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The illuminated incunabula of the Casanatense Library

by Maria Francesca Migliori

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The Dr. ssa M. Francesca Migliori carried out the voluntary service at the Library for a long period, during which she carried out the study on the illuminated incunabula, the subject of her thesis at the Vatican School of Library Science (A.A. 2012-2013), censing and editing them the bibliographic catalog with the methodology described below.

from the Introduction

My interest in incunabolistics and in everything that concerns ancient books in all their many aspects was born thanks to the acquisition of the rules and techniques of ancient book cataloguing, which I had the opportunity to learn practically and deepen at the Casanatense Library of Rome and thanks to the theoretical study acquired during the preparation of the Bibliology exam for the Vatican School of Library Science […] The choice of the “illuminated” within the collection of Casanatense incunabula was dictated by my deep-rooted interest for the visual arts, colours, techniques, history of art and education in beauty: for this reason I thought it appropriate to include two of the most beautiful photographic reproductions of these works within the study, such as the incipit of Quintilian (Vol Inc 285) with elegant vegetal and floral elements that frame the entire page and the incipit of the Divine Comedy (Vol Inc 730) where the frame of the text is represented by a complex and polychrome architectural structure, which ends with the scene of the meeting between Dante and Virgil.

As can be seen from this little bibliographic study of mine, the Casanatense Library is equipped with exceptional works, created by the most famous German prototypegraphers such as: Sweynheym and Pannartz, Ulrich Han and by the most famous Italian and French prototypegraphers such as: Andrea Torresano and Nicolas Jenson. Furthermore, we range from very famous writers of classical literature such as: Aristotle, Lucian, Theophrastus, Cicero, Quintilian, Martial, of Christian literature as witnessed by the works of Lactantius, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Thomas, to the greats of Italian literature: Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, up to the humanists and the various editions of the Bible in Latin […]

This work is divided into four sections: a) introductory part concerning the birth of the press, notions on illumination and information regarding the collection of Casanatense incunabula; b) central body consisting of the bibliographic catalog of illuminated incunabula, each cited in an annalistic order; c) bibliography divided into: general works (encyclopedias and manuals), general works (repertories), particular works (articles and monographs), online repertoires; d) alphabetical index of the authors of the incunabula and anonymous works.

As regards the preparation of the bibliographic-annual catalogue, I used the Incunabula Short Title Catalog (ISTC) of the British Library as a basis, inserting only the title of the main work contained in the volume and summarizing any other works by the same author with the Latin expression et alia, in square brackets; I then used the expressions et alius and et alii to imply other possible authors. I have transcribed the name of the person responsible for the work according to the indications of the Italian Cataloging Rules (REICAT) and the National Library Service (SBN), eliminating, if present, dates of birth and death to offer the catalog a more bibliographical slant; I also made use of these indications for citing translators, placing their names in square brackets. As regards the typographical notes, I have adhered perfectly to the expressions used in the ISTC catalogue. As regards the chronological parameter of citation, in the event that the works produced in the same year exclusively presented this dating information, I ordered them based on alphabetical succession, placing them before those accompanied by complete chronological information. In the event that there is a date attributed to two consecutive years I thought it appropriate to place the bibliographic citation as if it were without the indication of the day.
At the end of each individual entry, the identifying numbers of the ISTC and IGI are reported as a bibliographical indication and, in the presence of two examples of the same work, the collocations are arranged one under the other; for works in parts distributed in multiple volumes the locations are marked next to each other with the indication of the part.
To compile the bibliography I was inspired by the rules of the Italian Library Association (AIB), transcribing the author’s surname in capital letters, but indicating the name in bullet points, and the title of the work in italics, followed by: place of publication, publisher, date, possible number of volumes and series to which it belongs.
In the case of extracts from periodicals I have reported the title of the magazine in quotation marks, then the volume number, the year in round brackets and the pages; for the citation of essays extracted from monographs after the author and the title of the essay I have indicated the title of the monograph in italics, followed by the expression “edited by”; for contributions extracted from encyclopedias, the title of the encyclopedia in italics is followed by the volume, place of publication, publisher, year, pages. […]
Vatican Apostolic Library – Vatican School of Library Science
Supervisor: Prof. Raffaella Vincenti – Academic Year 2012-2013

To find out more: the incunabuli collection of the Casanatense Library of Marina Panetta

“Excellent and perhaps unique collection…” (p. T. Masetti)

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Born – like all historical collections – from the progressive, centuries-old stratification of purchases and gifts around an original legacy, constituted, in the present case, by the family library of Cardinal Girolamo Casanate, the rich incunabulistic collection of the library he wanted in Rome , well represents, in its varied complexity, the disciplinary universe underlying late seventeenth-century and then eighteenth-century scholarship, and, more generally, the attitude assumed by institutional bibliophilia in eras closer to our own, towards editions of the fifteenth century. These, understood as the noblest expression of the ancient printed book ever since Cornelius van Beughem coined the fortunate name of incunabula for his famous repertoire (Amsterdam, 1680), have been the subject, alongside the manuscript relics, of an erudition punctual and marked almost by veneration. (It is hardly necessary to say that the legislation on protection until 1939 placed manuscripts and bibliographic rarities on the same level as art treasures.) The fifteenth-century editions were considered from the beginning, and moreover for good reason. law, as a means and support of one of the main cultural revolutions that Western civilization has gone through, while the analysis of the technical, typological and typographical evolutions of these relics (understood as artefacts) led to studies aimed at a better knowledge of the history of typographic art and ancient book art in general. Incunabulo, therefore, as an object of study no less than of jealous collecting: this is the line that connects the various stages of the formation of the Casanatense Fund, exemplary of its kind even in the face of numerically more conspicuous collections, hence the praise he gave it to end of the last century Father Pio Tommaso Masetti in the history of the institute, and who wanted to place himself in ex-ergo.

A particular awareness of the specificity of the 15th century editions within the various collections that were being organized can be seen in the conduct of the Dominican prefects and librarians who managed the Casanatense from its foundation until its definitive transition into the ranks of the public libraries of the newborn Italian State. While the information regarding the actual consistency of the incunabuli in the Casanate legacy remains scarce and obscure, we are indebted to the diligence of the Dominican librarians for the numerous information regarding the acquisition and provenance, placement and conservation in the institute of the numerous incunabula that entered there. individually or in groups during the 18th and 19th centuries. It is also known that it was above all the purchases of the eighteenth century (the golden age of Casanatense) that made the collection the “excellent and perhaps only collection” of which Masetti speaks, certainly one of the most notable in the capital, which had no few of great prestige, such as those of the Vaticana, the Angelica, the Vallicelliana, the Corsiniana, the Collegio Romano, the Sapienza, the Aracaeli, S. Maria del Popolo, S. Maria della Pace.

In Father Masetti’s Historical Memoirs we read how the 15th century editions, originally dispersed in the large Fontanian “vase” of the Hall, together with the remaining bibliographic heritage (where the 18th century purchases were added to the approximately 20,000 books of the Casanatense inheritance) were in the first of the rooms preceding the Salon and overlooking Via di S. Ignazio was subsequently reserved, for which until 1860 the Casanatense paid the rent to the nearby convent of Minerva. This operation is due to Father Giacomo Magno (prefect from 1798 to 1840), who, after having collected and ordered the precious furnishings of the room mentioned above, called the “Chamber of the Quattrocentisti”, described the incunabula in a repertoire of three volumes, which follows the chronological order of the editions. This cost him twenty years of work (from 1800 to 1820) and remained unpublished, but was so appreciated by scholars that it risked being published at his own expense by a plagiarist.

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The next stage of the incunabula was the current armored deposit: the transfer, certainly motivated by protection needs, took place during the direction of Ignazio Giorgi (1893-1923): the fund is in fact in its current location in the description of the Casanatense in 1898 , made by Giorgi himself and published in 1900. But if Father Magno excelled in the exquisitely technical fields of conservation and cataloging of incunabula, it was the strong personalities of the two greats who gave the collection its consistency and unmistakable disciplinary and antiquarian imprint. eighteenth-century prefects, Gian Domenico Agnani (1743-1746) and, even more, Giovanni Battista Audiffredi (1759-1794). The first looked after, together with the search for manuscripts to be purchased in Italy and abroad, also that of the incunabuli, with particular reference to the Bibles, of which he managed to form a large collection, also extended to the following centuries, while the second, in strengthening the fund already consolidated, political contingencies were exploited to provoke massive donations, such as those from the Canons Regular of S. Maria della Pace (1781) and the Minor Observants of Viterbo (1784).

We are also indebted to Father Audiffredi for two prestigious and unsurpassed incunabulistic repertoires, which can be considered special catalogs ante-litteram. They are the Catalogus hitorico-criticus Romanarum editionum saeculi XV (Rome, Pagliarini, 1794) and the Specimen historico-criticum editionum italicarum saeculi XVIII (Rome, Pagliarini, 1794). The first is introduced by a dedicatory letter from Marco Pagliarini to Pius VI, where Audiffredi’s erudite work is presented in the context of the enlightened patronage and protection granted by the pontiff to classical studies: in his preface Audiffredi exposes the difficulties encountered which made his work slower than expected. Then he explains the method adopted, the conventional signs used, the dating criteria, those for determining the place of printing or the printer when they are not expressed, those for defining the formats, etc. The editions are ordered chronologically. The second opens with a dedicatory letter from Mariano de Romanis to Tommaso Corsini, and, after a praise of the Corsiniana Library, we read a short biography of Audiffredi, who had recently died, while he was contemplating the continuation of his work. The editions listed are grouped by city, and ordered chronologically within each area: the cities are ordered alphabetically from Jesi (Aesium) to Genoa (Janua). De Romanis attributes to Audiffredi the intention of having wanted to demonstrate Italian superiority in the European field in the sector of typographic art of the first century of printing.
Important cataloging work on the Casanatense incunabuli was carried out between the two wars under the direction of Ignazio Giorgi and Luigi De Gregori, to whom we owe the excellent examination of the Roman editions carried out with the 1933 exhibition catalogue, while more recently a census general was carried out as part of the work on the General Index of incunabuli.
Finally, although it is not easy to go into detail when it comes to a collection which, despite the relative modesty of proportions (2043 items inventoried) contains heterogeneous testimonies in terms of typology, content, origin and provenance, we will try to give an account of it by mentioning here the groups and the most significant specimens. We will therefore remember a Bible in two volumes, printed by Gutenberg, perhaps in Mainz, in 1462; a Lactantius sublacense of 1465, the De civitate Dei of St. Augustine and the Letters of St. Jerome, both printed in Rome by Sweinheim and Pannartz in 1467 and 1468 respectively; Giovanni Balbi’s Catholicon, printed in Mainz in 1460; two splendid editions of Dante, the first printed in Venice by Vindelino da Spira in 1477 and the other, with the commentary by Cristoforo Landino, printed in Brescia in 1487.

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Also significant is the presence of first editions and unique copies, such as the Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis (Paris, Piguchet-Vostre, 1497), The Breviarum Romanun (Venice, Evangelista da S. Severino, 1482), The Hortus Sanitatis del Vérard ( Paris,[1499]), the Pratica of Valascus de Tarenta (Lyon, Trechsel, 1490), the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Varagine (Nuremberg, Koberger, 1482), the Doctrinale of Alexander de Villa Dei (Modena, Vurster, c. 1475).

It is also interesting to note how many unique specimens belong to the type of popular booklet (“placchette”), of which a real collection appears to be owned, coming from Giuliano Dati’s library and from that of an anonymous fifteenth-century storyteller: they are examples the Calculation of eclipses by Giuliano Dati himself (Rome, Besicken and Mayr, 1493), The seven pains that love gives (Florence, Bartolomeo de’ Libri, c. 1500), the Rime d’amore di Tebaldeo (|Rome, Besicken, c. 1500]).
Only a detailed analysis of the contents, which has never been attempted until now, could allow us to accurately reconstruct the disciplinary spectrum covered by the 15th century editions of the Casanatense collection. In the current state of knowledge, however, we feel able to hypothesize that it – ranging from the Bible to theology and canon law, from the Greek and Latin classics to modern literature, from philosophy to the sciences and pseudo-sciences – coincides almost perfectly with that that we know of the cultural universe of the second half of the fifteenth century, that is, of the era in which printed volumes spread the ancient and new culture throughout Europe, delivered to the texts on which Western civilization continued to be based for centuries.

(The incunabuli collection of Marina Panetta in The Casanatense Library, Florence, Nardini, 1993)