• DONATUS [Mainz: Johann Gutenberg & Johann Fust, ca. 1453-1454]

Collections:
  • Incunabula at Princeton
  • Early Manuscript & Printed Fragments
  • In Principio
  • Historical Beginnings
  • Collections Donated to Princeton University Library
  • The Scheide Library
  • Treasures of Rare Book Division
Curatorial Note:
  • Besides the large Gutenberg Bible project, the Bible shop produced numerous editions of the Donatus grammar. They were printed on vellum for long life under heavy use. When new, these were attractive tall pamphlets of a dozen or so leaves. This fragment is one of the earliest such Donatuses, printed in the earliest state of the Gutenberg Bible type, as used for setting the first, 40-line pages. It was recovered from the binding of a late 1470s book bound for one of the great monasteries of the Austrian Danube valley. One other Donatus fragment in this earliest state of the Gutenberg Bible, preserved in Cracow, was used as material in a binding made in Leipzig in the 1470s. The two fragments together suggest that the Mainz printers had organized a significant long-distance trade in printed schoolbooks a year or more before their large Bible was ready for the market.
Bookseller:
  • Maggs Bros
Author:
  • Donatus, Aelius
Provenance:
  • Acquired August 1933.
Abstract:
  • Of roughly twenty-five fragmentary editions of Donatus printed with the Gutenberg Bible type, this is the only one to preserve the type in its earliest state: the state found only in the first few pages printed of the Gutenberg Bible itself, set to 40 lines per page. In the subsequent 42-line pages the types were apparently slightly filed down across their tops, so that the sharp terminal points of some of the capital letters were rubbed away. We do not know when printing of the Gutenberg Bible was begun, but there is good reason to think that in the fall of 1454 its printing, though well advanced, was not yet complete. Despite its very early date, it is likely that this copy was sold and used at a considerable distance from Mainz. It was retrieved from a binding of Austrian (Seitenstetten?) origin on a 1479 Basel incunable now in the Landesbibliothek Stuttgart.
Creator:
  • Donatus, Aelius
Language:
  • Latin
Call number:
  • 113.1
  • Electronic Resource
Extent:
  • 2 vellum leaves ; 10.7 x 30.8 cm.
Format:
  • Book
Type:
  • Early works to 1500
Description:
  • WHS fragment is an incomplete bifolium, ff. 4.7 (Schwenke 17,9-31; 18,16-19,9; 28,35-29,5; 29,44-30,20) of a 33-line edition.
Publisher:
  • [Mainz : Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust (Type of the 42-line Bible), ca. 1453-1454].
Subject:
  • Latin language—Grammar—Early works to 1500
  • Type and type-founding—Specimens
Title sort:
  • Ars minor.
References:
  • GW 8713.
  • Goff D-318.
Created:
  • 1453-01-01T00:00:00Z/1454-12-31T23:59:59Z
Date:
  • 1453-1454
Identifier:
  • ark:/88435/4m90dv587
Location:
  • WHS 113.1
  • WHS Electronic Resource
  • ELF1 113.1
  • ELF1 Electronic Resource
Edm rights:
  • No Known Copyright
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