44-508: Mirabilia Urbis Romae (“Marvels of the City of Rome”) is a grouping of hundreds of manuscripts, incunabula , and books in Latin and modern European languages that describe notable built works and historic monuments in the city of Rome . Most of these texts were intended as guidebooks to the city for pilgrims and visitors. Before the fourteenth century, however, the core text seems instead to have served as
88-409: A colophon or on the title page became more widespread. 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
132-570: A census of the built patrimony of the city, the decus Urbis . This inheritance represented the strength of Rome and the power of the institutions that controlled it. The first compilation in the Mirabilia tradition, produced in the early 1140s, is credited to a canon of St. Peter’s Basilica named Benedict. Benedict’s Mirabilia (though it did not yet have that title) constitutes a part of his Liber Polypticus , which also contains papal inventories and another, much earlier census of Roman built works,
176-594: A new one with the financial backing of another money lender. With Gutenberg's monopoly revoked, and the technology no longer secret, printing spread throughout Germany and beyond, diffused first by emigrating German printers, but soon also by foreign apprentices. In rapid succession, printing presses were set up in Central and Western Europe. Major towns, in particular, functioned as centers of diffusion ( Cologne 1466, Rome 1467, Venice 1469, Paris 1470, Buda 1473, Kraków 1473, London 1477). In 1481, barely 30 years after
220-604: A polyglot Bible to the Emperor Akbar in 1580 but did not succeed in arousing much curiosity." But also practical reasons seem to have played a role. The English East India Company , for example, brought a printer to Surat in 1675, but was not able to cast type in Indian scripts, so the venture failed. North America saw the adoption by the Cherokee Indian Elias Boudinot who published the tribe's first newspaper,
264-435: 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
308-679: 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. 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). Apart from migration to mainly North American and Japanese universities, there has been little movement of incunabula in
352-635: Is fifteener , meaning "fifteenth-century edition". 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 " inter prima artis [typographicae] incunabula " ("in the first infancy of the typographic art"). The term has sometimes been incorrectly attributed to Bernhard von Mallinckrodt (1591–1664), in his Latin pamphlet De ortu ac progressu artis typographicae ("On
396-480: 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
440-639: 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 . Notable collections with more than 1,000 incunabula include: Global spread of
484-464: Is closely linked to the papacy , long the steward of Rome’s monuments and infrastructure, other versions from only a little later seem to come instead from the ambit of the Roman Senate, the key institution of the medieval commune then taking control of much of the city. None of the early versions have any clear connection with pilgrimage or travel. Starting in the 14th century, a re-elaboration of
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#1732844808952528-439: Is estimated that the number of lost editions is at least 20,000. Around 550,000 copies of around 27,500 different works have been preserved worldwide. Incunable is the anglicised form of incunabulum , reconstructed singular of Latin incunabula , which meant " swaddling clothes", or " cradle ", which could metaphorically refer to "the earliest stages or first traces in the development". A former term for incunable
572-584: The Cherokee Phoenix , from 1828, partly in the Cherokee language , using the Cherokee script recently invented by his compatriot Sequoyah . In the 19th century, the arrival of the Gutenberg-style press to the shores of Tahiti (1818), Hawaii (1821) and other Pacific islands, marked the end of a global diffusion process which had begun almost 400 years earlier. At the same time, the "old style" press (as
616-495: The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili printed by Aldus Manutius with important illustrations by an unknown artist. 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
660-499: The Curiosum urbis Romae, which the Mirabilia resembles. The Mirabilia begins with a description of the walls of Rome, detailing towers, fortifications, and gates; then triumphal arches, hills, baths, ancient buildings, theaters, places related to saints’ martyrdom; then bridges, cemeteries, and a few important ancient monuments and histories. There follows an itinerary from the Vatican to
704-562: The Mirabilia dubbed the Historia et descriptio urbis Romae began to appear in combination with the Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae focusing on the churches of Rome, and the Stationes ecclesiarum urbis Romae that included a calendar listing masses at various Roman churches. These assemblages were clearly intended for pilgrims. The first important printed copy was compiled around 1475 under
748-460: The Mirabilia fall into the following sections, the title headings being taken from the "Liber Censuum": Incunabula An incunable or incunabulum ( pl. : 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. Incunabula were produced before the printing press became widespread on
792-480: The Mirabilia with new descriptions from a fresh point of view. Among them were Leon Battista Alberti with his Descriptio urbis Romae , written ca. 1433. Another was Flavio Biondo with Roma instaurata , written in 1444 and circulated in manuscript; it was printed in 1481. Modern critical attention was first drawn to the different versions of Mirabilia Urbis Romae by the 19th-century archaeologist of Christian Rome, Giovanni Battista de Rossi . The contents of
836-512: The Trastevere , although it focuses almost exclusively on ancient monuments — that is, it describes the ancient heritage of the city, not all points of interest. This textual nucleus correlates with the late antique concepts of decus (decorum) and ornatus (ornament), used to describe the infrastructure and monuments of Rome that were protected from scavenging and seen to represent the political power of Rome’s rulers. While Benedict’s compilation
880-604: The UK , the term generally covers 1501–1520, and for books printed in mainland Europe , 1501–1540. The data in this section were derived from the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC). 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,
924-506: 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
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#1732844808952968-880: 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): 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
1012-718: The Greek, Armenian, and other Christian communities (1515 Saloniki, 1554 Bursa (Adrianople), 1552 Belgrade, 1658 Smyrna). Arabic-script printing by non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire began with the press of Athanasius Dabbas in Aleppo in 1706. In 1727, Sultan Achmed III gave his permission for the establishment of the first legal print house for printing secular works by Muslims in Arabic script (Islamic religious publications still remained forbidden), but printing activities did not really take off until
1056-478: The Gutenberg model came to be termed in the 19th century), was already in the process of being displaced by industrial machines like the steam powered press (1812) and the rotary press (1833), which radically departed from Gutenberg's design, but were still of the same development line. The following represents a selection: In the 15th century, printing presses were established in 77 Italian cities and towns. At
1100-549: The cities above, a small number of lesser towns also set up printing presses. In 1481, printing was already being done in 21 towns and cities. In the 16th century, a total of 20 print shops were active in 30 different places in Hungary, as some of them were moving several times due to political instability. In the 15th and 16th centuries printing presses were also established in Poznań , Lwów , Brześć Litewski and Vilnius . By 1500,
1144-533: The continent and 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 . As of 2021, there are about 30,000 distinct incunable editions known. The probable number of surviving individual copies is much higher, estimated at 125,000 in Germany alone. Through statistical analysis, it
1188-941: The cut-off point for incunabula , 236 towns in Europe had presses, and it is estimated that twenty million books had been printed for a European population of perhaps seventy million. Until the reign of Peter the Great printing in Russia remained confined to the print office established by Fedorov in Moscow. In the 18th century, annual printing output gradually rose from 147 titles in 1724 to 435 (1787), but remained constrained by state censorship and widespread illiteracy. The first books printed in Georgian were Alphabetum Ibericum sive Georgianum cum Oratione and Dittionario giorgiano e italiano published in Rome in 1629. The first book which had Armenian letters
1232-621: The end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, of which 130 (86%) were north of Rome. During these two centuries a total of 2894 printers were active in Italy, with only 216 of them located in southern Italy. Ca. 60% of the Italian printing shops were situated in six cities (Venice, Rome, Milan, Naples, Bologna and Florence), with the concentration of printers in Venice being particularly high (ca. 30%). Apart from
1276-541: The enterprise of publishing and lent its name to a new branch of media, the " press " (see List of the oldest newspapers ). Gutenberg's first major print work was the 42-line Bible in Latin , printed probably between 1452 and 1454 in the German city of Mainz . After Gutenberg lost a lawsuit against his investor, Johann Fust , Fust put Gutenberg's employee Peter Schöffer in charge of the print shop. Thereupon Gutenberg established
1320-661: The global spread of Gutenberg-style printing. Traders, colonists, but perhaps most importantly, missionaries exported printing presses to the new European oversea domains, setting up new print shops and distributing printing material. In the Americas, the first extra-European print shop was founded in Mexico City in 1544 (1539?), and soon after Jesuits started operating the first printing press in Asia ( Goa , 1556). According to Suraiya Faroqhi, lack of interest and religious reasons were among
1364-517: The last five centuries. None were printed in the Southern Hemisphere , and the latter appears to possess less than 2,000 copies, about 97.75% remain north of the equator. However, many incunabula are sold at auction or through the rare book trade every year. 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
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1408-705: The latter. 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
1452-576: 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. 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
1496-523: The oldest Qur’an printed with movable type was produced in Venice in 1537/1538 for the Ottoman market. Hebrew texts and presses were imported across the Middle East - as early as 1493 - Constantinople, Fez (1516), Cairo (1557) and Safed (1577). Disquiet among Muslims regarding the publication of religious texts in this way may have dampened down their production. In India, reports are that Jesuits "presented
1540-439: The printed book evolved fully as a mature artefact with a standard format. After about 1540 books tended to conform to a template that included the author, title-page, date, seller, and place of printing. This makes it much easier to identify any particular edition. 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
1584-523: The printing press#Europe The global spread of the printing press began with the invention of the printing press with movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz , Germany c. 1439 . Western printing technology was adopted in all world regions by the end of the 19th century, displacing the manuscript and block printing . In the Western world , the operation of a press became synonymous with
1628-401: 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." For books printed in
1672-483: The publication of the 42-line Bible, the small Netherlands already featured printing shops in 21 cities and towns, while Italy and Germany each had shops in about 40 towns at that time. According to one estimate, "by 1500, 1000 printing presses were in operation throughout Western Europe and had produced 8 million books" and during the 1550s there were "three hundred or more" printers and booksellers in Geneva alone. The output
1716-535: The reasons for the slow adoption of the printing press outside Europe: Thus, printing in the Arabic script, after encountering strong opposition by Muslim legal scholars and manuscript scribes, remained formally or informally prohibited in the Ottoman Empire between 1483 and 1729, according to some sources even on penalty of death, while some movable Arabic type printing was done by Pope Julius II (1503−1512) for distribution among Middle Eastern Christians, and
1760-466: The rise and progress of the typographic art"; 1640), but he was quoting Junius. The term incunabula came to denote printed books themselves in the late 17th century. It is not found in English before the mid-19th century. Junius set an end-date of 1500 to his era of incunabula , which remains the convention in modern bibliographical scholarship. This convenient but arbitrary end-date for identifying
1804-640: The title Mirabilia Romae velpotius Historia et descriptio urbis Romae . For the jubilee year of 1500, Roman printers stayed busy churning out editions in Latin, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. While earlier editions had included fanciful accounts of ancient history and misidentifications of the subjects of portrait statuary, the knowledge accumulated by Renaissance humanists allowed for an increasingly grounded and realistic rendering of Rome’s past. Although guides now included both ancient and Christian monuments, they stopped short of describing recent works of art and architecture. Some authors set out to supersede
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1848-478: Was Ulrich Boner 's Der Edelstein , printed by Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg in 1461. 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. Many incunabula are undated, needing complex bibliographical analysis to place them correctly. The post-incunabula period marks a time of development during which
1892-467: Was in the order of twenty million volumes and rose in the sixteenth century tenfold to between 150 and 200 million copies. Germany and Italy were considered the two main centres of printing in terms of quantity and quality. The near-simultaneous discovery of sea routes to the West ( Christopher Columbus , 1492) and East ( Vasco da Gama , 1498) and the subsequent establishment of trade links greatly facilitated
1936-571: Was published in Mainz ( Germany ) in 1486. The first Armenian book to be published by the printing press was Urbatagirq —Book of Friday prayers—which was published by Hakob Meghapart in Venice in 1512. According to some sources, Sultan Bayezid II and successors prohibited printing in Arabic script in the Ottoman empire from 1483 on penalty of death, but printing in other scripts was done by Jews as well as
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