Meditationes.

Juan de TORQUEMADA (CARDINAL) (Author)

Ulrich Han (Printer)

Origin: Rome, XV c.
Biblioteca Nacional de España. Coedition.

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ISBN 10:
ISBN 13:
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Inc. 1148
Facsimile. Incunabula. Collection of Incunabula and Old Books.
84-923358-2-3
978-84-923358-2-4
Folio
21,5 x 31 cm.
35+5 crd.
70+10 crd.
Latin.
31st December 1467.
30th January 1998.
3000+80+50+30
Parchment on wooden board.
Religious literature.
Presentation dust jacket cloth lined with gold engraved leather spine containing facsimile.
Numbered by notary and signed by the printer-publisher.
Specially made laid paper.
Optional: Study in Spanish. conducted by Isabel Moyano Andrés (Biblioteca Nacional de España). Included in Bibliofilia Antigua V.
First illustrated printed book from Italy.
There are only four known copies on this first edition.

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Synopsis:

It is more than well known that in the history of the introduction of printing in Italy, the Spanish cardinal Juan de Torquemada played an essential part, who was the commendatory abbot of the Monastery of Subiaco. The printing house of the two Italian prototypographers, the Germans Sweymheim and Pannartz, had been active since 1464, printing texts by Cicerone, Lactantius, Saint Augustin. Their name also appears in the history of Roman printing and, without a doubt, not directly, in the history of the introduction of printing into Spain.

His Meditationes see the light in the Roman printing house of Ulrich Han on the 31st  December 1467, using types with round gothic script, having left spaces blank for the illuminator to include the initials and exhibiting thirty-one prints which reproduce paintings (now lost) of the church of “Santa Maria sopra Minerva”. We have before us the first illustrated printed book from Italy.

Carlos Romero de Lecea has pointed out of this "not the most well known nor the most important work (of its author), but the most sought after by bibliophiles of all times", referring to this first edition which was a genuine best-seller in the XV century.

On this first edition there are only four known copies.

IBIC Rating:

AC History of art / art & design styles
ACN History of art & design styles: c 1400 to c 1600
ACND Renaissance art
AFC Painting & paintings
AFF Drawing & drawings
AFH Prints & printmaking
AFJ Other graphic art forms
AFT Decorative arts
AGR Religious subjects depicted in art
DNF Literary essays
DSBB Literary studies: classical, early & medieval
HBJD European history
HBLC Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500
HBLC1 Medieval history
HBLH Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700
HRA Religion: general
HRAX History of religion
HRC Christianity
HRCC2 Church history
HRCC7 Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic Church
HRCG Biblical studies & exegesis
HRCM Christian theology
HRCS Christian spirituality & religious experience
WCS Antiques & collectables: books, manuscripts, ephemera & printed matter

1D Europe
1DSE Spain
1DSEH Castilla y León, Autonomous Community
1DST Italy
2ADL Latin
3H c 1000 CE to c 1500