BIBLE. German. Nuremberg: Anton Koberger.
17 February 1483.
by Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse, Maryland State Archivist
Recently I was asked to establish the authenticity and provenance of an old testament purported to have been printed in German, in Nuremberg, in 1483 by Anton Koberger. I subsequently learned that it was purchased and will be returned to its rightful owner.
Although I did not see the original I was supplied with eight good photographs of the binding, several details of illustrations, and of a double page.
With the generous help of Judy Gardner-Flint of Special Collections, the Johns Hopkins University, and Elizabeth Burin of the Walters Art Gallery, I located recent sales information and standard bibliographic references for the Koberger bible, and then compared the photographs to a copy owned by the Walters.
There is no question that the book is authentic. It is the first volume of a pair. It still has its original tooled leather binding, although the brass with which it was once decorated and its clasps are missing.
It is a lovely book. In what may be Henry Walter's hand, there is an inscription on this copy which captures the pleasure of anyone privileged to turn its pages:
"See Dibdi's description of this bible Bibl Spenc vol. iv. p 453-5 and Bibl Decameron vol iii 163."If good fortune should take the bibliomaniac to the spot where the Spencerian copy is deposited he will not fail to utter more than one exclamation of delight at the beautiful condition of it within and without.""
Because it was published before 1500, the Koberger bible falls into the category of incunabula, which according to Elizabeth Burin means books published in the infancy of printing. The latin incunabula literally means swaddling clothes or cradle.According to T.H. Darlow and H. F. Moule's 1911 catalogue of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, London, 19ll,
this Bible of Koberger's professes to be, and apparently is, 'a revision made with great diligence.' The corrections were possibly derived from the Cologne Low German Bible, with which Koberger's edition has many illustrations and other details in common.
Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), the Swedish scientist, inventor, and Protestant mystic notes in his diary of 25 July 1733 that he found a copy of Koberger's bible in the Jesuit Monastery at Prague. (See Darlow & Moule, 1911). Complete sets of the Koberger bible have been offered as recently as May 19, 1995 at Christie's in New York, and at Christie's in London on November 2, 1994. The catalogue for the May 19, 1995 sale describes the volumes as follows:
Ninth edition of the Bible in German. The first to be printed in Nuremberg, and the only German edition printed by Koberger. The text, derived from Zainer's first German Bible of 1475-6, was used in all succeeding pre-Lutheran High German editions. The woodcuts, attributed to the "Master of the Cologne Bibles," and probably based on the pen drawings in a Dutch manuscript now in Berlin (Berlin Ms. germ. fol 516), were first used in the Cologne printer Heinrich Quentell's two Low German Bibles of c. 1478 (Goff B-636 and 637), with which Koberger appears to have been associated. The cuts exerted a decisive influence on later Bible illustrations, becoming the prototype for German Bible illustrations in particular, "fixing 109 as the standard number of woodcuts used. But if the succeeding editions use Koberger [i.e. the Cologne woodcuts] as a basic source ... they consistently reduce the size of their cuts" (In Remembrance of Creation 113). Koberger had the types cut specially for this edition of approximately 1000-1500 copies, which were sold in three forms, uncolored, colored in 3 tints only, and fully colored as in the present copy, with the first woodcut and major initials heightened in gold.
This copy of the old testament has a library stamp which indicates it was formerly in the Imperial Studion Bibliotek in Salzburg, Austria. According to Judy Gardner Flint that library today is part of the Universität Bibliothek, Salzburg (5020 Salzburg, Residenz Platz, 662-80440).
Without recent sales information (obtainable from Christie's) it is difficult to estimate the value of this volume, but it may be worth anywhere from $20,000 to £20,000.
©Dr. Edward C. Papenfuse
State Archivist
Phone: (o) 410-260-6403; (h) 410-467-6137
Internet Address: edpapen@hotmail.com
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