Balbus, Johanes. [Johann Gutenberg]

Catholicon.]

      [Peter Schoeffer (?) for Konrad Humery (?),] [Mainz:] [ca. 1469.] Royal folio. Single leaf. Single leaf from volume one with entries fro "cohors" to "color", 66 lines, double column. Type: 82G cast on two-ine slugs. Printed on Galliziani paper, the half of the sheet without the watermark, but with the characteristic shadows at wire-line intervals of ca. 5mm. Rubricated with one-line red Lombard initials and red paragraph marks. Very clean in a acid-free green mat with decription panel calling it the 1460 Gutenberg printing (incorrectly). First Edition, second impression. "A single leaf from the first edition, second impression of the Catholocon, printed from two-line slugs on Galliziani paper in 1468 or 1469. As early as 1905 Gottfred Zedler recognized that the Catholicon edition dated Mainz 1460 exists in three impressions printed from a single setting of type but associated with three presses (with different pinhole patterns) and printed on three distinct paper stock. In 1982 Paul Needham presented evidence that the three issues were printed at different times, according to the datable use of their paper stocks: copies on Bull's Head paper (with which are classed the vellum copies) in 1460, copies on Galliziani paper ca. 1469, and copies on Crown and Tower papers ca. 1472. Moreover, Needham argued that the three impressions were produces, not from standing type, but from two-line 'slugs' cast from the type and capable of being reassembled for subsequent impressions. According to this theory, the first impression of the Catholicon was produced by Gutenberg himself in 1460, the 'slugs' then passed into the possession of Konrad Humery with Gutenberg's other typographic material after the latter's death in 1468 and were re-used by Humery probably with the help of Peter Schoeffer, ca. 1469. In this view, which has aroused prolonged controversy among incunabulists, the 1460 Catholicon represents not only Gutenberg's last production but also final achievement, the invention of an early form of stereotyping." [Christie's Nakles Collection of Incunabula, 2000 lot #2] This leaf is almost certainly from those acquired by E. Byrne Hackett and broken up by him for the Brick Row Book Shop in 1936,and sold with an essay on the book by Margaret Stillwell (not present here). Hain/Copinger 2254*. BMC I,39. BSB B8. CIBN B13. GW 3182. Walsh/Harvard B28. Proctor 146. Goff B20.