Mnemonics and biographical notes

Boethius [Sulpicio, Giovanni Antonio] [Bade, Josse; Thomas Aquinas, pseudo-:] Duplex commentatio ex integro reposita atque recognita in Boetium... [Lyons, Claude Davost, for Simon Vincent, 1506].

A fascinating copy of a teaching compendium, annotated with visual, textual and musical mnemonics, and biographical information on owners. The printed text comprises Boethius’s Late Antique classic Consolation of Philosophy; an extract from Quintilian’s Institution of Oratory; a poem on student table manners by the humanist Giovanni Antonio Sulpicio (1440-c.1508); and a pseudo-Boethian work called On the academic discipline. Our copy appears to have been at the Benedictine abbey of Garsten (Austria).

The mnemonic material includes a verse on the calendar, written out by one brother Leopold, who adds his armorial. Unidentified annotators add material including a list of the medieval elements, apparently presented as a finger mnemonic; a list with Zodiac symbols; and musical notation for singing (and probably remembering) lines of Boethius’s Consolation. In the early sixteenth century, an owner added an antisemitic comment on the betrayal of Jesus to a description of the imprisonment of brother Leopold.

The book later passed to a teacher, Urbanus Marzin, whose own gloss is present. He notes positions he held between 1555 and 1560 (e.g. a master of games, a school principal, and a head of singing, all in different towns). Marzin notes the births of his two daughters, with dates, times and star signs, details of his wedding celebrations, and the date and time of his wife’s death. The book appears subsequently to have returned to the cloisters. The copy has pastedowns from a work printed in Nuremberg, 1493, by Friedrich Creussner. The book was probably bound in and exported from the Bavarian city. 

Physical Description 

One volume, 25.6 cms. x 17.7 cms. In binding, quarto, fols. [132]; [28]. Signed: a-f⁸ g⁴ h-i⁸ k⁴ l-n⁸ o⁴ p-q⁸ r⁴ s⁸ t⁴; A⁸ B⁴ C-D⁸. Title-page with title in red, with in black, large woodcut initial, with, above and be - low, printed in black, woodcut devices of Simon Vincent (above: Silvestre 267, Peter and Paul with Veil of Veronica and initials PV; below, Silvestre 265, armorial lozenge with initials SV, flanked by woman and unicorn, banner with motto “Memento finis”). Further Vincent device with Veil of Veronica to final page. Woodcut initials throughout. Text printed in two sizes (main text and surrounding commentary). Printed side notes, printed manicules. Bound in early 16th-cent. wooden boards, hook clasp fastenings to front cover (cf. Szirmai 259 (d)), straps removed, old leather spine replaced c.1700 with alum-tawed pigskin, decorated in blind, with giltstamped goatskin label.

Pastedowns made from bifolia from Michael Lochmaier, Parochiale curatorum [Nuremberg, Friedrich Creussner, not before 1493] (ISTC il00267000), sigs. d1/ d8 and d2/d7. Pastedowns probably made from unused sheets, as no signs of stitching and without pasted-in corrections to headlines. Traces of transverse spine lining made from old manuscript.

Condition (text block): light browning, some dustiness and occasional light staining, worming at beginning and end, a spot of ballpoint pen to title-page. Condition (binding): worming, loss to pastedowns (tear to rear pastedown).

Provenance  

1. “Dmns Leupoldus Austri” (title-page), “Dmns Leupoldus Indesotte[?] Austri” (colophon leaf), a shield depicting moon and grapes with initials FLI (i.e. Frater Leupoldus Indesotte[?]) (title-page verso). Below this, apparently in Leupoldus’ hand, is a four-line mnemonic for the Roman calendar (begins “Tradens quando reficis”). Perhaps owing to his disgrace (see below), brother Leopold’s name is crossed out in twoplaces, as is a note to final page, possi - bly by him.
2. Benedictine monk A.C. (“A.C.”, “A.C.B.”) His inscription to title-page explaining the fate of Brother Leopold: “Anno a Natale Christiano M^o.ccc ^o: xvi: xj: kale: Februarij Fr Leupoldus [this name crossed out] ad carcerem releg - atus fuit friarum deliberatus idus Marti et traditus fuit a suis to[c]toribus[sic.] sic iudei Christum tradideru[n]t”. (On the 11th of Kalends of February 1516 brother Leopold was relegated to the friars’ prison, the matter was deliberat - ed on the Ides of March and he was be - trayed by his doctors, as thus the Jews betrayed Christ).
3. Monogram VXB[?] - the B perhaps in - dicating another Benedictine monk - with date 1527 and inscription “Trahit sua quemque voluptas” (each to their own taste) [Virgil, Eclogues II, 65].
4. Urbanus Marzin, “Urbanus Marzin, a Dno Michaele N confratre Garstensi hic liber in munus exhibitus. Anno a redempto orbe M.DLXVI”. His person - al notes to colophon leaf and final past - edown (see above). 11 pages of printed book with manuscript gloss identifiably in his hand and using a plummet ink that he uses on title-page.
5. (To title-page:) “Fr. Sixtus Laurentius [???] 1570”, with motto.
6. The copy also has an inscription “Monrij Ga[??” - possibly Garsten Monastery - and unascribed early notes including gloss, finger mnemonic for the elements and list of zodiac signs and symbols (final page), musical notation (sig. e4v), and the words “calcographus”, “bibliopola” and “astro - logus” (printer, bookseller and astrologer) (first pastedown and title-page).

Bibliography

USTC 154972. Renouard, Badius Ascensius II, 204 #14. 

Silvestre, Louis-Catherine, Marques Typographiques [...] Recueil des monogrammes [...] [etc] des libraires et imprimeurs (2 vols, Paris, 1867).

Szirmai, J. A., The Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding (London, Routledge, 2017).