Incunabula in the LBI Library
Petrus Nigri: Stern des Meschiah. Esslingen, 1477. LBI Library
(“Treatise against the Treacherous Jews”), was intended primarily for a Latin-reading, predominantly clerical audience, later reaching a broader audience through its German edition of 1477.
LBI Library
The work also contains a brief Hebrew grammar and features the earliest Hebrew characters in a printed book in Germany, those still produced through woodcuts or added by hand rather than movable type. Nigri learned Hebrew through contact with rabbis and Jewish communities. Ironically, despite his attacks on Judaism, Nigri’s Hebrew grammar remained a standard reference work until Johannes Reuchlin’s De rudimentis hebraicis appeared in 1506. LBI Library
A revised and considerably expanded vernacular German version of Nigri's Tractatus contra perfidos Judeos, was published under the title Stern des Meschiah in 1477. This edition also includes some of the earliest printed depictions of contemporary Jews, reflecting Nigri’s participation in the week-long 1474 Regensburg Christian-Jewish disputation. The woodcut caricatures Jews with distorted features and expressions and depicts them wearing the compulsory yellow rotulus (ring), which marked Jews as outsiders in late medieval German society. LBI Library
The second woodcut in the German edition depicts Christ entering the gates of Jerusalem; the opposite page, like many throughout the volume, features woodcut initials hand-colored in various hues. LBI Library
This influential Nuremberg law code from 1484, which included a Jewry Oath, sought to harmonize customary, canon, and Roman law and quickly became a model for other cities after the advent of print. The last pages contain regulations for administering a Jewry Oath. Since the medieval era, Jews had to take a special oath in certain court situations in many territories of the Holy Roman Empire. This was probably the first Jewry Oath ever to be printed. It became the dominant model for oath formulas for several centuries. LBI Library, r (q) DD 901 N94 R4. Photo: © studio k - kh krauskopf
An early anti-Jewish conversion text attributed to the Dominican friar Alfonsus Bonihominis, who claimed to have translated it from Arabic. The work presents refutations of Jewish objections to Christianity attributed to the alleged Jewish convert Samuel Israeli of Morocco, though modern scholarship suggests that Bonihominis himself was likely the true author. LBI Library, r 1089
Part of the long tradition of Christian anti-Jewish polemical literature, this work presents a theological disputation between Christians and Jews intended to refute Jewish interpretations and affirm Christian doctrine. Based on earlier manuscript traditions connected to the 1240 Paris Talmud trial, it reflects the controversy that culminated in the burning of approximately 10,000 Hebrew manuscripts in Paris in 1242. The text circulated widely in both incunabula and early sixteenth-century editions. LBI Library, r 1389
This work is attributed to the converted Jew Johannes Baptista Gratiadei, who presents a methodical refutation of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Prophets. LBI acquired the volume in 1974; the stamp on the title page indicates that the book had been deaccessioned as a duplicate from the municipal library in Augsburg. LBI Library, r BM 585 G73.
Incunabula
Incunabula are books, pamphlets, or broadsides printed during the earliest phase of European printing, conventionally up to the year 1500. The term derives from the Latin incunabula, meaning “cradle” or “swaddling clothes,” while the German equivalent Wiegendrucke carries the same sense of “cradle prints.”
The designation “incunabula” appears to have first been used in bibliographical scholarship in the 17th century. The commonly accepted cut-off date of 1500 remains a convention in modern bibliography rather than a reflection of a clear historical break. In practice, it is somewhat arbitrary, since there was no single technological or cultural shift in printing precisely at that date that would justify a strict boundary.
Because printing was a brand new technology, incunabula often show a strong “transition” look to manuscripts. Early printers imitated the appearance of handwritten manuscripts. They often also left blank spaces for rubrication or hand-painted initials and illustrations to be added later. Early Incunabula often do not feature book elements such as title pages or pagination yet.
In their physical make-up, these books were typically printed on high-quality, thick rag paper or vellum and were often bound in heavy leather over wooden boards, frequently secured with metal clasp
Incunabula in the LBI Library Rare Book Collection
The LBI Library Rare Book collection features six complete incunabula related to German Jewry printed in German lands between 1475 and 1500. These works include primarily Christian anti-Jewish polemical literature, alleged conversion accounts, and a legal text specifying the administration of the Jewish oath .
1) 1475: Petrus Nigri: Tractatus contra perfidos judeos. Esslingen, Konrad Fyner, 6. VI. 1475. LBI Library || GW M27101 || ISTC in00257000
2) 1477: Petrus Nigri: Stern des Meschiah. Esslingen, Konrad Fyner, Eve of St. Thomas [20 Dec.] 1477. LBI Library || GW M27104 || ISTC in00258000
3) 1484: Reformacion der Stat Nueremberg. 1484. Contains the Jewry Oath from 1484. LBI Library, r (q) DD 901 N94 R4 || GW M27333 || IST ir00037000
4) 1493: Rationes breves magni Rabi Samuelis. Cologne: Heinrich Quentell, 1493. LBI Library, r 1089 || GW M39861 ||IST is00110000
5) 1494/1500: Pharetra fidei catholice sive idonea disputatio inter Christianos et Judeos. Cologne: Heinrich Quentell, between 1494 and 1500. LBI Library, r 1389|| GW M45799 || ISTC ip00576000
6) 1500: Iohannes Baptista Gratia Dei: Liber de confutatione hebraice secte. Strassburg : Martin Flach, 1500. LBI Library, r BM 585 G73 || GW 11346 || ISTC ig00354000
Incunabula leaves in the LBI Collections
7) 1493: Several individual leaves from the The Nuremberg Chronicle are also part of the LBI Collections. The Nuremberg Chronicle (Liber chronicarum / Schedelsche Weltchronik) is a lavishly illustrated world history by Hartmann Schedel, published in 1493, that chronicles the history of the world from Creation to the Last Judgment, structured in seven ages. It is a landmark work of early printing, featuring nearly 2,000 woodcuts, including city views, biblical scenes, and portraits, and was a major community project funded by Nuremberg merchants.
The murder of Simon of Trent, woodcut, 1493. LBI Collections 78.75
Jerusalem, woodcut, 1493. LBI Collections, 78.76
The Burning of the Jews, woodcut, 1493. LBI Collections, 78.73
Biblical Scene, woodcut, 1493. LBI Collections, 78.74
Danse Macabre, woodcut, 1493. LBI Collections, 78.1506a
References
The principal databases for incunabula are the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, a monumental bibliographic project initiated in 1925 and still being compiled at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, and, in the Anglo-American world, the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), established in 1980 and hosted by the British Library. The ISTC incorporates Frederick R. Goff’s Incunabula in American Libraries as well as numerous other reference works.