Category talk:Incunabula

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Middle Ages

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Shortest and tallest incunable leaf size

Among known extant incunabula, the largest paper used was that for the "Graduale Romanum" printed in Venice by Johannes Emericus, de Spira, for Lucantonio Giunta in three folio volumes dated 28 Sept. 1499, 14 Jan. 1499/1500, 1 Mar. 1500. It had a companion set, the Antiphonarium Romanum, with same printer and apparently matching size, also in three volumes; the date of which is variously estimated as "about 1501-02" (ISTC/BL), "about 1499/1500" (GW), and 1503-04 (Berkeley Univ.). The Pierpont Morgan Library copy of the Graduale is reported as 554mm. tall, and the University of California at Berkeley Music Library copy as 565 x 383mm. ("Italian Music Incunabula", Univ. of CA.)Together these two works contain 1248 pages, almost all with printed music. The Graduale has 386 leaves, double columns, and 85 lines to the page.It is printed in six types, one of which (11:420G)is the largest known for an incunable. This is undoubtedly the tallest extant incunable, and not exceeded by ones on vellum. Books printed on very large paper became somewhat common around the early 1470's; mainly originating in Germany from presses such as Anton Koberger's at Nuremberg, but also Schoeffer at Mainz and various Venetian presses.Perhaps on the theory that size equated to importance, for theological works. But (apart maybe from multi-volume encyclopaedias such as that of Vincent of Beauvais, they were not popular due to high price, and later became more or less confined to books needing to be outsized such as choir-books. These early tall-paper books converge at a maximum around 470 to 485mm when the paper is untrimmed, reaching 495mm for the Library of Congress (ex Rosenwald) 'Decretales of Gregorius IX' (Schoeffer, 1473) copy two of three. Manuscript medieval books can be considerably larger, with the Codex Gigas (parchment, not after 1229CE) measuring 920mm tall, 500 mm wide, and 220mm thick, and weighing 74.8 kg (Wikipedia).

Determining the shortest incunable is less easy; presumably it would be one of the three 64to. items listed by the ISTC. All of which also are liturgical books - Horae. Of these, only one (imperfect)copy exists in total, which (remarkably) was printed by the same Johannes Emericus de Spira, for Lucantonio Giunta, Venice, as above,on 21 May 1499.It is a work of 160 leaves, printed 16 lines to the page, type 1:45G (perhaps the smallest type known for an incunable.This copy is located at Munchen BSB, size not given; Horae ad usum Romanum. The two other 64to contenders are an horae ad usum Sarum printed at Paris about 1499, type about 55G, known only from fragments of a single leaf at Cambridge University. It may/may not be from the same edition of which the only known copy was destroyed by fire at the Offor sale, London, in 1856. And a unique, uncut, unfolded part sheet of 16 leaves held by Melbourne State Library. This has 11 lines to the page, type 3:60G, an horae ad usum Sarum printed by Julian Notary at Westminster on 2 April 1500.The type page measures "1 inch by 1 and 3/8 inches", so that if cut a full page with margins would be 1 and 1/2 inches x 2 and 1/8 inches before binding and trimming.Which of these items is shortest is thus uncertain.125.239.109.62 (talk) 08:28, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]