Incunabulum 45

by Ned Rae Smith

Introduction

My project is on Incunabula 45. The waste parchment I am looking at supports the binding of Incunabula 45, which is a commentary on Cicero’s De Officiis. My goal is to identify the Latin fragments used to support the binding of Incunabula 45. I will transcribe, translate, and hopefully identify the origin of these Latin fragments. In this project, I will first talk about the physical qualities of De Officiis and how the fragments have been used to support the binding. Then I will transcribe the Latin, work out how it fits together, and identify the style of writing. Lastly, I will translate the fragments and attempt to analyze the Latin.

About the book

The fragments are not the original binding, given the orientation of the text. Some large text is on its side and some smaller fragments have been laid on top. The binding is leather, however, the leather does not surround the whole book. The book has a quire structure of 8 folios (4 bifolios). There are eight fragments supporting the binding, four on the inside of the front cover, and four on the inside of the back cover. On each side, two are smaller while the other two are relatively bigger. Refer to the pictures below.

Lining

It appears as though the smaller fragments are connected through the binding. That is to say, the smaller fragments on each side are the same fragment. Evidence of this can be seen by the large margin on the lower of the small fragments. Furthermore, on the front and the back, they line up, which implies they are the same fragment. However, I cannot confirm that the small fragments on the same side are both from the same origin. On the front cover, the small fragments are now loosely attached. But it is clear that they were glued to the cover given that there are markings and some of the text has rubbed off onto the cover. This type of lining is called transverse lining. This is when the lining extends out onto the inner face of the covers (Szirmai 1999, 195). The drawing below illustrates this (Figure 1), in which I have numbered the fragments for simplicity.

The larger fragments appear to be supporting the pages of the book. They are glued to the pages on the inside of the cover. They circumvent the sewing support. By looking at the inside of the cover, you can see three cords which the pages have been sewed to. There are two explanations for this type of lining. The first is comb lining (Figure 2). This is when two separate fragments are cut into strips and they overlap with each other under the pages. The second type is slotted lining (Figure 3). This is when holes are cut into a single fragment so that the cords line up with the pages it is sewn on to (Szirmai 1999, 195). Illustrations are below.

However, if you look at the orientation of the Latin, the front cover reads from bottom to top and the back cover reads from top to bottom. This means that they cannot be the same folio. Moreover, a marking has been left by the crease in the page. The crease does not line up on the front cover and the back cover. Therefore they cannot be the same folio. However, by transcribing the latin, I might be able to determine if they are from the same book. All three of these bindings are typical of gothic binding and, given the style of writing as well (which I will get to shortly), this can tell us a lot about when this book was made.

Transcription

Transcription wasn't too difficult. The text is in gothic hand so it is relatively easy to read. However, because the fragments were so small some of the words got cut off at the end of the line. This made it hard to know what the full word would have been. It appears as though the big fragments and small fragments are written in a very slightly different way. The big fragments are in Gothic Textura, where the letters are more closely packed together, they have more uniform proportions, and they have extreme regularity. Where as the small fragments appear to be in Gothic Textualis. Textualis is also dense, like Textura, except it allows for more variation. For example, Small 1b shows two different types of "t"s. one at the beginning of "tom-" and another at the end of "ut". This variation of "t"s cannot be seen in the big fragments. This differences in style tells me that the big and small fragments are not from the same origin.

Big 1

omere uoluerit detere p(er)..... …. …

nat(ure) p(er)uidices in manu et custodia p(ro)cura

toris s(an)c(t)i marci ant qua(m) errant de officio

suo. Qual(i) ordo debeat inpropiq(ua)s ern.

Big 2

Quare . ut no …. …la ra..ce possit de

possessio(n)e[m] alique(m) propulsare optima te

cernimus eq(ui)tate. ut licet quis possession(-)

nem alterius inuestiuerit. et earite(m) inue

Big 3

Rein ipa.. … ….. Ere . ut aue(rum) de temi(-)

Ta eicere nisi [p]rius p(ro)priu(s) posuerit sup(er) ean(-)

dem possessione(m) [et] eam quieta(m) habuerit.

tu(n)c aut(em) dux ponet ip(su)m intenuta salua

Big 4

Qualis [u]ero o..o ce.at inp(ro)p…… …

uolentib(us) obseruari . hoc modo durin

decerneclu(m). Siue licet q(uo)d germanus t

sanguineus dep(ro)le uendere uolentis

Small 1a

nib(us) p(er)unu(m) m(i)se(re) te

tenuerso geructor

Small 1b

ninu ci. to…..

ito cauetur. ita m

es no(n) possint tom

fe(re) an(te) locato(r)ib(us) p(er)

cerint nu(m)ciari. que

locatorib(us) ut tom

Et locatorib(us) ut ..

Small 2a

Bitatore

Uitelice

bus m.

Small 2b

cen..

ad hec il

q(uo)d prim

remane

uixta st

lute licet

uoluerit

Backside of Small 1a and Small 2a

Ante t(er)minu(s) teto

dicentes q(uo)d inh.

neant uel..

enteis

es. u.

Translations

The translation was difficult because so much of the Latin was cut off due to the small fragments. In some cases the Latin can only be translated one line at a time, in other, less frequent cases (2 of the big fragments), you can translate it as one block. I did not translate the small fragments as they were too broken up to make any sense of the Latin.