INCUNABULUM. - From the Latin incunabula, "swaddling clothes of a child," a noun denoting any book printed from the year 1455 to the year 1500, a conventional date after which a printed book is no longer called an i. but a "cinquecentino."
The first i. is the so-called Bible of 42 lines, or of Gutenberg (v.), from the name of the printer who is believed to have printed it in Mainz.
From Germany the protoprints spread to the other European countries, so much so that by the end of the 15th century a very great number of settled or itinerant printers were practicing the art in Italy, in France, in Holland, in Belgium, in Spain. The i. presents certain special characteristics: the almost total absence of a title page, replaced in most cases by the half-title; the absence of pagination; the presence of signatures; the colophon at the end of the text; the presence of the register; the quality of the paper, thick, resistant, with the most varied designs in the watermarks. The illustration of the i. consists of xylographs (v. INCISIONE) or wood engravings; crude in Germany, in France rich in liveliness and often in comedy, in Italy it is magnificent in grace, especially in the books printed in Venice and in Florence. Noteworthy among all are the Sogno di Polifilo, printed in Venice by Aldus Manutius in 1499, the Fasciculus medicinae, likewise printed in Venice in 1495, and the Morgante Maggiore, printed in Florence in 1500.
From the 18th century, with the progress of culture, the protoprints began to be held in great esteem and to become a subject of study and an object of collecting.
Before the Second World War the most conspicuous collection was represented by the State Library of What I can well say is mine.
Finis.
Dono: et gloria omni operanti bonum.
Mantue feliciter die xv Junij.
• M. cccc-lxxxvi.
(by courtesy of Dr. T. M. Guarnaschelli)
INCUNABULUM - Auctoritates ad misericordiam inducentes, finished
printing at Mantua on 15 June 1486, photograph of the last
leaf, verso - Venice, Biblioteca Marciana.
Munich (16,000 pieces), which seems to have remained intact; there follow: that of the British Museum (11,000 pieces); of the Vatican Library (7,000 pieces); of the Pierpont Morgan Library and the Huntington Library in America. In Italy the most numerous collection of quattrocentine is owned by the Biblioteca nazionale centrale of Florence, but the libraries that possess the rarest pieces are the Ambrosiana and the Civica of Milan, the latter considerably enriched by the purchase of the Trivulzio collection.
A central catalogue of fifteenth-century editions in all Italian libraries open to the public (excluding the Vatican) was begun in 1932 by Giuliano Bonazzi, then director of the Biblioteca nazionale of Rome; after the collection it was possible to ascertain that the incunabula held by Italian libraries number about 100,000. - See pl. CXI.
Bibliography9 works
Teresa Maria Guarnaschelli