Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Erhard Ratdolt (German, 1442-1528)
Title: "Preface Page" and "Page CVI - 106"
Portfolio: Missale Frisingense
Year: 1492 (First edition)
Medium: Set of Two Original Incunabula Leaves on watermarked laid paper
Limited edition: Unknown
Printer: Erhard Ratdolt, Ausburg, Germany
Publisher: Sixtus of Tannberg, Freising, Germany
Sheet size (each): approx. 11.94" x 8.13"
Reference: Hain No. 11303; Weale/Bohatta No. 396; Schreiber No. 4699; Pell No. 7944
Condition: "Preface Page" has the occasional wormhole. Remnants of tape, a tape and a paper clip stain along its edge. Minor foxing and soiling mainly in margins. "Page CVI - 106" has remnants of tape and a small stain along its left edge. Light foxing and soiling about its sheet with some general edge wear. Have been professionally stored away for decades. They are both otherwise strong impressions in good condition with strong colors
Very rare
Notes:
Comes from Ratdolt's one volume "Missale Frisingense", (1492) (First edition), which consists of 576 pages of Gothic texts in Latin with red rubricated initials, music, and woodcut engraved illustrations. Printed in Augsburg by Erhard Ratdolt on March 17, 1492. "Preface Page" has a bull's head and cross watermark in the upper center of its sheet. Some information and old prices inscribed in pencil to their sheets.
A missal is a book that contains the prayers, chants, biblical readings, and rubrics for celebrating Mass. The first missals were found in monasteries in the 12th and 13th centuries. The term missale is Latin for "Mass book".
Biography:
Erhard Ratdolt (1442–1528) was an early German printer from Augsburg. He was active as a printer in Venice from 1476 to 1486, and afterwards in Augsburg. From 1475 to 1478 he was in partnership with two other German printers. The first book the partnership produced was the Calendarium (1476), written and previously published by Regiomontanus, which offered one of the earliest examples of a modern title page. Other noteworthy publications are the "Historia Romana of Appianus" (1477), and the first edition of "Euclid's Elements" (1482), where he solved the problem of printing geometric diagrams, the "Poeticon astronomicon", also from 1482, "Haly Abenragel" (1485), and "Alchabitius" (1503). Ratdolt is also famous for having produced the first known printer's type specimen...
Category
15th Century and Earlier Old Masters John Buck Art
MaterialsLaid Paper, Woodcut
