Durandus, Guillelmus

Folio (16 1/4 x 11 1/2 in.; 410 x 296 mm). Printed on vellum. 
Collation: [1-3¹⁰ 4⁸ 5-6¹⁰ 7⁶ (5+1) 8² (libri I-IV, 8/2^v blank); 9⁸ 10⁶:Liber V; 11-15¹⁰ 16⁸: Liber VI, 16/8^v blank; 17¹⁰ 18¹⁰ (9+1)]: 156 leaves (of 160, lacking fos. 1, 14 (2/4), 20 (2/10), 27 (3/7), all supplied in facsimile on vellum); fos 159 (18/9+1) misbound, verso before recto. Types 3:91G (text), 5:118G (colophon). Lombards of larger Psalter type (2:286G) used for three-line chapter initials, printed in red; rubric headings and occasional paragraph marks printed in red; colophon printed in red. Double column. 63 lines. 

Four book-initials illuminated by a Mainz artist, the Fust Master (68^r [9/1], liber V; 82^r [11/1], Liber VI; 140^r [17/1], liber VII; 154^v [18/5], liber VII), in gilt and colors with elaborate floral and vegetal border extensions. The five missing book-initials, fos. 1, 14, 20, 27, were presumably also illuminated. Chapter initials heightened with purple penwork; the unprinted chapter initials supplied by the rubricator, mostly in blue; paragraph marks rubricated (where not printed) in red and blue alternately; book numbers written as headline, recto page only, in roman numerals, alternately red and blue. 



The colophon, fo. 160^r (18/10), heavily deleted and barely visible (with photofacsimile mounted below), the border of the illuminated initial of liber VIII, fo. 154^v (18/5), partially smudged with brown ink. Marginal stains on fo. 2, otherwise a clean, tall copy with most pinholes still visible. 



Russet crushed morocco, blindstamped in antique style by Riviere & Son; lightly rubbed.

Parmentier Collection; Estelle Doheny (gilt red morocco label, purchased from Rosenbach in 1946; sale, Christie's NY, 22 Oct. 1987, lot 3); J.R. Ritman (BPH bookplate, #78, acquired from Tenschert, 1989).

Goff D-403; Hain-Reichling 6471; GW 9101; BMC I, 20 (IC.78); DeRicci Mayence 65.7; van Praet, pp. 63-67; ISTC id00403000; on the illuminator see E. König, "Für Johannes Fust," Festgabe Corsten, pp. 285-313.

First edition of the fourth book ever printed and the first substantial writing by a known and named author to be published.

In his own day, the eminent legist Durandus (1237-1296) was best known for his Speculum iudidale (Goff D- 445, etc.), which earned him the by-name "Speculator". But in the later Middle Ages his more general opus on the "ius liturgicum," the Rationale, found an even stronger reception. It was one of the earliest substantial writings to be published, the first substantial writing by a named author, and by the end of the fifteenth century more than forty printed editions were marketed. What began in the Fust-Schoeffer shop as a conspicuously stately and luxurious large folio, by the 1490s became widely available in handy small quarto format.

The third book printed with a full date.

The Rationale of Durandus was the third fully signed and dated printed book, preceded by Fust and Schoeffer's two Psalters of 14 August 1457 and 29 August 1459. Production of the Durandus must have overlapped to some degree with the latter work. It marks the first appearance of both of its founts of type. Though the larger fount is commonly referred to as the 1462 Bible type, it existed nearly three years before the 1462 Bible was printed. With the possible exception of a few occurrences in small editions of the Donatus Grammar, all fragmentary and undated, the Durandus shows the last use of the two-part Psalter initials until their revival a generation later in the 1490 Psalter (De Ricci Mayence 56). It may be noted that in one of the Donatuses with two-part initials, Schoeffer's colophon refers to the work as having been printed "with his capitals" (cum suis capitalibus), suggesting that they may have been his particular contribution to the early development of typography.

All copies of the Durandus were printed on vellum, except for that in the Staatsbibliothek, Munich (formerly in the cathedral library of Mainz), which appears to be gathered from paper proofing sheets, with just a few lacunae made up with vellum printing (see Hellinga, below). As first noted by Van Praet, there were two issues of the Durandus: the first with printed two-color book initials; the second, as here, with blank spaces for illuminated initials.

A considerable number of the latter were illuminated by the Fust Master (see Konig, below). The initial spaces for books III, IV, VII and VIII (fos. 20r, 27v, 140r, 154v) of the second issue were enlarged by partial resetting of the opening lines of each book.

In the 1457 and 1459 Psalters the two-part initials were with only a few exceptions printed at a single pull with the black text (as shown decisively by Wallau), by removing them from the type-page after each pull, cleaning and re-inking, re-inserting, and re-locking the page: an extremely slow tempo, and only practicable for relatively small edition runs. In the Durandus, the initials were printed at a separate pass through the press, their coloring at various places overlaying the black of the text. Copies differ from each other substantially as to color of initials (blue initials with red surrounding filigree, or vice versa). In the present copy, all two-part initials are red with slate-blue surrounds except that for book V, which is blue with red surround. Copies also vary in the presence or absence of the red-printed chapter initials, paragraph marks, and rubric headings, which were likewise printed in a second run through the press, usually with strikingly careful register with the black printing.