Blogs

By Henry Handley

The theme for this semester’s finals week at the University of Dayton Libraries is Y2K, but this blog looks back even further with a rare book in the Marian Library’s collection: a 15th-century printing of religious works by the 13th-century friar Vincent of Beauvais. It’s massive: 676 pages, 32 centimeters tall on the shelf, with about 20% dedicated to praise for the Virgin Mary. According to the final column of text, Johann Amerbach completed setting the last of the type for the book “while the holy Virgin was giving birth” (dum pia virgo parit), on Dec. 13, 1481. 

Amerbach (1440–1513) was active during the infancy of printing in Europe. Born in Germany, he earned a master’s degree at the University of Paris and established himself as a leading printer-publisher in Basel, Switzerland. [1] He occasionally wrote original Latin verse for his books’ colophons (publication statements that predate the modern title page), which is where that striking parallel of labors occurs. His 26-line poem, which repeatedly addresses the reader (as lector, also vir docte, a learned man) as it summarizes the contents of the book, ends with:

The talent and morals of the printer, and his art
The royal city of Basel commends, satisfied.
Of Amerbach by birth, his name by chance Johann,
He set the last of this work while the holy Virgin was giving birth
On the Ides of December, in the 1481st year of Christ’s Nativity. [2]

There’s much to reflect on here, starting with a sense of time molded by the Church, and through it the ancient Roman calendar — the Ides of December is Dec. 13. Looking at this text on the printed page is another change in perspective. If Amerbach’s printing labor in 1481 was an Advent accompaniment to Mary, then looking at the text on the printed page is another kind of connection. Still, the book’s paper and binding are riddled with wormholes, and the Latin text in a medieval Gothic script doesn’t make that connection easy to find; you might be able to just pick out Amerbach’s concluding message, Bene Vale Lector: “Farewell, reader.” 

If you’re a UD student, you could say you’re studying for finals at the same time in December when Amerbach was printing this book. The Marian Library’s reading room is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday as a walk-in study spot with Amerbach’s 1481 book on display all week. We just ask that food and drinks stay stowed in your bag to prevent other rare books and special collections from suffering the same wormy fate.

_Footnotes:

_{[1] This information comes from Barbara C. Halporn, The Correspondence of Johann Amerbach: Early Printing in Its Social Context (University of Michigan Press, 2000), https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004157257.}

_{[2] The original Latin reads:
Ingenium moresque viri pressoris et artem:
Regia commendat urbs Basilea satis.
De Amerbach natus nomen sibi forte Johannes
Finem operi imposuit: dum pia virgo parit
Idibus decembribus Anno a Christi natali die Octuagesimoprimo supra millesimum quarterque centesimem.}

— Henry Handley is an assistant professor and rare books and print collections librarian in the Marian Library.