Project | Demos | Documentation

Contribute to Biblissima+

Subscribe to our newsletter

Contact us

Manchester. The John Rylands Library, Incunable Collection, 17250.2

Go to viewer chevron_right
Source
Manchester Digital Collections
Library
The John Rylands Library
Shelfmark
  • 17250.2
Biblissima authority file
Date
  • 1454
Language
  • Latin
Title
  • Vniuersis Cristifidelib[us] p[o]ntes litteras inspecturis Paulinus Chappe Consiliari[us] (Vniuersis Cristifidelibus pontes litteras inspecturis Paulinus Chappe Consiliarius | Universis Cristifidelibus pontes litteras inspecturis Paulinus Chappe Consiliarius)
Agent
Description
  • Extent:
    Single sheet. Leaf height: 280 mm, width: 275 mm.
    Binding:

    Unbound.


    Subject(s):
    Indulgences (Canon law)
    Format:
    Sheet
    Provenance:

    From the collection of George John, 2nd Earl Spencer (1758-1834), acquired by him from Alexander Horn (1762-1820) in 1801 for £60. Horn acquired the indulgence from the library of Prince Friedrich Ludwig of Hohenloh-Öhringen, where it had been preserved in the family archive. Earlier in the same year Horn had sold to Spencer another I-31 indulgence from the library of the Benedictines of St. Emmeram in Regensburg. [see: Jensen, Kristian, Revolution and the antiquarian book, pp. 60-61]. The two copies described in Dibdin, Biblioteca Spenceriana, I, p. xliv (no. 7), are UML 17250.2 and the second copy, ex-Benedictines of St. Emmeram; this second copy was presumably that later swapped by Spencer for the sole surviving copy of I-30 (now UML 17250.1).

    Issued in Würzburg to Henricus Deupprecht [Rupprect?] and his wife Anna [Henricus Deupprecht et Anna vxor eius legitima], and sold by Johannes Allendorf, the abbot of St. Burkhard in Würzburg, for 1 florin. The text of the Indulgence, with the names of the purchasers, was published in Christian Ernst Hansselmann, Weiter erläutert- und vertheidigte Landes-Hoheit des hauses Hohenlohe vor denen Zeiten des sogenannten grossen Interregni (Nuremberg: Adam Jonathan Felsecker's heirs, 1757), pp. 324-26.


    Additions:

    The sixth issue, bearing the printed date 1455 and a manuscript date of 7 March - the earliest dated example of the sixth issue of I-31.

    Bearing the original 'wafer' seal of the commissioner, Paulinus Chappe.


    Note(s):

    Title from incipit.

    The Mainz Indulgences were issued to raise revenue to support the Western European struggle against the Turks and stem from Pope Nicolas V's announcement of 12 August 1451 that between 1 May 1452 and 30 April 1455 a general Indulgence would be granted for those contributing money towards the defence of Cyprus. The organisation and collecting of contributions was delegated to Paulinus Zappe (or Chappe), commissary for John II of Cyprus. Manuscript copies of these Indulgences survive dated from 4 January 1454 to 30 April 1455. Printed indulgences were presumably ordered in the autumn of 1454.

    Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke distinguishes thirteen variants, grouped under two editions, one of 30 lines (I-30), one of 31 lines (I-31). This edition bears 31 lines and is recorded in seven variants, the result of minor changes made to the standing type during printing.

    Five issues of I-31 bear a printed date of 1454 [21 known copies], the sixth and seventh issues bear a printed date of 1455 [20 copies]

    A copy of the fourth variant printing of I-31 was purchased by Margarethe Kremer at Erfurt on 22 October 1454, indicating that printing of the edition began before that date.

    The earliest purchase date known for the sixth variant printing I-31 is 7 March 1455, leading F. Geldner to suggest that variant six was not printed until January or February 1455 (Geldner, Die Mainzer Ablaßbriefe der Jahre 1454 und 1455, col. 608). Seven examples of I-31 bearing the printed date 1454 were actually sold in 1455, the printed date being altered by hand.

    Ing, The Mainz indulgences of 1454/5, p. 19 states: "there is general agreement today that I 31 was printed before I 30 ... The pattern of purchase dates ... suggests that I 31 was in circulation first".

    White, Editio Princeps, p. 46 states: "Most of the 31-line edition ... appears to have been printed during the last three months of 1454, with many copies post-dated to the next year in anticipation of continued sales. Assuming that the types were left standing, additional copies could have been printed as needed in 1455. The 30-line edition appears to have been started later, during the five months leading up to the expiration date of 30 April 1455".

    Printed on vellum on one side only, the editions using different types and different ornamental initials. The headings of I-31 are set with the first state of the DK type (1:164G), later used to print the 36-line Biblia Latina in Bamberg (ISTC ib00527000); the text type (2:96G) appears only in this indulgence; a small number of abbreviated sorts appear with the Catholicon types in some books from the 1460s.

    I-31 features three initial letters, which appear to be cast in metal and which are different from those used in I-30.

    White, Editio Princeps, p. 46 states: "Although a few abbreviation sorts from the 31-line edition were intermixed with the Catholicon types to print short works in Mainz and Eltville during the 1460s, the small types of the 30-line edition were never used again in any other surviving edition. Both sets of small types probably were produced in limited supplies exclusively for the indulgence campaign and then were melted down in order to prevent the production of unauthorized indulgences".

    For a review of the debate concerning whether I-30 and I-31 were printed by the same workshop, or different workshops, see Ing, The Mainz indulgences of 1454/5.

    The majority of known copies of I-31 were purchased in the Archdiocese of Mainz.


    Publication:
    [Mainz : Printer of the 31-line indulgence and of the 36-line Bible, before 22 October 1454-1455?]
Place
Rights
  • Provided by The University of Manchester. Zooming image © University of Manchester Library, All rights reserved. Images and Metadata made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0). Images and Metadata made available for download are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
License
Digitisation
Manifest URL
Library logo