Details
ERUDITORIUM poenitentiale. [Paris: Antoine Caillaut, ca. 1488].
Chancery 4° (175 x 120mm). Collation: a-h8 i-k6 (a1r title, a1v blank, a2r text). 76 leaves. 24-26 lines. Type: 8:111B. 17 woodcuts. One 4-line initial space with guide-letter. (Title strengthened at hinge and with small marginal tear expertly repaired.) Modern tan morocco, gilt and blind fillet-panel with corner fleurons, gilt edges, by F. Bedford. Provenance: Nikolas P. Kampton (booklabel).
FIRST EDITION, containing all 17 "remarkable cuts ... [which] rank amongst the earliest French examples of the art" (Davies, Murray French 155). Four of the cuts are also to be found in Caillaut's edition of Jacques Legrand, Livre de bonnes moeurs, dated 6 June 1487. Because that work was printed with a type otherwise not used until 1491-93, Paul Needham has argued that it may be mis-dated and that the Eruditorium poenitentiale may in fact precede it. Thus, the woodcuts originate with the Eruditorium.
If the first and second editions of the Eruditorium poenitentiale have been confused, it is because so few copies consistently show traits of one or the other. The Gesamtkatalog distinguished two editions, dating them both to about 1490, one a very nearly exact reprint of the other. Manfred von Arnim (Schäfer 126) concurred in placing GW 9390 before 9391, citing as evidence of its earlier printing the first woodcut, in which a break appears in the second edition (GW 9391). Further, the Schäfer sale catalogue (Sotheby's 27 June 1995, lot 77) identifies two features distinguishing the first edition: the double frame of the God in Majesty cut (on a8v, not b8v), and the repetition on i6r of the Man on a Dog cut, before it was replaced by the correct Man on a Goat cut. In fact, the former Schäfer copy combines elements of both first and second editions: while the illustration features conform to the first edition, the type-setting of fos. 2v and 3r conform to the second edition (and variant) as described by GW. This is true for the present copy as well. Its first woodcut is complete with no break, and the God in Majesty cut has a double frame, but it too has the type-settings on fos. 2v and 3r as the Schäfer copy, and it has the correct woodcut of the Man on a Goat on i6r. The former Fairfax Murray copy, identified as a first edition, also has that correct woodcut. On Caillaut's type 8, see Paul Needham, "Two unrecorded French-language incunabula," Hellinga Festschrift, 1980, pp. 339-356. GW 9390; Goff E-107; Polain(B) 1420; Claudin I, 320.
Chancery 4° (175 x 120mm). Collation: a-h8 i-k6 (a1r title, a1v blank, a2r text). 76 leaves. 24-26 lines. Type: 8:111B. 17 woodcuts. One 4-line initial space with guide-letter. (Title strengthened at hinge and with small marginal tear expertly repaired.) Modern tan morocco, gilt and blind fillet-panel with corner fleurons, gilt edges, by F. Bedford. Provenance: Nikolas P. Kampton (booklabel).
FIRST EDITION, containing all 17 "remarkable cuts ... [which] rank amongst the earliest French examples of the art" (Davies, Murray French 155). Four of the cuts are also to be found in Caillaut's edition of Jacques Legrand, Livre de bonnes moeurs, dated 6 June 1487. Because that work was printed with a type otherwise not used until 1491-93, Paul Needham has argued that it may be mis-dated and that the Eruditorium poenitentiale may in fact precede it. Thus, the woodcuts originate with the Eruditorium.
If the first and second editions of the Eruditorium poenitentiale have been confused, it is because so few copies consistently show traits of one or the other. The Gesamtkatalog distinguished two editions, dating them both to about 1490, one a very nearly exact reprint of the other. Manfred von Arnim (Schäfer 126) concurred in placing GW 9390 before 9391, citing as evidence of its earlier printing the first woodcut, in which a break appears in the second edition (GW 9391). Further, the Schäfer sale catalogue (Sotheby's 27 June 1995, lot 77) identifies two features distinguishing the first edition: the double frame of the God in Majesty cut (on a8v, not b8v), and the repetition on i6r of the Man on a Dog cut, before it was replaced by the correct Man on a Goat cut. In fact, the former Schäfer copy combines elements of both first and second editions: while the illustration features conform to the first edition, the type-setting of fos. 2v and 3r conform to the second edition (and variant) as described by GW. This is true for the present copy as well. Its first woodcut is complete with no break, and the God in Majesty cut has a double frame, but it too has the type-settings on fos. 2v and 3r as the Schäfer copy, and it has the correct woodcut of the Man on a Goat on i6r. The former Fairfax Murray copy, identified as a first edition, also has that correct woodcut. On Caillaut's type 8, see Paul Needham, "Two unrecorded French-language incunabula," Hellinga Festschrift, 1980, pp. 339-356. GW 9390; Goff E-107; Polain(B) 1420; Claudin I, 320.