Page from Euclid's Elementa Geometriae (1482) To enlarge click on the image

The Incunabula Collection of The Bancroft Library comprises more than 430 titles printed before 1501. The word "incunabula" is Latin for "swaddling clothes," as these books are from the infancy of European printing, typeset and printed by hand from moveable type. Incunabula reflect the transitional phase between the manuscript and print traditions. This fifteenth century media change is similar to the shift from print to electronic and multimedia communication taking place in the twenty-first century.  The study of incunabula gives insight into the origins of a tradition which has greatly affected the course of western culture and development, and reveals much about the life, customs, and tastes of the educated during the Renaissance.

 

The collection includes philosophical, theological, scientific, mathematical, historical, legal, and poetical works. There are examples from each of the major western European countries. The largest group is from Italy, over 140 titles from Venice alone. Printers represented include Anton Koberger of Nuremberg, Johann Zainer of Ulm, Philippe Pigouchet of Paris, Johannes Trechsel of Lyon, Nicholas Jenson and Erhard Ratdolt of Venice, the work of the earliest known press to be operated by women at the Convent of San Jacopo di Ripoli in Florence, and others. A few works printed in the early sixteenth century are included, bound with pre-1501 titles. Some incunabula are represented by leaf books, that is, modern books about a particular pre-1501 work, such as the Gutenberg Bible printed about 1454, or the Chronicles of England printed by William Caxton in 1480, each containing one or more leaves from the originals. In addition, there are collections of original leaves from German, Italian, and western European incunabula, described by Konrad Haebler, noted historian of incunabula, as well as a miscellany collection of unidentified original leaves, and a selection of modern facsimiles and photographic reproductions of other incunabula and early type faces. Alphabetical List of all Titles by Author     Many of these works come from the library of James Kennedy Moffitt, a graduate of the University of California, class of 1886, for 36 years a University Regent, as well as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Crocker National Bank of San Francisco. Several volumes are from the collection of John Henry Nash, one of the leading typographers of California. Another portion comes from the library of Charles Kay Ogden, linguist and originator of Basic English. Other volumes came through purchases and gifts, most notably from the collector of Italian humanist manuscripts Charles William Dyson Perrins, the Dante enthusiast George John Warren, 5th Baron Vernon, the San Francisco attorney Alfred Sutro, the advertising executive and book collector Norman H. Strouse, founder of the Silverado Museum in St. Helena, California, the medievalist James Westfall Thompson of the History Department, University of California, Berkeley, and Charles Atwood Kofoid, head of the Zoology Department at Berkeley.

 

Building Noah's Arc. From Hartmann Schedel's Liber Chronicarum (1493) To enlarge click on the image

Page from Higden Ranulf's Polycronicon (1495) To enlarge click on the image

The Lover in the Wood. From Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) To enlarge click on the image