nur- emberg Schatzbehalter of 1491 and the Hypnerotomachta Poliphili printed by Aldus at Venice in 1499. Each served its purpose perfectly for the public for which it was intended. Neither would have gone as well at Paris, where the French miniaturists produced an even more distinctive combination of decoration and illustration in the borders designed for the rinted Horae beatissimae virginis Mariae. In Spain, where the Gothic inheritance held strongest, everything was done on a grander scale, which for sheer smashing splendor out- did all the rest. There are three groups of books, each famous for its il- lustrations, printed during the last fifteenth century decade, r5 which between them embody a large part of the story of the conflicting influences that were determining the fate of Eu- rope. While the Parisian book-lovers and church-goers were taking up the Horaeat the rate of anewedition every month, in the 1490s, the best sellerin the Rhine valley was Sebastian Brant’s Ship of Fools, with its representation on every page of auniversal human foible. At the same time the Florentine populace was buying successive editions of the sermons and tracts of their great revivalist, Savonarola, in which the powerful appeal of the text was matched by the unsurpassed effectiveness—the simplest means perfectly employed—of the pictures. Carried away by his hypnotic oratory, the Flor- entines burned their profane books, and then they burned the exhorter; the press which had helped him most faith- fully, serving his enemies as honestly. Savonarola’s splendid triumph, and his fate—the confus- ing juxtaposition of an episode which embodies all that is finest in many of the most momentous outbursts in modern history, with another that is just as characteristic of darkest — mediaevalism—are typical of this whole half-century. No one will ever understand it, and by understanding it, make ~ it possible for those who write history to bridge the chasm which has heretofore separated the modern world from the mediaeval,until he puts himself in the place of the men who frequented the fifteenth century bookshops. There, as no- where else, all these cross currents swelled and eddied.T here the seeds were dropped which were fertilized by the Renas- _ cence and the Reformation, and flowered as the Revolutions of 1688, of 1776, of 1789, of 1830 and 1849, of 1871 and of 1916. But no contemporary bookshop ever brought to- gether so many of the books and pamphlets, the broadsides and ephemeral local publications, as can be found today in the few great libraries which have made an especial effort to gather fifteenth century books. : 16 Svantt i) Tilting at the Council of Constance Anton Sorg, Augsburg, 1483 jynrenfEat-Gar ert mady ye micyt onset gan re fayop oc¥ dat ertrickeBroge fone firrsde aile-Porie Bome vind crrfPeVat yt fat an 5m fulisc]é wor%e- “Guerre verden Page ers wy Gerert myddewecfe-macke gor%e Gonz nePat feVen Page Pyede geueynd de mon vn fterne Der nadyt-On is Se Gack mercurineDes veffeen ages Vert wy Geren DonnerVad)-Sdhopp orallerGanve vogePur Der Rindse vide fy({dbe it Fern warer “4x Vern fefte age Geis wy Beret fey9ach (Bop Be afer’ ‘and fee quecE vn wifdc dere Ond 11 Ver er fEer (Ene des Pages mackeBe gor Wame pander aTea forem A€enit(fe-vrtd gaff Sine gewalt ouer fee-ouce voggcl once fi(jBe- ond fandedne in Pat Paradis-dar mackedebe tua vars AVames rib6e- Fn Per Bridde fEunVe Ves Jages Viewile Vat Ge fleyp-vnd gaff cua adame Fomrne-vit (olde ewidh Ferre vin vorbor one fisd§e ats cyte Bome to ctctt WW \\y) al m0: a =s “3 At aN wit Ww Wi Fes > my The expulsion from Eden Saxon Chronicle, Peter Schoeffer, Mainz, 1492 ‘ : VF ie “if Sia i; tf Baas ; hj 3 my ‘= Las a 0 ; v *y ee a HE peculiar good fortune of the National Arts Club lies in the fact that it was able to draw, for its exhibition, upon a private collection which in this respect holds its own with the largest public institutions. This collection is repre- sentative, to an amazing degree, of every sort of publication which came from the fifteenth century presses. It would have taken no great skill, nor a noteworthy amount of money be- fore the Great War, to gather 3,000 different incunabula. Since the war, one American gentleman has exceeded that number. But to make a collection large enough to include a due proportion ofall sorts of books,and keep it thoroughly representative of half a dozen racial stocks and of a crowded half century, must have taken skill, persistence, and wide connections. It is a curious commentary upon the way libraries are formed,that no other collection of incunabula has been made, that I am aware of, comparable to this one in extent, and with this especial purpose. The great European libraries accumulated early printed books more or less accidentally, at first, by inheritance from monastic collections in Germany or from the libraries of the older ruling families in Italy, Franceand England. The British Museum seta new fashion forty years ago, of collecting examples of the work of differ- ent printers. This led to a particular vogue for the first book of each press. George Dunn went this one better, and very much better, by buying only books that could not be as- signed toany known press.William Morris, F airfax Murray, and Pierpont Morgan gave an impetus to the collecting of early illustrated books, which put these in a class by them- selves so far as prices are concerned. There are also collectors who try to get one book, any book, dated in each successive year. Recently, certain American libraries have shown a fondness for incunabula of which no other American library is known to possess a copy. But apparently nobody else 17 thought that the fifteenth century books best worth having are those that show what the fifteenth century was like. No one who examines the books in the exhibition, and realizes that a dozen similar exhibitions might have been made from the same library, each equally instructive, al- though perhaps less picturesque, can fail to feel that the Club was very fortunate in those who had the foresight to arrange for it. Those who are studiously inclined will have an added feeling of gratitude that such a collection was made, before it was too late. During the war, the great reservoirs of early printed books dried up. Twenty-five years ago, the supply of incunabula seemed inexhaustible. This is no longer true, and even a slight increase in the number of libraries which are attempting to gather fifteenth century books is rapidly making the desirable volumes unprocur- able. There are still books to be had, that were printed be- fore 1501, if that is all one wishes to possess. But if one wants to envisage the fifteenth century as a whole, from the Rhine to the Tagus and the Thames, at play as well as at church, in the counting house and in the lists as well as in the scholar’s retreat, it cannot now be done again anywhere near as well as Dr. Vollbehr has done it. MADE FOR DR. OTTO H. F. VOLLBEHR _ BY THE PYNSON PRINTERS OF NEW YORK IN THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER q MCMxX XVI GETTY CENTER LIBRARY UUM 3 3125 00132 7051