The times., 1899-07-09

in probably a thousand editions. nearly al
of them large and costly.
| One of the printers in Fust & Schoef-
| fer's Office in Mentz. wto was driven out
after the siege of 1862. was Uric Zell
[ who went to Cologne and installed his
presses in the monastery of weidsrbach,
opposite the Abbey of st. Pantaleon Zell
is mentioned as the chief instructor of
| William Caxton, the first English printer.
The first Bible from the father OF the
Cologne press, as Zell has been called, S
| found in the Chelsea Square coliecto on. 1t
was printed in 1859. Some assign this b.
BILE to the press OF Conrad de Homborch.
| II is in two folio volumes and is printed
| in short, thick gothic on stout white pa
per. Zelfs name first appears on book
| in 1466. Another Bible of 1859 in tie Ii
brary is the r. Bible, so called because
OF the peculiar formation of the r. This
is generally attributed to Mentelin, who
used similar type in the Vincent de Beau
| vais' (Strasburg, 14T3.)
''one of the witnesses in the first law
suit between Gutenberg and Fust was
| Berthold Rodt. He began printing Bib.es
at Basic, in Switzerland, soon after the
sacking OF Mentz. His first Bible. the
| first book printed in Switzerland probably
| in 1470, is in the Chelsea Square coIlec-
tion. Rodt had partner, Bernhard Ri
chel. The Basle Bible is a perfect copy
of a very rare edition. 1t is bound in
| boards and old calf with a parchment
| back, and bears neither names nor date.
Then there is Peter Schoeffer's second edi-
tion, corrected reprint of the Bible of
| 1852. extremely rare, from the Duke of
Roxburgh's library 1t is printed in a
beautiful gothic type. with quaint initials
in red, blue, and brown This copy, in
cold -, rha L.,r II LII
| ford's sale in London in 1883 to Quaritch
! for Ell. He priced it at G100 1t had
sold in 1912 for eS SIS.
The Coberger Bibles are nearly all in
| the collection-the first edition of 1875, the
| edition OF 1477, the two editions of May
and November, 147S; the editions of 1879,
| 1850, 14S1, 1885. 1887, 1893. 1897, and several
| in the sixteenth century. Anthony Co.
| berger is said to have had twenty four
| presses and 100 men at work in his shop
in Nuremberg. In twenty-six years he
| printed thirteen editions OF the Bible, one
| in German and the others in Latin. All
| are beautiful folios.
Among the Bibles OF the first half CEN
tury of printing few are more highly priced
than the first Paris Bible. Soon after
Fust sold his Bibles in Paris, Guillaume
Fichet and, Jean de la Pierre members of
| the Sorbonne, induced three German print
Michael Friburger, to come to Paris, where
| they fitted up a room in the Sorbonne and
began to print in 1470. Their first Latin
Bible came from the press in 14f5, in two
folio volumes. The type is peculiar, some
thing between the Roman and the Gothic.
The initials are rubricated and the first
page of each volume is Illuminated. The
Chelsea Square copy is bound in red moroc-
co, with green borders. and bears the Fair
fay al raj
of Sir Thomas Fairfax. grandfather of the
parliamentary general.
Just which one of the Bibles of 1476
was the first to bear the printers sigma
ture is an unsettled question. The Chel-
sea Square collection includes the five edi-
tions which claim this distinction-the first
Paris, the Vicenza the Venice of Hail
brun, the Venice of Jenson, and the first
Naples. Jenson, a Frenchman, who served
his apprenticeship at the Paris Mint, and
later became Master of the Mint at Tours,
was sent by Charles VII to Mentz in 145S
to report upon Gutenberg's invention. He
returned three years later and in l410 Set
tied in Venice. Before the end OF the CEN
tury 200 printers were busy in Venice and
100000 volumes came from their presses.
Jenson in ten years issued over 155 edi-
toms of the Bible. He received title
from Pope Sixtus ". About the same
time as Jenson printed his first Bible in
Venice, Francis de Hailbrun and n. de
Frankfordia printed a Latin Bible there.
One of these two editions is the first We
netian Bible. The first Naples edition was
printed by Moravus, Of Olmutz, Vene-
tian. The Chelsea Square copy is from
Bishop Jebb's collection. The library also
has the second volume OF an edition be-
lieyed to have been printed at Vicenza.
The first Bible to be called the Poor
Mans Bible is in this collection. This is
the first octave Bible, printed in 1491, at
Basle, by Johann Froben de Hamelbruck.
This was called the Poor Mans Bible be-
cause of its size, and was intended Tor
scholars who could not afford to buy a
folio. Froben printed Latin quarto in
1885, and folio in 1885 Erasmus. the
scholar, settled in Basle early in the six
teenth century and became Froben's chief
editor and adviser. Basle became the lit
erary centre of Europe.
Among the other more notable editions
of the incunabla at Chelsea Square are the
rare Reynsburch edition of 147S; a fine
copy in the original binding OF the Rein
hard edition Of 1912, copies of which can
be found elsewhere only in the Bodleian
Library, the Royal Library at Stuttgart,
and the Bibliotheque Rationale; a perfect
copy of an unidentified edition of 1491. of
which there are only three or four copies
known; the rare Scot edition, published ia
'tHiSS Al L1oSs q DlUle Ol 1895, from the
Monastery of the Barefooted CarmeIites
and De Lyra's Commentaries (Coberger.
14SD, from the Monastery of Erfut.
thought to have been used by Martin Luz
ther.
Among the 200-odd sixteenth century
editions, many OF them enriched with Gu
rious and beautiful woodcuts and engrav-
ings, are the first Sacon edition of 1906:
the first .Vostre edition of 1872; a Bible of
lo2O, from the Recollet Friars in West
phalia; copy OF the Gryphius edition of
1000, from the library Of Cardinal Louis de
Bourbon, bearing the cardinals arms. thn
Juncta edition Of 1919, the first Bible with
metal engravings, OF which there are 200
by Joan Andreae, bearing the "Juncta
lily in red on the title page; the rare
Cratander edition OF 1926, Latin trans
lation or the Septuagint; the valuable Ant
du Ry edition of 1923, Paginus' transIa-
ton from the Hebrew, the first edition with
numbered verses; the first Etienne edi-
tion OF 152S; the scarce Cologne edition OF
Puentel, 1929, corrected in 2 900 places.
and containing woodcuts of great merit by
A. de Worms; the uncommon Peypus edi-
tion of $780, with seventy-seven engrav-
ings by Hans Springinklee and others; the
original edition of MINISTER'S translation
from the Hebrew, 1884; the rare first edi-
tion OF Darius (Venice, 1912, corrected in
5000 places; the celebrated Tigurine Bible
OF lo43, translated by the divines of Zu-
rich; the original version of Hentenius,
printed at Louvain in 154i. the copy for
merly belonging to the Duke of Sussex;
the original edition of the translation of
Castalio, printed at Basle in 1851 and dedi-
Gated to Edward VI; the first edition of
81,