Incunable

File:Inkunabel.ValMax.001.jpg

Page from Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, printed in red and black by Peter Schöffer (Mainz, 1471). The page exhibits a rubricated initial letter "U" and decorations, marginalia, and ownership stamps of the "Bibliotheca Gymnasii Altonani" (Hamburg).

File:Prohemium..JPG

Illumination with doodles and drawings (marginalia), including an open-mouthed human profile, with multiple tongues sticking out. Copulata, "De Anima", f. 2a. HMD Collection, WZ 230 M772c 1485

File:Phisicorum ca. 1485 ..JPG

Image of two facing pages from "Phisicorum", fols. 57b and 58a, with doodles and drawings. HMD Collection, WZ 230 M772c 1485

An incunable or incunabulum (Template:Plural form: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The specific date is essentially arbitrary, but the number of printed book editions exploded in the following century, so that all incunabula, produced before the printing press became widespread in Europe, are rare, where even some early 16th-century books are relatively common.

They are distinct from manuscripts, which are documents written by hand. Some authorities on the history of printing include block books from the same time period as incunabula, whereas others limit the term to works printed using movable type.

Template:As of there are about 30,000 distinct incunable editions known.<ref>The British Library Incunabula Short Title Catalogue Template:Webarchive (retrieved 16 August 2021) gives 30,518 editions, though this includes some which have been re-dated to the early 16th century.</ref> The probable number of surviving individual copies is much higher, estimated at 125,000 in Germany alone.<ref>According to Bettina Wagner: "Das Second-Life der Wiegendrucke. Die Inkunabelsammlung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek", in Griebel, Rolf; Ceynowa, Klaus (eds.): "Information, Innovation, Inspiration. 450 Jahre Bayerische Staatsbibliothek", K G Saur, Munich 2008, Template:ISBN, pp. 207–224 (207f.) the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue lists 30,375 titles published before 1501.</ref> Through statistical analysis, it is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000.<ref>J. Green, F. McIntyre, P. Needham (2011), "The Shape of Incunable Survival and Statistical Estimation of Lost Editions", Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 105 (2), Template:Pp.. doi:https://doi.org/10.1086/680773</ref> Around 550,000 copies of around 27,500 different works have been preserved worldwide.<ref>Badische Landes-Bibliothek (in German)</ref>

Terminology

Incunable is the anglicised form of incunabulum,<ref>As late as 1891 Rogers in his technical glossary recorded only the form incunabulum: Template:Cite book</ref> reconstructed singular of Latin {{#invoke:Lang|lang}},<ref>The word incunabula is a neuter plural only; the singular incunabulum is never found in Latin, and is no longer used in English by most bibliographers.</ref> which meant "swaddling clothes", or "cradle",<ref>C. T. Lewis and C. Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford 1879, p. 930.</ref> which could metaphorically refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development".<ref name="oed">Template:OED</ref> A former term for incunable is fifteener, meaning "fifteenth-century edition".<ref>"Fifteener" was coined by bibliographer Thomas Frognall Dibdin, a term endorsed by William Morris and Robert Proctor. Template:Harv.</ref>

The term incunabula was first used in the context of printing by the Dutch physician and humanist Hadrianus Junius (Adriaen de Jonghe, 1511–1575), in a passage in his work Batavia (written in 1569; published posthumously in 1588). He referred to a period "{{#invoke:Lang|lang}}" ("in the first infancy of the typographic art").<ref name="junius">Hadrianus Iunius, Batavia, [...], [Lugduni Batavorum], ex officina Plantiniana, apud Franciscum Raphelengium, 1588, p. 256, line 3.</ref><ref name="glomski">Template:Cite journal</ref> The term has sometimes been incorrectly attributed to Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (1591–1664), in his Latin pamphlet {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ("On the rise and progress of the typographic art"; 1640), but he was quoting Junius.<ref>Bernardus a Mallinkrot, De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae dissertatio historica, [...], Coloniae Agrippinae, apud Ioannem Kinchium, 1640 (in frontispiece: 1639), p. 9, line 16. The term appears within a long passage of several pages (pp. 27–33; corresponding to Batavia, Template:Pp.), set in italics to indicate a quotation, and attributed to Junius.</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The term incunabula came to denote printed books themselves in the late 17th century.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is not found in English before the mid-19th century.<ref name="oed"/>

Junius set an end-date of 1500 to his era of incunabula, which remains the convention in modern bibliographical scholarship.<ref name="junius"/><ref name="glomski"/> This convenient but arbitrary end-date for identifying a printed book as an incunable does not reflect changes in the printing process, and many books printed for some years after 1500 are visually indistinguishable from incunables. The term "post-incunable" is now used to refer to books printed after 1500 up to 1520 or 1540, without general agreement. From around this period the dating of any edition becomes easier, as the practice of printing the place and year of publication using a colophon or on the title page became more widespread.Template:Sfn

Types

There are two types of printed incunabula: the block book, printed from a single carved or sculpted wooden block for each page (the same process as the woodcut in art, called xylographic); and the typographic book, made by individual cast-metal movable type pieces on a printing press. Many authors reserve the term "incunabula" for the latter.<ref>Oxford Companion to the Book, ed. M. F. Suarez and H. R. Woudhuysen, OUP, 2010, s.v. 'Incunabulum', p. 815.</ref>

The spread of printing to cities both in the North and in Italy ensured that there was great variety in the texts and the styles which appeared. Many early typefaces were modelled on local writing or derived from various European Gothic scripts, but there were also some derived from documentary scripts like Caxton's, and, particularly in Italy, types modelled on handwritten scripts and calligraphy used by humanists.

Printers congregated in urban centres where there were scholars, ecclesiastics, lawyers, and nobles and professionals who formed their major customer base. Standard works in Latin inherited from the medieval tradition formed the bulk of the earliest printed works, but as books became cheaper, vernacular works (or translations into vernaculars of standard works) began to appear.Template:Citation needed

Famous examples

File:Pfister.faks.1.jpg

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Famous incunabula include two from Mainz, the Gutenberg Bible of 1455 and the Peregrinatio in terram sanctam of 1486, printed and illustrated by Erhard Reuwich; the Nuremberg Chronicle written by Hartmann Schedel and printed by Anton Koberger in 1493; and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili printed by Aldus Manutius with important illustrations by an unknown artist.Template:Citation needed

Other printers of incunabula were Günther Zainer of Augsburg, Johannes Mentelin and Heinrich Eggestein of Strasbourg, Heinrich Gran of Haguenau, Johann Amerbach of Basel, William Caxton of Bruges and London, and Nicolas Jenson of Venice. The first incunable to have woodcut illustrations was Ulrich Boner's Der Edelstein, printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg in 1461.<ref>Daniel De Simone (ed), A Heavenly Craft: the Woodcut in Early Printed Books, New York, 2004, Template:P..</ref>

A finding in 2015 brought evidence of quires, as claimed by research, possibly printed in 1444–1446 and possibly assigned to Procopius Waldvogel of Avignon, France.Template:Citation needed

Post-incunable

Many incunabula are undated, needing complex bibliographical analysis to place them correctly. The post-incunabula period marks a time of development during which the printed book evolved fully as a mature artefact with a standard format.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After about 1540 books tended to conform to a pattern that included the author, title-page, date, seller, and place of printing. This makes it much easier to identify any particular edition.Template:Sfn

As noted above, the end date for identifying a printed book as an incunable is convenient but was chosen arbitrarily; it does not reflect any notable developments in the printing process around the year 1500. Books printed for a number of years after 1500 continued to look much like incunables, with the notable exception of the small format books printed in italic type introduced by Aldus Manutius in 1501. The term post-incunable is sometimes used to refer to books printed "after 1500—how long after, the experts have not yet agreed."<ref>Template:Cite book Template:Free access</ref> For books printed in England, the term generally covers 1501–1520, and for books printed in mainland Europe, 1501–1540.Template:Sfn

One notable example from this period is Hakob Meghapart (Hagop Meghapart), who in 1512 became the first known printer of Armenian books. Working in Venice, he published Urbatagirk (The Book of Friday) and several other early Armenian printed works. His books retained characteristics of manuscript tradition, including red and black ink and decorative initials, aligning them stylistically with incunabula despite being post-incunable by definition.

Statistical data

File:Printing towns incunabula.svg

Printing centres in Europe

File:Incunabula distribution by Region.svg

Incunabula distribution by region

File:Incunabula BY language-08.svg

Incunabula distribution by language

The data in this section were derived from the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC).<ref>BL.uk Template:Webarchive, consulted in 2007. The figures are subject to slight change as new copies are reported. Exact figures are given but should be treated as close estimates; they refer to extant editions.</ref>

The number of printing towns and cities stands at 282. These are situated in some 18 countries in terms of present-day boundaries. In descending order of the number of editions printed in each, these are: Italy, Germany, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, England, Austria, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Hungary (see diagram).

The following table shows the 20 main 15th-century printing locations; as with all data in this section, exact figures are given, but should be treated as close estimates (the total editions recorded in ISTC at August 2016 is 30,518):

Town or city	No. of editions	% of ISTC recorded editions
Venice<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	3,549	12.5
Paris<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	2,764	9.7
Rome<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,922	6.8
Cologne<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,530	5.4
Lyon<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,364	4.8
Leipzig<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,337	4.7
Augsburg<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,219	4.3
Strasbourg<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,158	4.1
Milan<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,101	3.9
Nuremberg<ref>Template:Citation</ref>	1,051	3.7
Florence	801	2.8
Basel	786	2.8
Deventer	613	2.2
Bologna	559	2.0
Antwerp	440	1.5
Mainz	418	1.5
Ulm	398	1.4
Speyer	354	1.2
Pavia	337	1.2
Naples	323	1.1
TOTAL	22,024	77.6

The 18 languages that incunabula are printed in, in descending order, are: Latin, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Catalan, Czech, Greek, Church Slavonic, Portuguese, Swedish, Breton, Danish, Frisian and Sardinian (see diagram).

Only about one edition in ten (i.e. just over 3,000) has any illustrations, woodcuts or metalcuts.

The "commonest" incunable is Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle ("Liber Chronicarum") of 1493, with about 1,250 surviving copies (which is also the most heavily illustrated). Many incunabula are unique, but on average about 18 copies survive of each. This makes the Gutenberg Bible, at 48 or 49 known copies, a relatively common (though extremely valuable) edition. Counting extant incunabula is complicated by the fact that most libraries consider a single volume of a multi-volume work as a separate item, as well as fragments or copies lacking more than half the total leaves. A complete incunable may consist of a slip, or up to ten volumes.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In terms of format, the 30,000-odd editions comprise: 2,000 broadsides, 9,000 folios, 15,000 quartos, 3,000 octavos, 18 12mos, 230 16mos, 20 32mos, and 3 64mos.

ISTC at present cites 528 extant copies of books printed by Caxton, which together with 128 fragments makes 656 in total, though many are broadsides or very imperfect (incomplete).Template:Citation needed

Apart from migration to mainly North American and Japanese universities, there has been little movement of incunabula in the last five centuries. None were printed in the Southern Hemisphere, and the latter appears to possess fewer than 2,000 copies, while about 97.75% remain north of the equator. However, many incunabula are sold at auction or through the rare book trade every year.Template:Citation needed

Major collections

The British Library's Incunabula Short Title Catalogue now records over 29,000 titles, of which around 27,400 are incunabula editions (not all unique works). Studies of incunabula began in the 17th century. Michel Maittaire (1667–1747) and Georg Wolfgang Panzer (1729–1805) arranged printed material chronologically in annals format, and in the first half of the 19th century, Ludwig Hain published the Repertorium bibliographicum—a checklist of incunabula arranged alphabetically by author: "Hain numbers" are still a reference point. Hain was expanded in subsequent editions, by Walter A. Copinger and Dietrich Reichling, but it is being superseded by the authoritative modern listing, a German catalogue, the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, which has been under way since 1925 and is still being compiled at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. North American holdings were listed by Frederick R. Goff and a worldwide union catalogue is provided by the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Notable collections with more than 1,000 incunabula include:

Library	Location	Country	Number of copies	Number of editions	Ref.
Bavarian State Library	Munich	Germany	19,717	9,381	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
British Library	London	UK	12,500	10,390	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Paris	France	12,000	8,000	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Vatican Library	Vatican City	Vatican City	8,600	5,400 (more than)	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Austrian National Library	Vienna	Austria	8,030		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National Library of Russia	Saint Petersburg	Russia	7,302		<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
lang}}	Stuttgart	Germany	7,093		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Bodleian Library	Oxford	UK	6,755	5,623	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library of Congress	Washington, D.C.	US	5,700		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Russian State Library	Moscow	Russia	5,360		<ref>Выставочный проект На благое просвещение: Румянцевский музей, Московский период, Индрик, 2005, Template:ISBN</ref>
Huntington Library	San Marino, California	US	5,000 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Cambridge University Library	Cambridge	UK	4,650 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Naples	Italy	4,563		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Danish Royal Library	Copenhagen	Denmark	4,500		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
John Rylands Research Institute and Library	Manchester	UK	4,500		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Berlin State Library	Berlin	Germany	4,496		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Harvard University	Cambridge, Massachusetts	US	4,389	3,627	<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
National Library of the Czech Republic	Prague	Czech Republic	4,200		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National Central Library of Florence	Florence	Italy	4,089		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Leipzig University Library	Leipzig	Germany	3,800		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Jagiellonian Library	Kraków	Poland	3,671		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich	Munich	Germany	3,598		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Bamberg State Library	Bamberg	Germany	3,550		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Yale University (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)	New Haven, Connecticut	US	3,525 (all collections)		Template:Citation needed
Herzog August Library	Wolfenbüttel	Germany	3,477	2,835	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University Library Freiburg	Freiburg im Breisgau	Germany	3,448		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Wrocław University Library	Wrocław	Poland	3,250 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Madrid	Spain	3,159	2,298	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Göttingen State and University Library	Göttingen	Germany	3,100		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library of the University of Würzburg	Würzburg	Germany	3,100		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Palatina Library	Parma	Italy	3,042		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Basel University Library	Basel	Switzerland	3,000 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Venice	Italy	2,887		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Frankfurt University Library	Frankfurt	Germany	2,800		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Uppsala University Library	Uppsala	Sweden	2,500		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Bologna	Italy	2,500 (circa)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Paris	France	2,400	2,120	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Braidense National Library	Milan	Italy	2,368		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library of the University of Cologne	Cologne	Germany	2,350		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Ill	Colmar	France	2,300		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Newberry Library	Chicago	US	2,200 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Casanatense Library	Rome	Italy	2,200		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National Library of the Netherlands	The Hague	Netherlands	2,200		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library of the University of Tübingen	Tübingen	Germany	2,148		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library of the University of Innsbruck (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek)	Innsbruck	Austria	2,122	1,889	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National and University Library	Strasbourg	France	2,120 (circa) (7,000 destroyed by fire in the 1870 Siege of Strasbourg)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Ill	Nuremberg	Germany	2,100		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library Angelo Mai	Bergamo	Italy	2,100		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Morgan Library	New York	US	2,000 (more than)		Template:Citation needed
Library of the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg	Erlangen	Germany	2,000 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Rome	Italy	2,000		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National Széchényi Library	Budapest	Hungary	1,800 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Heidelberg University Library	Heidelberg	Germany	1,800		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Estense University Library	Modena	Italy	1,662		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal	Paris	France	1,623		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Turin National University Library	Turin	Italy	1,600 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Ill	Halle (Saale)	Germany	1,600		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Lisbon	Portugal	1,597		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Interlanguage link	Padua	Italy	1,583		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Zentralbibliothek Zürich	Zürich	Switzerland	1,562		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Strahov Monastery Library	Prague	Czech Republic	1,500 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Paris	France	1,500		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Ill	Salzburg	Austria	1,385		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Baden State Library	Karlsruhe	Germany	1,365		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University Library of Bonn	Bonn	Germany	1,338	1,307	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Biblioteca Augusta	Perugia	Italy	1,330		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University Library in Genoa	Genoa	Italy	1,321		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Trivulziana Library	Milan	Italy	1,300		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Lyon	France	1,300		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library of the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt	Eichstätt	Germany	1,290		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Walters Art Museum	Baltimore, Maryland	US	1,280		<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Verona Municipal Library	Verona	Italy	1,230		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Bryn Mawr College Library	Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania	US	1,225 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library Teresiana	Mantua	Italy	1,281	1,083	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:Ill	Zwickau	Germany	1,200		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign	Urbana, Illinois	US	1,200 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National Library of Poland	Warsaw	Poland	1,198	1,031	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
lang}}	Seville	Spain	1,194		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Queriniana Library	Brescia	Italy	1,158		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Central Library of the Region of Sicily	Palermo	Italy	1,136		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University of Graz Library	Graz	Austria	1,115		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Angelica Library	Rome	Italy	1,100		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University of Glasgow	Glasgow	UK	1,062		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
University Library in Bologna	Bologna	Italy	1,021		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Bridwell Library	Dallas, Texas	US	1,000 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library Passerini Landi	Piacenza	Italy	1,000 (more than)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Abbey library of Saint Gall	St. Gallen	Switzerland	1,000		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Library Intronati	Siena	Italy	1,000 (circa)		citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National Library of Serbia	Belgrade	Serbia	1,000 (circa)		<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>
National and University Library in Zagreb	Zagreb	Croatia	1,000 (circa)		Template:Citation needed
Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon	Besançon	France	1,000 (circa)		Template:Citation needed

See also

• Global spread of the printing press
• History of books
• Book collecting

External links

• Centre for the History of the Book
• British Library worldwide Incunabula Short Title Catalogue Template:Webarchive
• Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW), partially English version
• History of Incunabula Studies
• UIUC Rare Book & Manuscript Library
• Grand Valley State University Incunabula & 16th Century Printing digital collections
• Incunable Collection at the US Library of Congress
• Digital facsimiles of several incunabula Template:Webarchive from the website of the Linda Hall Library
• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }} (Includes annotated bibliography)

• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Template:Cite EB1911
• {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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