Albertus Magnus | An incunable edition of De mineralibus, not in Goff or BMC, Cologne, about 1500

Albertus Magnus

De mineralibus. [Cologne: Cornelis de Zierikzee, about 1500]

8vo (142 x 96 mm). Gothic types, 27 lines plus headline. Collation: π⁴ [a]⁸ b–c⁸ d–e⁴ f–h⁸ i–k⁴ l–p⁸ q⁴: 112 leaves (q4 blank). First, six-line, initial supplied in blue, other, four- and two-line, initials, as well as capital strokes and underlining in red, contemporary manuscript notes on foot of q3v and q4r; a few headlines shaved, some very minor scattered staining, lower fore-edge corner of l8 torn away. Later vellum over pasteboard, early vellum manuscript sewing guards; a bit rubbed and soiled.

A very rare incunable edition of De mineralibus, the fourth overall, not recorded in Goff or BMC; moreover, the present copy appears to be the only one traced in Rare Book Hub. De mineralibus was first printed by Petrus Maufer de Maliferis, for Antonius de Albricis, at Pavia in 1476 (ISTC ia00279000). Herbert Hoover commented that Albert’s mineralogy was, except for books on gems, “the only writing of any consequence at all on the subject between Pliny and Agricola.”

An error on leaf 5 recto, line 3 (mgani), has been corrected in some copies: either with Magni, as in the copies in Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library and the Royal Library, Copenhagen; or with magni, as in the present copy and that in the Universitats- und Stadtbibliothek, Cologne.

REFERENCES

GW 689; ISTC ia00281500; BSB-Ink A-152; H 521* (p. 57); Klebs 21.4; Oates 866. Not in BMC or Goff

PROVENANCE

Jesuit College of Douai (seventeenth-century inscription at head of first leaf) — The Institute of Materials (Sotheby’s London, 1 December 1994, lot 484)