DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30695#0100
8
THEOLOGY.
[PJister,
This curious volume was sent to Paris, to be deposited in the Na-
tional Library; and Camus, A.D. 1799, wrote aminute, elaborate, and
interesting account of it, which was published at the end of the second
volume of the Memoires de Vlnstitut; after a few copies, printed on
larger paper, had been previously distributed among the author’s
friends. His account is adorned with fac-similes of water-marks, types,
and wood-cuts: and it is immediately obvious, that the types of the
present Bible, and those of the Four Brief Histories just mentioned,
resembie each other. As there happens to be a copy of this latter
uncommonly rare work in the present collection, I have had an op-
portunity of carefully examining both, and I find them exactly con-
formable. Now, as the name of Albert Pfister, the town of Bamberg,
andthedate of 1462, all appear inthe colophon* of the Four Histories,
designating the printer, place, and year of the execution of the vo-
lume, it would seem to follow that Albert Pfister printed tlie present
Bible. But it is not a necessary consequence that this Bible should have
been an anterior production: the same types might have been after-
wards used. Yet
Camus informs us that, at the end of the observations published by
Meusel, there is a curious passage from a MS. of the date of 1459,
which is preserved in the library of Cracow.f After specifying, in suf-
ficiently barbarous Latin, the working or printing with metal and
wooden types, the author concludes thus : ‘ et tempore mei [sc. 1459]
Bambergse quidam sculpsit integram bibliam super lamellas, et in qua-
tuor septimanis totam bibliam in pergamino subtili praesignavit sculp-
turam.’ ‘ Without doubt,’ adds Camus, ‘ the four weeks relate to the
time of finishing the impression, and not to that of the composition of
the blocks.’ It is indisputable that Pfister printed at Bamberg in
1462, + with types like those of the present Bible; he, therefore,
might have executed this Bible; except that it seems too extravagant
for belief that upwards of 430 sheets could have been woi’ked off in
the sp ce of a month. Paul of Prague’s MS. is, in other respects,
vague and obscure; he talks before of cutting or engraving ‘ in lami-
nibus sereis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi iigni, atque aliis/ &c. Lichten-
berger intimates that this Bible might have been printed at Mentz;
* This colophon is given in a subsequent page.
+ The name of the author of this MS. was Paul of Prague, a doctor of medicine and phi-
losophy: see Camus, ut supra: and La Serna Santander Dict. Bibliogr. Choisi; vol. i. p.
125. vol. ii. p. 180.
J Panzer, vol. l, 142, was incredulous upon this point. He supposed the Bamberg bool<s
to have been the production of some unsettled, itinerant printer.
THEOLOGY.
[PJister,
This curious volume was sent to Paris, to be deposited in the Na-
tional Library; and Camus, A.D. 1799, wrote aminute, elaborate, and
interesting account of it, which was published at the end of the second
volume of the Memoires de Vlnstitut; after a few copies, printed on
larger paper, had been previously distributed among the author’s
friends. His account is adorned with fac-similes of water-marks, types,
and wood-cuts: and it is immediately obvious, that the types of the
present Bible, and those of the Four Brief Histories just mentioned,
resembie each other. As there happens to be a copy of this latter
uncommonly rare work in the present collection, I have had an op-
portunity of carefully examining both, and I find them exactly con-
formable. Now, as the name of Albert Pfister, the town of Bamberg,
andthedate of 1462, all appear inthe colophon* of the Four Histories,
designating the printer, place, and year of the execution of the vo-
lume, it would seem to follow that Albert Pfister printed tlie present
Bible. But it is not a necessary consequence that this Bible should have
been an anterior production: the same types might have been after-
wards used. Yet
Camus informs us that, at the end of the observations published by
Meusel, there is a curious passage from a MS. of the date of 1459,
which is preserved in the library of Cracow.f After specifying, in suf-
ficiently barbarous Latin, the working or printing with metal and
wooden types, the author concludes thus : ‘ et tempore mei [sc. 1459]
Bambergse quidam sculpsit integram bibliam super lamellas, et in qua-
tuor septimanis totam bibliam in pergamino subtili praesignavit sculp-
turam.’ ‘ Without doubt,’ adds Camus, ‘ the four weeks relate to the
time of finishing the impression, and not to that of the composition of
the blocks.’ It is indisputable that Pfister printed at Bamberg in
1462, + with types like those of the present Bible; he, therefore,
might have executed this Bible; except that it seems too extravagant
for belief that upwards of 430 sheets could have been woi’ked off in
the sp ce of a month. Paul of Prague’s MS. is, in other respects,
vague and obscure; he talks before of cutting or engraving ‘ in lami-
nibus sereis, ferreis, ac ligneis solidi iigni, atque aliis/ &c. Lichten-
berger intimates that this Bible might have been printed at Mentz;
* This colophon is given in a subsequent page.
+ The name of the author of this MS. was Paul of Prague, a doctor of medicine and phi-
losophy: see Camus, ut supra: and La Serna Santander Dict. Bibliogr. Choisi; vol. i. p.
125. vol. ii. p. 180.
J Panzer, vol. l, 142, was incredulous upon this point. He supposed the Bamberg bool<s
to have been the production of some unsettled, itinerant printer.