Legends in the making

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Jacobus de Voragine: Lombardica historia que a plerisque aurea legenda sanctorum appellatur. [Strasbourg: Georg Husner], 1502.

This post-incunable copy of the highly influential Legenda Aurea took a fascinating journey across central Europe in the sixteenth century, shedding light on the early Strasbourg/Nuremberg book trade.

The hagiographies compiled by Jacobus de Voragine (d. 1198) in his Legenda Aurea were practically a cornerstone of medieval culture, their stories profoundly shaping depictions of saints in literature, paintings, stained glass, and manuscript illuminations. Our edition was printed in Strasbourg by Georg Husner in 1502. Soon after, this copy apparently travelled to Nuremberg in an unbound or semibound state and was possibly bound by the ‘Madonna, Nuremberg’ workshop (active until 1503).

Our binder seemingly had access to waste material from a local printer; the rear pastedown derives from a work on the gospels printed by Friedrich Creussner in 1478. Creussner would ultimately be outcompeted by Anton Koberger, best remembered for printing the Nuremberg Chronicle.

At an early stage, hagiographic material relating to St Wolfgang of Regensburg was added by hand to blank parts of our book, notably engulfing the title. Perhaps he was a saint of local significance to the user. An inscription also connects the book to Christopher Collatinus, alias of Christoph Puhler (approx. 1500-1583). Born in Siklos, Hungary, this astronomer studied in Vienna under Peter Apian (d. 1552), a pioneering mathematician famous for his Astronomicum Caesareum.

Physical Description

Printed, 29 x 21 cms in binding, folio, ff. 258, collation: 1⁸ 2⁶ a⁸ b⁶ c⁸ d–f⁶ g⁸ h⁶ i⁸ k⁶ l⁸ m⁶ n⁸ o⁶ p⁸ q⁶ r⁸ s⁶ t⁸ v–y⁶ z⁸ A⁶ B⁸ C⁶ D⁸ E–F⁶ G⁸ H–I⁶ K⁸ L–M⁶ N⁸ [with sigs. 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, and 1-5 numbered as 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, and 1-4 respectively].

Double columns, spaces for initials with guide letters. This copy has the variant that includes a point after ‘appellatur’ on the title page (contrast Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin copy). All blanks present (sigs. 1-1v, 2-6r, 2-6v, N8r, and N8v). Undecorated. Occasional foliation in pencil.

Manuscript addition of hagiographic material relating to Saint Wolfgang (Bishop of Regensburg, d. 994) on the title page (sig. 1-1r) and four of the five original blanks (sigs. 1-1v, 2-6r, N8r, and N8v). Written in a sixteenth-century cursive script, 40–51 lines to the page, unruled. While further research is required, our investigation suggests that sigs. N8r, N8v, and 1-1r contain a version of the beginning of Othlo’s life of St Wolfgang (Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina 8990); cf. Legenda Sancti Wolfgangi (Burgdorf, 1475) fols. 1r–5v (ISTC iw00068000). There is also material from a separate hagiography relating to Saint Wolfgang on sigs. 1-1v and 2-6r; cf. de Smedt et al (eds.) Acta sanctorvm Novembris II (Bruxelles: Société belge de librairie, 1894), pp. 549–50.

Condition: Light browning, occasional staining, short wormtrail to outer margin (entirely blank) of some 23 leaves, single worm holes mainly towards beginning and end affecting the odd single letter. Else, neat repair to tear in sigs. D6 and D7, affecting two letters on each verso, small burn on sig. p2 obscuring a two-letter word on the recto, but overall in good condition.

Binding

Materials: Contemporary calf over wooden boards.

Pastedowns: Fragment from an incunable used as the rear pastedown. [Johannes de Turrecremata]: Quaestiones Evangeliorum de tempore et de sanctis. [Nuremberg: Friedrich Creussner, 1478], fol. 129r. Approx. 27 x 19 cms, only one side visible but evidently printed on both sides, folio, 35 lines, type 110G. A 3-line unfilled space for an initial, no guide letter. Front pastedown and front free endpaper blank, apparently renewed probably at an old date, using laid paper, with visible chainlines and watermark (two concentric circles?). A small wormhole in the front pastedown (approx. 2mm in diameter) suggests an earlier pastedown might survive underneath. The stub visible after the first quire may belong to the original pastedown (compare the stub of the rear pastedown visible before the final quire). No free endpaper at rear.

Decoration: Almost certainly completed in Nuremberg, possibly by the ‘Madonna, Nuremberg’ workshop (active around 1473–1503). Front cover decorated with a quadruple fillet frame and further quadruple fillet divisions. Rear cover decorated with two quadruple fillet frames, the inner frame divided by a quadruple fillet diagonal cross. Blind-tooled stamps to covers and the four spine compartments. Four of these stamps are nearly identical to ones used at the ‘Madonna, Nuremberg’ workshop (Einbanddatenbank workshop 500380w, stamps s014146, s028433, s031049, s014120). Compare also the stamps used by three other roughly contemporary Nuremberg workshops (500205w, 501439s, 501448s). Gold-tooled Gothic lettering to front cover (Lambardica).

Condition of binding: loss to head of spine, tears and loosening to tailcap, extensive historic worming to boards (and consequent dust); clasps missing, although the lower anchor plate and part of the upper anchor plate remain; rubbing and wear, gold fading. Some damage to pastedowns and front free endpaper, including to the incunable fragment used as pastedown at end.

Provenance

1. Handwritten additions of hagiographic material relating to Saint Wolfgang on sigs. 1-1r, 1-1v, 2-6r, N8r, and N8v. The same hand also appears to be responsible for some of the marginalia, most extensively on sigs. d5v (Legend XXIII, Saint Sebastian), n2v (Legend XXVII, Saints Vito and Modesto), t7v (Legend CXVIII, Saint Bartholomew), z6v (Legend CXL, Saint 45 Michael), C1r (Legend CLIIII, Saints Simon and Jude), and D3v (Legend CLXI, Saint Martin).
2. Formerly owned by Christopher Pühler (approx. 1500–1583), mathematician and pupil of Peter Apian. ‘Iste liber est Christophori Collatinus Siclas opido pannoniorum inferiorum’ (sig. N7v).
3. ‘Franciscus schwab can. Reg. ad s florianum professus duobus et medis Anno in monasterio sancti Nicolai hospes fuit Anno 1671 discessit 12 January deus benedicat (sig. F5r). The text after ‘discessit’ is in a darker ink, and possibly another hand. In the outer margin of the same folio, in yet another hand, there is a series of majuscule letters (ADAAGAP). These were perhaps intended to be trimmed, and indeed almost have been.
4. Four majuscule letters etched into the outer margin ‘ISM | B’ (sig. A4r). Perhaps served as a security feature (most visible under raking light).
5. Thick straight and curved lines in the margin in brown crayon(?) to highlight the reference to Saint Hilary in the contents (sig. 2-4v) and sections of the Assumption of the Virgin (sigs. t2r-t2v).
6. Further marginalia in additional hands, some recurring (e.g. sigs. 1-2r, 1-8v, d2r, g5v, m6r, n3v, s1r, v2r, z8v, D3r, F2r, F3r, F6r). This list is not exhaustive.
7. Modern bibliographic notes in pencil to front pastedown.

Bibliography

Quaestiones (1478): ISTC it00546000, GW M48299

Lombardica (1502): USTC 673583, VD16 J 142.

Bollandist Society (ed.), Bibliotheca hagiographica latina: antiquae et mediae aetatis: K–Z (Bruxelles, 1900– 1901).

Chrisman, Miriam Usher, Bibliography of Strasbourg Imprints, 1480–1599 (Yale: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 12 (C. 4. 2. 1).

Chrisman, Miriam Usher, Lay Culture, Learned Culture, Books and Social Change in Strasbourg 1480–1599 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982).

Datenbank von Astronomen der Frühen Neuzeit 1473–1727, accessible via https://www.hi.uni-stuttgart.de/gnt/afn/intro.html

Morel, Thomas, ‘Bringing Euclid into the Mines: Classical Sources and Vernacular Knowledge in the Development of Subterranean Geometry’, in Sietske Fransen et al. (eds.) Translating Early Modern Science (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 154-81.

Ohly, Kurt, ‘Creussner, Friedrich’, Neue Deutsche Biographie 3 (1957), 412, accessible via https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/ pnd135725259.html#ndbcontent.

Reames, Shery L. The Legenda Aurea: A Reexamination of Its Paradoxical History (University of Wisconsin, 1985).

Ritter, François, Catalogue des incunables et livres du XVIe siecle de la Bibliotheque Municipale de Strasbourg (Strasbourg: P. H. Heitz, 1948), no. 1290.

de Smedt, Carolus et al (eds.) Acta sanctorvm Novembris II (Bruxelles: Société belge de librairie, 1894).