![BALBUS, Johannes (d. 1298). Catholicon. [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/2002/LAX/2002_LAX_01045_0024_000(040859).jpg?w=1)
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BALBUS, Johannes (d. 1298). Catholicon. [Mainz: Printer of the 'Catholicon' (Johann Gutenberg), ca. 1460 -- second impression: Mainz: Peter Schoeffer(?) for Konrad Humery(?), ca. 1469].
Royal 2o. Single leaf. 66 lines, double column. Type: 82G cast on two-line slugs. Rubricated with one-line red Lombard initials and red paragraph marks.
A single leaf from the first edition, second impression of the Catholicon, printed from two-line "slugs" in 1468 or 1469. Paul Needham argued in 1982 that the three impressions were produced, not from standing type, but from two-line "slugs" cast from the type and capable of being reassembled for subsequent impressions. According to this theory, the first impression of the Catholicon was produced by Gutenberg himself in 1460; the "slugs" then passed into the possession of Konrad Humery with Gutenberg's other typographic material after the latter's death in 1468 and were re-used by Humery, probably with the help of Peter Schoeffer, ca 1469. In this view, which has aroused prolonged controversy among incunabulists, the 1460 Catholicon represents not only Gutenberg's last production but also his final achievement, the invention of an early form of stereotyping.
HC *2254; BMC I, 39 (IC. 303); BSB-Ink. B-8; CIBN B-13; GW 3182; Harvard/Walsh B-28; Paul Needham, "Johann Gutenberg and the Catholicon Press," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 76, 1982, pp. 395-456 (and subsequent discussion by him, Lotte Hellinga, Martin Boghardt and other bibliographers in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, The Book Collector, Bulletin du bibliophile, and Wolfenbüttler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte); Pr 146; Goff B-20.
Royal 2o. Single leaf. 66 lines, double column. Type: 82G cast on two-line slugs. Rubricated with one-line red Lombard initials and red paragraph marks.
A single leaf from the first edition, second impression of the Catholicon, printed from two-line "slugs" in 1468 or 1469. Paul Needham argued in 1982 that the three impressions were produced, not from standing type, but from two-line "slugs" cast from the type and capable of being reassembled for subsequent impressions. According to this theory, the first impression of the Catholicon was produced by Gutenberg himself in 1460; the "slugs" then passed into the possession of Konrad Humery with Gutenberg's other typographic material after the latter's death in 1468 and were re-used by Humery, probably with the help of Peter Schoeffer, ca 1469. In this view, which has aroused prolonged controversy among incunabulists, the 1460 Catholicon represents not only Gutenberg's last production but also his final achievement, the invention of an early form of stereotyping.
HC *2254; BMC I, 39 (IC. 303); BSB-Ink. B-8; CIBN B-13; GW 3182; Harvard/Walsh B-28; Paul Needham, "Johann Gutenberg and the Catholicon Press," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 76, 1982, pp. 395-456 (and subsequent discussion by him, Lotte Hellinga, Martin Boghardt and other bibliographers in Gutenberg Jahrbuch, The Book Collector, Bulletin du bibliophile, and Wolfenbüttler Notizen zur Buchgeschichte); Pr 146; Goff B-20.