Capito, Wolfgang [a.k.a., Wolfgang K!pfel]

Der n!wen zeytu[n]g vnd heymlichen wunderbarlichen offenbarung so D. Hans Fabri jungst vfftriben vnd Wolffgang Capitons brieff gef!lschet hat bericht vnd erklerung

      Strassburg: No publisher/printer, 1526. In later plain wrappers; title-page torn with small loss of blank foremargin, repaired. Two different sequences of manuscript pagination, one in red, indicating the opusculum was bound at least twice in different sammelbands. Provenance indications as above, and a five-digit number in ink in the inner corner of the title-page; dust-soiling and old staining.. Small 4to. [32] ff. . Capito was a Humanist who became a leading Reformer. While serving at the cathedral church of Basel (where he arrived in 1515), he made the acquaintance of Zwingli and began a corresponce with Luther. In 1519 Albrecht, the archbishop of Mainz, summoned him to serve there and he soon became Albrecht's chancellor. As was the pattern of the men who became Reformers, day by day he had found it ever more difficult to reconcile the new religion with the old and he broke with the Catholic Church.#11; In his capacity as a leader of the early Reformation he was present at several important "conferences" (the second Z!rich and that at Marburg). He coauthored, with Martin Bucer, the Confessio Tetrapolitana.#11; Capito's archenemy was a Dominican named Hans Faber (a.k.a. Johannes Faber), the vicar general of the bishop of Constance, who at every turn sought to undermine Capito and his relations with authorities and other Reformers, Zwingli in particular. Der n!wen zeytu[n]g is Capito's rebuttal of Faber's Newe Zeittung vnd heimliche wunderbarliche Offenbarung etlicher sache[n] vnd handlungen so sich vff dem tag der zw Baden, in which Faber published distorted versions of letters his agents had stolen that were addressed to Zwingli by Capito and relate to the disputation at Baden in 1526, which Zwingli had decided not to attend.#11; Schrodt and Vogelstein summarize: "Capito's defense in this tract suggests that he was not altogether comfortable with the language he had used, intended as it was for the eyes of a friend and spiritual comrade in arms. By presenting his original text passage by passage together with Faber's published German version of the same, Capito shows that it given the most offensive turn through the opponent's manner of translation."#11; This proffers a large, interesting woodcut device on the verso of its last leaf and two small but nice woodcut initials in text.#11; Provenance: Ownership signature on title-page of Howard Osgood, noted late 19th- and early 20th-century collector and scholar; old circular pressure-stamp on same page of a seminary (properly released). #11; WorldCat finds no copies in North America and COPAC finds none in Great Britain.