Catholicon (book)
The Summa grammatical calis quae vocatur Catholicon ( Catholicon ) is a Latin dictionary that was compiled in 1286 by the Dominican Johannes Balbus and this was used until the 16th century, the Bible "correctly" interpreted. A grammar complemented the dictionary, which partially contained encyclopedic entries. The educated citizen could it refer to the fundamental knowledge of his time and use it as a kind of encyclopedia. In the handwriting time it was one of the much-copied books and promised thus also as a paragraph.
The Catholicon was one of the first printed books ( incunabula ). His pressure was a Gotico - Antiqua - an easily readable, even gothic influenced preform today roman typefaces - cut. This was significantly smaller than the typefaces used previously. The pressure consisted of 744 two-column folio pages. On one side were 66 lines are placed, each with an average of 40 letters. There were issues on parchment and paper. The estimated print run was 300 copies.
Content
The extensive work (about 670,000 words) is divided into five sections covering the first four orthography, accentuation, etymology, syntax and idioms. The fifth largest part comprises an alphabetical dictionary with over 14,000 entries. Used Balbus both ancient ( Priscian, Aelius Donatus ) as well as contemporary grammarians ( Eberhard of Béthune, Bene of Florence, Alexander de Villa Dei, Peter Riga) as sources for the grammatical remarks. The lexical part draws from the lexicons of Papias ( Elementarium doctrinae erudimentum, ca 1053 ) and Uguccione da Pisa ( Derivationes, 1190 ), as well as the classical authors, the church fathers, Isidore of Seville, St. Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux. The dictionary also contains biblical quotes, examples and mnemonic.
The work has kompilatorischen character, but there is a distinct achievement of the author is to have transferred the contents to a strictly alphabetical order, which facilitated the consultation. Noteworthy are also back references from the dictionary on the grammar part.
Dissemination
The Catholicon was immediately well received, and transcripts spread to many parts of Europe. Today there are still about 170 manuscripts received. Specimens were found in possession of church institutions and wealthy individuals: Scholar, princes and ecclesiastical dignitaries. It has often been shortened and rewritten because of its size and the basis of multiple bilingual dictionaries, including the Catholicon latin- français, the Promptorium parvulorum (Latin - English)., the Ortus vocabularum (Latin - English). gemmarum and Gemma (Latin - German ). After the first Mainz print edition of 1460 appeared in the 15th century still 23 more spending. The last print edition is that of Lyon in 1520, the most extensive of the Paris 1506 ( printed by Josse bath ).
While Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), the Catholicon still was one of his favorite books, the work was starting with Lorenzo Valla ( Elegantiae Latinae linguae, 2nd book, Preface; originated in 1441, EA 1471 ) End of the 15th century. and placed in the 16th century by the humanists in a series with other medieval textbooks, the increasingly were now considered barbaric and unlearned, and sharply criticized ( including by Erasmus of Rotterdam, Martin Luther ).
The Mainzer pressure
In the colophon the city of Mainz are given as place of publication and the year 1460 as the date of printing. The paper contains various watermarks, which allowed for dating. The Catholicon consequently appeared in three editions, each can be the years 1460, 1469 and 1472 rejected. Here, the set of these three issues is almost identical, and appears to have been printed double-spaced.
To explain this phenomenon, the pressure researcher Lotte Hellinga argues that Catholicon was still produced in the same year ( 1469 ), only on different presses of various printing gentlemen who have joined together to form a kind of joint venture. The double rows were composed by a wire-wound standing set, which has been exchanged between the printing workshops. Possible printers come for them, the brothers Bechtermiinze ( Eltville ), Peter Schoeffer (Mainz ), Ulrich Zell ( Cologne), and Johann Sensenschmidt and Heinrich Keffer (Nuremberg) in question. After Hell Inga's thesis would have to be a misprint in the colophon and have been accomplished during the transport of heavy standing record a logistical masterpiece.
The opposite attitude represents Paul Needham, who represents the revolutionary view that Catholicon had been printed by clichés or stereotypes, so of solid, decanted from the original set pressure forms that could be reused. This enables a time and cost savings in the production type and would explain the different types of paper dated. This, however, this form of printing three centuries before its official invention would have been known, and it begs the question of why this technique is not used directly, but again only in the 19th century spread came into use.
A punctures investigation in the 1990s, should contribute to the further assessment of the Catholicons. Punctures created during the printing process. The needles with which the paper / parchment was fixed in the press, leaving marks by which the pressure of the back could accurately follow. With the comparison of punctures in several incunabula a support ( 1469 ) Peter Schoeffer could be assigned. For the rest of ( 1472 ) printers come in Strasbourg, Cologne and Basel in question. The parchment and paper edition of 1460, however, has to Mainz and could have been printed by Johannes Gutenberg.
The pressure history of Catholicons could not be fully clarified. The correct assignment is one of the essential problems of the early pressure research.