Epistola

Epistola de Miseria Curatorum seu Plebanorum. Augsburg: Anton Sorg, [ca. 1490]



Chancery 4to (7 7/8 x 5½ in.; 201 x 137 mm). Types 5:75G (text), 6:150 G (titling), 38 lines. Woodcut lombard initial. collation: [1^{8]: 8 leaves: 1r title-page, 1v and 8v blanks, rubricated (woodcut initial on 2r filled in, paragraph marks, capital strokes, underlining, a red scroll around the title and the colophon). Nineteenth-century boards covered with a printed incunable vellum leaf, apparently from a Breviary; edges plain; formerly in a sammelband, with leather index tabs on fols. 1 and 8.}

Dr. Jakob Klatzkin, 1882-1948 (bookplate)

Goff E-56; Hain 6615*; GW 9353; BSB-Ink E-82. On the text see Heinrich Roloff, "Ist Jakob Wimpfeling der Verfasser der Epistola de miseria curatorum seu plebanorum?" Beiträge zur Inkunabelkunde, 3. Folge 6 (1975) 14-18

Epistola de Miseria Curatorum seu Plebanorum. Augsburg: Anton Sorg, [ca. 1490] Chancery 4to (7 7/8 x 5½ in.; 201 x 137 mm). Types 5:75G (text), 6:150 G (titling), 38 lines. Woodcut lombard initial. collation: [18]: 8 leaves: 1r title-page, 1v and 8v blanks, rubricated (woodcut initial on 2r filled in, paragraph marks, capital strokes, underlining, a red scroll around the title and the colophon). Nineteenth-century boards covered with a printed incunable vellum leaf, apparently from a breviary; edges plain; formerly in a sammelband, with leather index tabs on fols. 1 and 8.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The Epistola de miseria curatorum, the work of an anonymous parish priest in the diocese of Meissen, and not, as formerly suggested by the humanist Jacob Wimpfeling, was an unexpected best seller of the last years of the fifteenth century, with some two dozen incunable editions, and a few more in the early sixteenth century. The first edition was printed by Conrad Kachelofen in Leipzig (Goff E-49), followed by editions printed in Augsburg, Cologne, Magdeburg, Nuremberg, Passau, Speyer and Strassburg; and outside Germany, in Paris, Antwerp, Zwolle, and Venice. The work was revived by a Wittenberg edition of 1540 with a preface by Martin Luther, who praised it as, despite its inelegant Latinity, a daring exposé of the corruption of the church under the papacy.