![MATTHAEUS DE CRACOVIA (ca. 1345-1410). Dialogus rationis et conscientiae de frequenti usu communionis. [Mainz: Printer of the 'Catholicon' (Johann Gutenberg), ca. 1460 -- second impression, Mainz: Peter Schoeffer(?) for Konrad Humery(?), ca. 1469].](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/NYR/2001_NYR_09880_0028_000(040341).jpg?w=1)
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MATTHAEUS DE CRACOVIA (ca. 1345-1410). Dialogus rationis et conscientiae de frequenti usu communionis. [Mainz: Printer of the 'Catholicon' (Johann Gutenberg), ca. 1460 -- second impression, Mainz: Peter Schoeffer(?) for Konrad Humery(?), ca. 1469].
Chancery 4o in half sheets (197 x 138 mm). Collation: [110 212]. 22 leaves. Type: 83G, secondary casting of 2-line slugs with a 20-line measurement of 95 mm. 30 lines. 6-line initial space on 1/1r, spaces left in the text for the names of the speakers. Initial M supplied in red with blue hatched decoration; names of speakers, paragraph signs, and capital strokes supplied in red and blue. Printed on Bull's Head/X/ring forehead paper stocks K. (1/1 slightly browned and with a small section of fore-margin restored, 1/1.8 reinforced at gutter along fold, printing flaw to 2/10v causing minor loss to one or two letters in each line [see below], some dampstaining, mostly at end.) Rebound in old cover section from a blind-stamped pigskin binding (probably from a copy of Münster's Cosmographia, dated 1550); full morocco pull-off case. Provenance: contemporary marginalia in red, possibly in the hand of the rubricator; other early notations on final leaf verso near gutter -- Estelle Doheny (morocco bookplate; purchased from A.S.W. Rosenbach, 7 April 1943) -- donated to SMS 1943.
FIRST EDITION, SECOND IMPRESSION of one of only three works printed from stereotyped two-line slugs in a process invented by Johann Gutenberg. The Dialogus rationis et conscientiae and its companion editions, the Summa de articulis fidei of Thomas Aquinas and the Catholicon of Johannes Balbus, each exist in more than one issue printed from the same setting of type, but showing variants which indicate that the type-page was made up of indissoluble two-line units. The first issues of all three works were printed in 1459 or 1460, as indicated by the date of the Catholicon's colophon and confirmed by the datable use of the paper stocks employed. The second issues of ca. 1469, dated from their paper stocks, were presumably produced for Konrad Humery using typographical materials he had inherited from Gutenberg (who died on 1 February 1468) and employing the presses of Peter Schoeffer.
Analysis of the Catholicon type indicates that the text of the Dialogus rationis et conscientiae was set at a time when the composition of the Catholicon itself was well advanced or possibly completed, i.e. in 1460. This accords with the evidence of the principal paper stock used in the first issue, a Bull's Head/tau paper (stock G), which is the paper used also in the first issue, or 36-line version, of the Summa de articulis fidei. That text was set ca. 1459-60, before or concurrent with the earliest setting of the Catholicon on the evidence of the sorts used. The paper is found in dated German documents from 1457 to 1462.
The second issue of Matthaeus de Cracovia is distinguished from the first by its paper and by one printing accident, in addition to a number of lateral shifts of two-line units of type, such as are found in all three Catholicon Press books. The second impressions of the two tractates share two Bull's Head/X/ring forehead paper stocks, a principal stock (K) and a secondary stock (L). Paper stock K is found in documents dated 1465-68, and stock L in documents dated 1469-73; the mixture represented in the Catholicon Press tractates presumably dates therefore to ca. 1469.
The present copy is composed half-sheets from a single identifiable paper stock of the second issue: in the first quire no watermarks are present, and in the second quire, 2/1.12, 2/2.11 and 2/4.9 have the watermark of stock K. This copy also offers an excellent example of the printing accident that characterizes the second issue of the Dialogus: by the time these copies were printed, a wire lying at a vertical angle across the printing surface of f. 2/10v had been impressed into that surface, leaving a "trough" which appears as a white line on the printed page. In many copies, this has been corrected by hand, using ink to fill in the missing portions of one or two letters in each line. The present copy, however, offers a clear, unretouched example of this feature, which is of significance for determining the sequence, and indirectly the dating, of Catholicon Press printing.
Matthaeus de Cracovia, so-called from his birthplace in Cracow, studied in Prague and spent the early part of his career as a professor of theology at the university there. He became known as a preacher who supported religious and ecclesiastical reform, and his writings were concerned primarily with pastoral care and the practice of Christian life. In 1394 Matthaeus moved to Heidelberg, where he was appointed dean of the theological faculty and rector of the university. Later he served as the ambassador of the German king Ruprecht III to France, Rome, and the Council of Pisa. After refusing the dignity of cardinal, offered to him by Pope Gregory XII, he accepted the title of legate to Germany, and died as Bishop of Worms, a position to which he was elected in 1405. The Dialogus rationis et conscientiae was written in 1388 in Prague, during a controversy over whether laymen should take communion daily. Cast as a dialogue between Conscience, who is held back by shame over the sinfulness of man, and Reason, who urges trust in God's merciful acceptance of true contrition, the text argues in favor of frequent communion and the spiritual benefits to be derived from it. The Dialogus survives in about 250 manuscripts, and was printed in at least five more editions before the end of the fifteenth century.
EXTREMELY RARE: this copy is only the second copy to appear at auction since 1975 according to American Book Prices Current. The other copy, the Sexton-Friedlaender copy was also a second impression with watermarks from both paper stocks K and L (see sale, Christie's New York, 23 April 2001, lot 81).
BMC I, 40 (IA. 304-306); BSB-Ink. M-267; CIBN M-234; De Ricci Mayence 91; H5803*; Harvard/Walsh 29; Lehmann-Haupt Peter Schoeffer 227; Paul Needham, "Johann Gutenberg and the Catholicon Press," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 76, 1982, pp. 395-426, especially pp. 410-416; Goff M-367.
Chancery 4o in half sheets (197 x 138 mm). Collation: [110 212]. 22 leaves. Type: 83G, secondary casting of 2-line slugs with a 20-line measurement of 95 mm. 30 lines. 6-line initial space on 1/1r, spaces left in the text for the names of the speakers. Initial M supplied in red with blue hatched decoration; names of speakers, paragraph signs, and capital strokes supplied in red and blue. Printed on Bull's Head/X/ring forehead paper stocks K. (1/1 slightly browned and with a small section of fore-margin restored, 1/1.8 reinforced at gutter along fold, printing flaw to 2/10v causing minor loss to one or two letters in each line [see below], some dampstaining, mostly at end.) Rebound in old cover section from a blind-stamped pigskin binding (probably from a copy of Münster's Cosmographia, dated 1550); full morocco pull-off case. Provenance: contemporary marginalia in red, possibly in the hand of the rubricator; other early notations on final leaf verso near gutter -- Estelle Doheny (morocco bookplate; purchased from A.S.W. Rosenbach, 7 April 1943) -- donated to SMS 1943.
FIRST EDITION, SECOND IMPRESSION of one of only three works printed from stereotyped two-line slugs in a process invented by Johann Gutenberg. The Dialogus rationis et conscientiae and its companion editions, the Summa de articulis fidei of Thomas Aquinas and the Catholicon of Johannes Balbus, each exist in more than one issue printed from the same setting of type, but showing variants which indicate that the type-page was made up of indissoluble two-line units. The first issues of all three works were printed in 1459 or 1460, as indicated by the date of the Catholicon's colophon and confirmed by the datable use of the paper stocks employed. The second issues of ca. 1469, dated from their paper stocks, were presumably produced for Konrad Humery using typographical materials he had inherited from Gutenberg (who died on 1 February 1468) and employing the presses of Peter Schoeffer.
Analysis of the Catholicon type indicates that the text of the Dialogus rationis et conscientiae was set at a time when the composition of the Catholicon itself was well advanced or possibly completed, i.e. in 1460. This accords with the evidence of the principal paper stock used in the first issue, a Bull's Head/tau paper (stock G), which is the paper used also in the first issue, or 36-line version, of the Summa de articulis fidei. That text was set ca. 1459-60, before or concurrent with the earliest setting of the Catholicon on the evidence of the sorts used. The paper is found in dated German documents from 1457 to 1462.
The second issue of Matthaeus de Cracovia is distinguished from the first by its paper and by one printing accident, in addition to a number of lateral shifts of two-line units of type, such as are found in all three Catholicon Press books. The second impressions of the two tractates share two Bull's Head/X/ring forehead paper stocks, a principal stock (K) and a secondary stock (L). Paper stock K is found in documents dated 1465-68, and stock L in documents dated 1469-73; the mixture represented in the Catholicon Press tractates presumably dates therefore to ca. 1469.
The present copy is composed half-sheets from a single identifiable paper stock of the second issue: in the first quire no watermarks are present, and in the second quire, 2/1.12, 2/2.11 and 2/4.9 have the watermark of stock K. This copy also offers an excellent example of the printing accident that characterizes the second issue of the Dialogus: by the time these copies were printed, a wire lying at a vertical angle across the printing surface of f. 2/10v had been impressed into that surface, leaving a "trough" which appears as a white line on the printed page. In many copies, this has been corrected by hand, using ink to fill in the missing portions of one or two letters in each line. The present copy, however, offers a clear, unretouched example of this feature, which is of significance for determining the sequence, and indirectly the dating, of Catholicon Press printing.
Matthaeus de Cracovia, so-called from his birthplace in Cracow, studied in Prague and spent the early part of his career as a professor of theology at the university there. He became known as a preacher who supported religious and ecclesiastical reform, and his writings were concerned primarily with pastoral care and the practice of Christian life. In 1394 Matthaeus moved to Heidelberg, where he was appointed dean of the theological faculty and rector of the university. Later he served as the ambassador of the German king Ruprecht III to France, Rome, and the Council of Pisa. After refusing the dignity of cardinal, offered to him by Pope Gregory XII, he accepted the title of legate to Germany, and died as Bishop of Worms, a position to which he was elected in 1405. The Dialogus rationis et conscientiae was written in 1388 in Prague, during a controversy over whether laymen should take communion daily. Cast as a dialogue between Conscience, who is held back by shame over the sinfulness of man, and Reason, who urges trust in God's merciful acceptance of true contrition, the text argues in favor of frequent communion and the spiritual benefits to be derived from it. The Dialogus survives in about 250 manuscripts, and was printed in at least five more editions before the end of the fifteenth century.
EXTREMELY RARE: this copy is only the second copy to appear at auction since 1975 according to American Book Prices Current. The other copy, the Sexton-Friedlaender copy was also a second impression with watermarks from both paper stocks K and L (see sale, Christie's New York, 23 April 2001, lot 81).
BMC I, 40 (IA. 304-306); BSB-Ink. M-267; CIBN M-234; De Ricci Mayence 91; H5803*; Harvard/Walsh 29; Lehmann-Haupt Peter Schoeffer 227; Paul Needham, "Johann Gutenberg and the Catholicon Press," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 76, 1982, pp. 395-426, especially pp. 410-416; Goff M-367.