Illuminated Worlds: An Incunabulum Information Portal for Students

This information portal is designed to lead those interested in incunabula, books printed from movable type before 1501, through the process of researching incunabula by serving as a launch point for the subject.  The information provided with this portal is not an exhausted collection of materials, but rather a relevant selection of resources to serve as a starting point and allow users to see the range of sources available regarding incunabula.

Browsing 
Incunabula is a fairly specific term, as a result explicit information will be found using it as a search term.  However, the consideration of relatable subject headings can provide additional context.  The predominate systems for classifying and organizing books into subjects in United States libraries is the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress Classification systems.

A sample of Dewey Decimal System relevant subject headings and call number ranges to consider when exploring the topic of incunabula.  A classification summary of Dewey Decimal provided by The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) can be accessed through this link.

• The Book (Dewey Decimal Classification Number: 002): This subject heading will include all texts referring to, and the history of, a set of written, printed, or illustrate sheets made of paper, parchment, vellum, or other materials, secured together, with text and/ or images printed in ink.  It would not include the subject of literature.

• Manuscripts & rare books (Dewey Decimal Classification Number: 090):  Heading accounts for manuscripts and rare books on a specific subject that predate mass printing, heavily including those of the late 15th century.  Incunabula were print productions of earlier manuscripts with variations and often are compared to their source when verifying authority and provenance.  Their relation to each other is intrinsic.

• Incunabula (Dewey Decimal Classification Number: 093): Classification includes a book, single sheet or image that was printed before 1500 in Europe.  Is the most relevant subject heading for locating material on the topic and also acceptable as a keyword or author supplied term in searching.

• Printing & related activities (Dewey Decimal Classification Number: 686.30-686.36): This subject heading focuses on text regarding the printing and bookbinding trade and include materials regarding hand and fine binding as well as commercial binding, practices, materials, and ornamentation used in binding books.

• Wood Engraving (Dewey Decimal Classification Number: 761.2): Block printing is the process of impressing a page image from an inked relief that was craved into blocks of wood.  While block printed text preceded movable type and would not be classified as incunabula, block printing was heavily relied upon for illustrations and printer mark pages in all incunabula period printings.

Following are a sampling of Library of Congress subject headings relevant to incunabula, which can be search through the Library of Congress Linked Data Service:

• Books — History – 1450-1600 (Library of Congress Classification Range: Z4-Z8): The subject heading “Books” is very broad, but can be refined by sub-subject headings divisions for greater specificity.  Sub-headings “History” and “1450-1600” will focus on books printed at the dawn of the printing press, including those classified as incunabula.

• Bookbinding – History (Library of Congress Call Number Range: Z266-Z275): The subject heading “Bookbinding” refers to the process of physically assembling a book from an order stack of written or printed pages.  During the incunabula period, bookbinding was a manual process undertaking by printers or craft specialist associated with the printing process and involved the sewing of folios, blind-tooling of covers, and other hardware attachments.  Text within this sub-subject heading will focus on historical bookmaking techniques, processes, and innovations relevant to the incunabula period.

• Illumination of books and manuscripts (Library of Congress Call Number Range: ND2890-ND3416): Illuminated text were supplemented with richly embellished colorful decorative aesthetics, such as initials, marginalia (borders), and small illustrations.  Commonly seen in early incunabula, especially in religious printing, illumination sought to enhance the value and authority of the text.  This heading contains text examining the aesthetic, purpose, and meaning of art within text.

• Incunabula (Library of Congress Call Number Range: Z240.A1-241): Though movable type, the distinguishing feature of incunabula, was a Chinese invention, the term is used exclusively to reference works originating in Europe descending from Gutenberg’s independent invention of movable type.  This heading will reference works exclusively printed between 1450 and 1501.  The subject heading is also suitable term for keyword searching.

• Printing — History (Library of Congress Call Number Range: Z124-Z228): Subject heading “Printing – History” accounts for the history of the book industry and its trade.  Movable type was essential in creating and sustaining a book industry and relied on printers and their presses more than authors for its survival.   This sub-subject heading focuses on sources associated with the history and evolution on the printing industry and book selling.

• Vellum printed books (Library of Congress Call Number Range: Z1030): Vellum specifically was a writing material from calfskin, but in general is used to refer to any writing material prepared from an animal skin.  In early book printing vellum was the common printing medium associated with incunabula.  The subject heading is a common term applied to incunabula texts and will cross reference with the subject heading “Incunabula.”

Reference Works
Incunabula is somewhat of a niche subject whose reference material can be both dated and not prevalent in many collections.  Unlike many academic fields which value contemporary material, dated materials within this subject field, even early twentieth-century sources, are regarded as relevant and authoritative sources.  The titles below link to the University of Kentucky book catalog.

• Breslauer, B. H. The Uses of Bookbinding Literature. Book Arts Press Occasional Publications ; No. 1. New York: Book Arts Press, School of Library Service, Columbia University, 1986. Z266.5.B75 1986
  • The Uses of Bookbinding Literature is an annotated and evaluative guide to the academic literature of bookbinding processes and evolution, including those in regard with manuscripts and incunabula. Useful in locating and identifying source material for research.
•  Duff, E. Gordon, Lotte. Hellinga, Bibliographical Society, and British Library. Printing in England in the Fifteenth Century : E. Gordon Duff’s Bibliography, with Supplementary Descriptions, Chronologies and a Census of Copies. London: Bibliographical Society : The British Library, 2009. Z240.D852 2009
  • Published by the Bibliographical Society of England in collaboration with the British Library, Printing in England in the Fifteenth Century is an updated reprint of Duff’s Bibliography of Books and Documents printed in England, long considered a standard on printing for the English market between 1450-1501. Contains 431 entries, 53 full-page plate illustration, and update descriptors and chronological index of incunabula text.   
• Feather, John. A Dictionary of Book History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Z1009.D52 1986
  • A Dictionary of Book History contains 650 alphabetically arranged articles on a wide diversity of topics, such as history of printing, incunabula, illustrated books, and marginalia. Most articles are accompanied by additional reading notes.  An exemplary reference and exploratory source.
• Goff, Frederick Richmond. Incunabula in American Libraries; a Third Census of Fifteenth-century Books Recorded in North American Collections. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint, 1973 Z240.G58 1973
  • A comprehensive, though slightly dated, account of materials printed prior to 1501 existing in American collections. The test presents standard forms for authors’ and printers’ names, correct titles and book contents for researchers.  In addition, it offers assignment of printing press and date, descriptions, and references to additional reference sources.  This title represents the last printed census of incunabula in North American libraries and remains a seminal reference tool on the subject.
•  Peddie, Robert Alexander. Fifteenth-century Books: A Guide to Their Identification. With a List of the Latin Names of Towns and an Extensive Bibliography of the Subject. Burt Franklin Bibliography and Reference Series, 294. New York: B. Franklin, 1969. Z1009.B870 1969
  • Regarded still as a standard in incunabula studies, Fifteenth-century Books is a critical examination of title pages and their imprints and stamps. Offers a reference tool for identifying the location, year, printer, and even printing press of incunabula based on comparative analysis.  The text includes facsimiles and bibliographical material on the topic and provides information about the origin and growth of early printing, and the movement of printers and presses.

The following two reference titles are internationally recognized as exemplary reference material in incunabula studies, but are difficult to access due to being written nearly exclusively in German.

• Corsten, Severin, Reimar Walter. Fuchs, and Kurt Hans. Staub. Der Buchdruck Im 15. Jahrhundert : Eine Bibliographie. Hiersemanns Bibliographische Handbucher ; Bd. 7. Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1988.
  • Printed in 1988 and has since been supplemented in 1993, BD15, as it is known, is a bibliographical and historical guide to the first half-century of printing. Translated to The Printing Press in the 15^th Century: A Bibliographic, the BD15 is arranged in two volumes containing 15,000 citations on books and articles in more than a dozen languages.  BD15 is a work of subject-classified lists and a standard bibliographic reference resource for fifteenth-century printings.
• Prussia . Kommission Für Den Gesamtkatalog Der Wiegendrucke, and Staatsbibliothek Zu Berlin–Preussischer Kulturbesitz. Gesamtkatalog Der Wiegendrucke. 1972 . Z240.G39
  • This work is part of a collections of Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, translated to Union Catalogue of Incunbula, titled works that attempt to provide a bibliographical listing of every known fifteenth-century printed book. The first volume was published in 1925 and the most recent volume in 2009.  Referred to as GW or GWK, it has been a 90 year plus work in progress.  Organized generally by author, the 2009 volume advanced the GW to “Horem.”

E-Resources

• Duggan, Mary Kay. 1992. Italian Music Incunabula: Printers and Type. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • E-book on early Italian printed music sheets. Includes the history of Italian music incunabula, Italian music type and printers, and a Bibliography of Italian music incunabula.  Part of the University of California Press e-book Collection
• Hotchkiss, Valerie R., and Fred C. Robinson. 2008. English in Print from Caxton to Shakespeare to Milton. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
  • A Kindle available e-book exploring the history and paleography of early English books from the earliest concepts and challenges of putting the English language into print and its dissemination to the standardization of language and the printing industry.
• Krivatsy, Peter. 1984. Medical Incunabula and the Diffusion of Scientific Knowledge: Incunabula in the National Library of Medicine. Bethesda, Md: U.S. Departement of Health and Human Service, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health or Here.
  • This e-book is a summary of selected early European printed medical books and medieval pharmaceutical treaties, of which the National Library of Medicine has 516 individual works. Text includes page and block illustration reproduction and shows the scientific value of Incunabula printing that lead to the Renaissance.
• Suarez, Michael F., and H. R. Woudhuysen. The Oxford Companion to the Book. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
  • The Oxford Companion is an easy to navigate online authoritative reference resource available through an institution subscription.  Written by bibliography and book history scholars, the two volume Oxford Companion reference work covers the broad concept of the book in historical and modern contexts.  The companion includes diverse variety of subjects, such as bibliography, the history of printing, editorial theory and practice, and textual criticism.  Additionally, the companion provides an analysis of how books and societies have shaped one another.  It is also available as a two volume hardcopy under the call number Z4.O89 2010.
• Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. 2012. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. 2nd ed. Cambridge New York: University Press.
  • Available via Google Play, The Printing Revolution examines the communication revolution that was ushered in during the fifteenth century with the invention of movable type and the printing press. The text discussion how printing and the dissemination of incunabula effected churchman, scholars, and craftsmen and the future cultural movements of the Renaissance and the Reformations as well as the rise of modern science.   
• University of Edinburg Collections
  • Digital access to the University of Edinburg’s Incunabula collection, the website offers access to browse and view the University of Edinburg’s full color digitalized of early printed material. Each detailed digital reproduction is accompanied by a metadata record file which can be browsed through who-what-where-when categories.  While light on scholarship, the digital collection is a fine example of collection of incunabula printing that is idea for visual representation and context to the print heavy text that dominates the field of study.

Databases

Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) is one of the primary resource for locating fifteenth-century printings. ISTC is an international register maintained by the British Library and cross-referenced with the GW and Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Inkunabelkatalog catalogues of nearly every known European item printed from movable type before 1501.  The database features keyword searching, a search guide, access to the Consortium of European Research Libraries’ thesaurus which helps account for detailed cataloguing, including standardization of variant author, city and printer names.  Search results are very clean and provide options for brief and full displays and search limiters, such as date of publication and name of holding institution, for refinement.  While the ISTC lacks an advance search options, it provides enough additional search limiters to allow users to narrow and refine their search.  A search for “Martin de Cordoba” returned 264 results, too many to browse individually, however the options to further limit by the source’s author, year of publication and printer made it relatively easy to locate the particular Martin that was needed for research.

Early English Books Online (EEBO TCP) is an online comprehensive collection of early printed English works tailored towards the scholarship of the early modern period.  Users have access to explore complete XML/SGML encoded electronic text editions of early printed books, including those relevant to incunabula through the inclusion of the Pollard & Redgrave’s Short-Title Catalogue containing printed materials ranging from 1475-1640.  The database provides basic, Boolean, proximity, and bibliographic searching with search tips and an extensive search help page.  In addition, the database utilizes a word index design to allow users browse through an alphabetical list of words that occur in books or journals, selecting values to add to search query.  EEBO TCP uses The Historical Thesaurus of English for finding content by identifying historical synonyms in searching.  For example, a keyword search for “King Henry the Eighth” indexed the terms, apply variations, relatable and synonyms terms and returned 596 matches, the earliest of which was a heavily variation; soueraign lorde Henry the eyght.  Accompanying the results is bibliographical and copyright information and table of contents links to full text.

Project Muse is an institutional subscription, like through the University of Kentucky, based digital humanities and social science scholarly content database. Project Muse provides access numerous literary, historical, and library science journals as well those regarding language, linguistics, technology, and time period studies that provides a multidisciplinary research tool for locating information regarding early books and printing from a variety of differing perspectives.  Project Muse provides basic and advanced search allowing for stringing together search parameters and facets (explained in the search guide) and the ability for users to browse its selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.  In searching, the user has the options to refine results by designating the research area, publisher, journal names, and language.  For example, the keyword “incunabula” can be narrowed to Spain, by selecting “Literature>Spanish and Portuguese Literature” and “Area and Ethnic Studies>Iberian Studies.”

Periodicals

• Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History
  • The Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History publishes several substantial articles in each volume with emphasis on the period of transition from manuscript to print. The journal’s main focus is on English and Continental works produced from 1350 to 1550, encompassing the incunabula period.  Additionally, the journal provides notes on manuscripts and early printed books, descriptive reviews of recent works in the field, and notes on libraries and collections of manuscripts and early printed works.
• Quaerendo: A Journal Devoted to Manuscripts and Printed Books
  • Quaerendois a leading peer-reviewed journal in the world of manuscripts and books. It contains a selection of scholarly articles connected with the science of manuscripts and books.  Particular emphasis is given to codicology and paleography, printing from around 1500 until present times, humanism, book publishers and libraries, typography, bibliophile and book binding.
• Fifteenth-Century Studies
  • The publication has long been the primary forum for the annual Fifteenth-Century Symposia and one of the only English journals exclusively on the period. Available for access through ProQuest Literature Online, Fifteenth-Century Studies offers scholarly essays on diverse aspects of the fifteenth century covering liberal and fine arts, historiography, medicine, and religion.  It provides context to the multi-faceted and complex world that incunabula printing was a part of as well as the influence early printing had on society.
• RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage
  • RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage is the Association of College and Research Libraries’ journal covering issues pertaining to special collections libraries and cultural heritage institutions regarding topics of within the profession of emerging technologies, new economic models for collecting, the creation of strategic partnerships, and the ways in which people experience the “authentic.” The journal discusses acquisitions, preservation, and exhibiting of collections and the issues and opportunities incunabula and rare books present to special collections libraries and cultural heritage institutions.  RBM is a beneficial journal for students desiring to explore the institutional and librarian perspective of incunabula or considering it as a profession.

Websites

• Annotated Books Online
  • An online resource and collaborative project examining the handwritten annotations and marginalia that is prevalent among Incunabula.  Handwritten annotations in books are an important key to understand how historical readers used and interact with their books and among early books was encouraged as books were seen as an extension of a conversation between author and reader.  Annotated Books Online is digital library and archive of early modern books that reveals and examine the variety of evidence that readers left in books and offers full open access to copies with viewing and annotating.
• DVL DigiatLib
  • Standing for the Digital Vatican Library, DVL DigiatLib is an incredibly insider’s view of the incunabula within the Vatican Library’s archive. The archive represents some of the best preserved representations of the period, as seen in this example, with vibrant colors and legible handwritten notes in the marginalia and detailed bibliographical information.  The site offers users the ability to save jpeg files of individual pages within the collections.
• 15th Century Booktrade
  • A project at the University of Oxford to use the material evidence from surviving incunabula to learn more about the distribution and use of printed books and reading practices in the second half of the fifteenth century. Website includes information on the distribution and use of text, reading practices of users, discussions on illustration, and the cost and pricing of 15th century books as it relates.
• Incunabula: Dawn of Western Printing
  • This online resource is based on based on Hiroharu Orita’s book Inkyunabura no Sekai (The World of Incunabula).  Divided into four chapters, this resource introduces incunabula through the art of printing and a history of its study, followed by chapter on the various typefaces, printing designs, and bookbinding.  Written as a beginner’s guide, the text offers basic knowledge and terminology with hyperlinks to articles for further exploration, while managing to offer advance knowledge with chronological tables and font analysis.