Object details

Object number

U30c11

Creator(s)

• Johannes Nider (Swabia, 1380 - 1438, Colmar) - author
• Conrad Fyner (active in Esslingen and Urach, Germany, 1472 - 1488) - printer

Title

Sermones de tempore et de sanctis cum quadragesimali

Date

about 1476-1479

Medium

Printed ink on paper

Language

Latin

Publication Place

Essenlingen

Binding Description

Blind-stamped calf with metal bosses and a chain (Carmelite monastery of Bamberg, dated 1476-1479)

Description

1 Vol. (372 leaves) : paper : ill. ; 32 cm. (folio)

Dimensions

33 x 22.5 x 9.5 cm (13 x 8 7/8 x 3 3/4 in.)

Signatures, inscriptions, and markings

Inscribed (a3r): "Carmelites, Bamberg." [19th century hand]
Watermark (binder's sheets): Grape cluster [Pignerol Piedmont, about 1460 (no. 13002 in C.M. Briquet. Les Filigranes)]
Watermark (binder's sheets): bull's head [Brescia, around 1483 (no. 14873 in C.M. Briquet. Les Filigranes)]

Provenance

Collection of the Carmelite monastery of Bamberg, Germany, about 1476-1479.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from G. Michelmore & Co., London on 29 December 1922 for £85.

Commentary

John Nider was a popular German preacher whose sermons found their way into several printed books. This volume contains sermons for the liturgical year, including saint's feast days. These are model sermons intended to be used by preachers as sources from which to draw ideas. It has gothic type--which is embellished with a hand-painted red rubrications--and a chained binding.

Bibliography

Ludwig Hain. Repertorium Bibliographicum in quo librii omnes ab arte typographica inventa usque ad annum MD. typis expressi ordine alphabetico vel simpliciter enumerantur vel adcuratius recensentur, Vol. II, Part I (Stuttgart, 1931), p. 495, no. *11799.
G. Michelmore & Co. Catalogue 5 (London, December 1922), lot 270. (as from the Carmelite monastery of Bamberg)
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 277.
Frederick Richmond Goff. Incunabula in American libraries; a third census of fifteenth-century books recorded in North American collections (New York, 1964), no. N215. (does not include Gardner copy)
Rebecca Karo. "A Gothic Bestseller". Fenway Court (1975), pp. 10-15, ill. (as possibly from the collection of the Carmelites of Bramberg)
Rebecca Karo. Short-Title Catalogue of Highlights from the Book Collection in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Unpublished manuscript. (Boston, 1970s), no. 9.
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, no. 07223, accessed 2 November 2016.
British Library. Incunabula Short Title Catalogue, no. in00215000, accessed 2 November 2016.
William P. Stoneman in Jeffrey F. Hamburger et al. Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Newton: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College; Cambridge: Houghton Library, Harvard University, 2016), pp. 26-27, 241, ill.

Gallery

Gothic Room

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