$4,000
Estimate: $1,500 - $2,500
Auction: September 23, 2020 11:00:00 AM EDT
(Ulm: Johann Zainer, ca. 1478-80). Folio (260 x 190 mm). 162 leaves. 40 lines, single column, headlines. Gothic type (type: 4:96G, 5:136G). Many initials rubricated in red, capitals accented in red, and section titles underlined in red. Original red leather over bevelled wooden boards, decoratively stamped in blind with alternating floral and fleur de lis pattern, remnants of original clasps, old paper label on spine, boards and spine heavily rubbed and worn, large chip out of top corner of rear board, lower corner very worn, spine ends chipped, scattered worming; catalogue description on front paste-down; lengthy early description in ink on recto of front blank; title in ink at head of first printed leaf; dampstaining at fore-edge of first 14 leaves; scattered minor dampstaining at bottom edge; minor worming in bottom gutter of leaves 19-27; scattered soiling; front and rear blanks soiled and slightly worn; scattered marginalia; two paper fragments in two different hands laid in at front; armorial book-plate of German doctor and incunabula collector Ferdinand Herscher (15??-1646) on front paste-down, book-plate of Theological Seminary Library, Gettysburg, PA., on same. ISTC ia00233000; Goff A233; GW 599. Johann Zainer (d. ca. 1523) was the second printer based in Ulm. Among others, he is remembered for printing the first German translation of Boccaccio's "De claris mulieribus" in 1473. Only 1.4% of ISTC recorded editions were printed in Ulm. The "Compendium theologicae" has a long history of being misattributed to an array of authors such as Albert Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Dorinberg, and Bonaventure, among others, but is now more certainly considered to be by Hugo Ripelin (1205-70), a Dominican theologian from Strasbourg. Apart from the works of Thomas Aquinas, the "Compendium" was the most widely read work of Dominican theology, being used as a textbook for close to 400 years.
Provenance: United Lutheran Seminary