This guest post is written by Sharon Corrigan who is based in the Special Collections and Archives directorate in DCU Library.
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| Pciture credit: Sharon Corrigan (using canva.com) 2025 |
Our collection covers the period frequently attributed to EPBs, i.e. 1501 to 1850, in addition to some incunables from the late 15th century. At the end of 2023, we commenced a programme to fully catalogue our EPBs. The first phase is centred on the works printed between 1450 and 1700. We are creating original cataloguing records, and enhancing existing ones, adding new MARC21 notes fields for provenance, bookplates, labels, and manuscript annotations. We are also creating authority access points for the names of book editors, translators, printers and former owners, and heading access points for subjects. The project also meant physically rearranging shelving space to accommodate the variety of sizes and formats.
Earlier this year, we made an internal presentation to our DCU Library colleagues, where we shared progress to date and demonstrated some collection highlights. We present here some of these illustrative examples of our catalogued 16th century works. These reflect the array of subjects in the collection, primarily subjects within the humanities area, i.e. philosophy (scholastic), theology, classical works, history and literature.
Guigo (aus Château-Saint-Romain)
Statuta ordinis cartusiensis a domno Guigone priore cartusie edita
Basel, Ex officina Johannes Amerbach, MDX. (1510).
A beautiful example of an EPB is that of Statuta ordinis Cartusiensis by Guigo de Castro which was printed in Basel, Switzerland in 1510. The copy in our collection has decoratively stamped wooden boards with engraved metal clasps and contains beautifully crisp printed text and multiple pages of woodcuts depicting the foundation of the order by St. Bruno. In addition it includes an illustrated genealogical tree of the first priors of the Grande Chartreuse and portraits representing 33 popes. Its contents have been laid out with numbers alongside the statutes to allow for cross referencing against previous statutes. The copy also contains beautiful rubrication (hand finishing flourishes with coloured ink post printing), which has been done with care in both red and blue ink. This colour would have been added after printing at the book owner’s expense as texts bought from printing houses would have left spaces in the text for this purpose. Usually done in red, the addition of blue here is reflective of how highly the Carthusians, being a silent somewhat hermetic order, prized books.
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| The outer boards of the book Statuta Ordinis Cartusiensis. Top right is the title page. Woodcuts showing the founding of the order. A rubricated letter P from the book. Photo credit: Sharon Corrigan, 2025. |
The first of these images is of Der Papstesel, or the papal donkey, which was used in a satirical pamphlet published by Luther and Philip Melanchthon. It is a woodcut depicting a mythical creature based on a body that was washed up on the banks of the Tiber river. The creature in the image bears the head of a donkey, the torso of a woman, scaly limbs, an ox hoof and bird claw for feet, a devil’s mask over the rear and a tail ending in a dragon's head; in the background is the Castel Sant'Angelo.
It was supposedly inspired by a malformed calf that was born in Freiberg, Saxony in 1522. The calf had misshapen hind legs and was seen to resemble a cowled, tonsured, monk. This was used as an allegorical symbol by the publishers to represent what they saw as the warped, monstrous corruption of the Catholic church at the time. Luther made full use of such imagery and of the new widespread availability of printing to circulate his writings across Europe in a relatively short period of time.
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| The title page of Der Ander Teil, a sample of text, the papal donkey, and the monk calf of Freiberg. Photo credit: Sharon Corrigan 2025. |
Both works begin with an alphabetical index to the sermons. The text is in two columns in black gothic typeface with Lombardic decorated initials at the start of each sermon. The woodcut engraved title pages depict an architectural arch supported by decorated columns that work as a frame to the lettering in the titles. As a colophon to the first work a large engraved printer’s device is included depicting an elephant carrying an heraldic emblem with initials FR and printer’s full name, Francoys Regnault.
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| Printer's mark, title page in two inks, decorated initial B, decorated initial O. Photo credit: Sharon Corrigan, 2025. |
Histoire des pays septentrionaus écrite par Olaus Le Grand, Goth, Archevêque d'Vpsale, et Souvrain de Suevie, et Gothie. En laquelle sont brievement, mais clerement deduites toutes les choses rares ou étranges, qui se treuvent entre les nations Septentrionales ; traduite du Latin del'auteur en François.
A Anvers de l'imprimerie de Christophle Plantin, 1561.
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| Clockwise from top left: Parents carrying their children for baptism, people holding beams that tell time, monster fish-pig in the Germanic ocean, people exchanging goods. Photo credit: Sharon Corrigan, 2025. |
Orlando Furioso di M. Ludovico Ariosto ornato di varie figure, con alcune stanze et cinque canti d'un nuovo libro del medesimo nuouamente aggiunti, & ricorretti. Cum alcune allegorie, et nel fine une breue espositione et tavola di tutto quello, che nell'opera si contiene.
In Vinegia Appresso Gabriel, Giolito de Ferrari, MDXLVIII. (1548)
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| Title page of the Orlando Furioso di M. Ludovico Ariosto. Sonnet of editor Ludovico Dolce dedicated to the author and a portrait of the author. Image, summary and decorate initial of canto 15. Giolito de Ferrara printer's mark. Photo credit: Sharon Corrigan, 2025. |
The main printing centres of Europe in the 16th century were by far Venice and Antwerp, both being port cities. This printing production is reflected in the works held in the DCU library collections. See the map showing distribution of printing below. The term printer, publisher, and bookseller were almost synonymous at the time as printers took on the risk and creative control over what was being produced, allowing EPBs to evolve based on demand.
Printing houses, in themselves, offer a rich seam of research possibilities as printing families would work alongside and marry into other printing houses, with widows sometimes taking over companies after their husbands’ deaths. Printers included their own illustration, or printer’s device, on books’ title pages.
Often elaborate engravings, these devices included mottos and allegories, sometimes captioned with addresses such as “St Paul’s Churchyard, at the sign of the pelican”. The largest percentage of the 16th century EPBs in our collections was printed in Venice, Rome, Paris, Lyon, Antwerp, Cologne, and London, with many other European cities also represented.
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| A map of European printing locations represented in the 16th Century EPBs in our collections. Picture credit Sharon Corrigan (made using mapchart.net), 2025 |
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| A selection of printers' devices representing the printing hubs of Europe in the 16th century. |
CRAI Universitat de Barcelona. (n.d.). Universitat de Barcelona Printers’ devices. Printers’ Devices. https://marques.crai.ub.edu/id/img/0057017a
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