Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mainz

Magnencij Rabani Mauri De Laudibus sancte Crucis opus. Erudicione versu prosaque mirificum

      [colophon: Phor!heim:: Thomas Anshelm,, 1503].. Recent ebony-brown calf old style: Round spine with raised bands, accented in gilt and with blind-tooled devices (no labels) in compartments; single blind rules extending onto covers from each band to terminate in trefoils, and covers framed in blind double fillets. Lower blank half of title-leaf excised and replaced with old paper; some other old tears sometime repaired without loss. First seven leaves with small, slightly meandered wormhole, touching some letters; different worm active on folios LIII to LIX touching four letters total; some leaves trimmed close to woodcut borders, touching six letters. Some dust-soiling and occasional staining; upper outer corner bumped in midsection; without the final blank leaf (only). = A very handsome production and a fascinating book.. Folio. [10], LIX, [1], XIIII, [1] ff., lacking final blank. . Modernly known as In honorem sanctae crucis, this work on the holy cross by Rabanus Maurus (a.k.a. Hrabanus Maurus) was completed by 814 and through the manuscript and early printing era it was known under the title of De Laudibus sancte Crucis. The New Westminster Dictionary of Church History (p. 320) says that "[w]ith this work Hrabanus paved the way to fill the theoretical gap left open by the previous debates in the East and West about the legitimacy of visual images."#11; And visual this work certainly is: It contains 30 carmina figurata (2 unnumbered and 28 numbered) glorifying the holy cross and two xylographic illustrations. The cataloguer at the Pierpont Morgan Library writes that the "Illustrations (pattern or figure poems) are in red and black, sometimes complete woodcuts, sometimes woodcut with letterpress. Various poetic texts can be derived from the resulting configurations. Explanatory text and a transcript of the poem complements each ill[ustration]." In other words, the archbishop's work ranks among the earliest examples of printed concrete poetry. And, because his poems are encrypted in a grid of 36 lines each containing 36 letters, this also is an early work in the field of cryptology. #11; This 1503 printing is the editio princeps and was edited by Jakob Wimpheling. It clearly was much anticipated in the Humanist community for it sports preliminary matter by Reuchlin, Sebastian Brandt, Joannes Gallinarius, and Georgius Symler. The text is printed in roman type in black and red throughout, with the exception of the title which is in gothic. There are two large woodcuts (16 x 12.5 cm; 6.25" x 5") of Rabanus in audience with and kneeling before the pope; in the second one he is presenting the pope with a book, and the pope has cats sitting at his shoulders on the papal throne.#11; Provenance: 16th-century ownership note of Sebastian de Sanctus on title-page; in the 20th century owned by Louis Karpinski, the famous mathematician; sold with the rest of his collection of 16th-century books to Colgate Rochester Divinity School; deaccessioned in 2004.