The Saved and the Damned
[CATECHISM.]
Fundamentum eterne felicitatis omnibus hominibus utilissimum. Sedecim signa per que coniecturare possumus aliquem fore de numero electorum vel damnatorum ut in fine. [(Colophon:) Cologne, [Retro minores (Martin von Werden?) for] Heinrich Quentell, [before September] 1498.]
Small 8vo, pp. [vi], liii, [5]; aa–bb8 cc–dd4 ee8; gothic letter, capital spaces (some with guide letters), large woodcut of St Anne with the Virgin and Child to title and final verso; verso of title neatly repaired at head and foot, some marginal staining, occasionally cut close at head with a few headlines very slightly shaved, nonetheless a good copy; late nineteenth-century paper boards; a little rubbed; early sixteenth-century manuscript notes in a German hand to verso of title and to ee5r (slightly trimmed), a few pages with red or black underlining, ink stamps of Stonyhurst College to verso of title and final verso with paper shelf labels to front board and pastedown.
Added to your basket:
Fundamentum eterne felicitatis omnibus hominibus utilissimum. Sedecim signa per que coniecturare possumus aliquem fore de numero electorum vel damnatorum ut in fine.
Very rare first edition of this small-format catechism, with an unusually early example of printed pagination. This short catechetical text was popular with priests in the late fifteenth century, and again to the first generation of Reformers. It contains questions and answers regarding the Creed, the Sacraments, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer, to help with the teaching of Christian doctrine.
The page numbering is displayed as the headline, ‘Pagina ii’ (etc.), rather than appearing in the outer corner of each page. Printed foliation is first recorded in 1470, but pagination from this early date is very unusual. The first attempt at printed pagination (described as 'irregular' by BMC) appeared in a Cologne edition of Rolewinck’s Fasciculus temporum printed by Nicolaus Götz in around 1474, though it was removed from Götz’s subsequent printings of this text; it was also employed by Aldus for his 1499 edition of Niccolò Perotti's Cornucopia. In Smith's survey of the use of printed foliation in incunables, however, she found that around 10% of incunables contained printed foliation, but not one of her sample of almost 4,200 editions contained printed pagination. By the 1530s, around half of all books were paginated, and by the end of the sixteenth century pagination had almost completely replaced foliation.
Heinrich Quentell began to use printed foliation on occasion from 1487 (Synthen, BMC I 271), and then more regularly in the 1490s, but only for longer works which did not have other means of reference (such as headlines providing the relevant chapter or similar) and for which the foliation would serve a purpose (for example for books containing an index, such as the 1499 Aldine Cornucopia). It should be remembered that pagination and foliation provide an arbitrary means of reference, only connected to a particular printing, whereas chapter and verse numbers are specific for any version of the text.
The woodcut of St Anne and the Virgin and Child is found in various other Cologne printings by Quentell and the Retro minores (a print shop designated by its address, behind the Minorite convent, active from 1497 to 1504).
The manuscript note on the verso of the title comprises a short list of saints, including Paulinus and Sebastianus, and the notes on ee5r relate to the spiritual benefits of fasting and abstinence.
ISTC lists three copies in the US (BPL, Huntington, Smith College) and only one other copy in the UK (BL).
C 2601; BMC I 312; GW 10426; Goff F331; BSB-Ink F-282; ISTC if00331000; Schreiber 4071.