Netherlandish Books: books published in the Low Countries and Dutch books printed abroad before 1601, Volume 1

842 Pages·2011·4.226 MB·English

by  Andrew Pettegree, Malcolm Walsby

Netherlandish Books
A - J

Netherlandish Books

Books Published in the Low Countries and
Dutch Books Printed Abroad before 1601
Edited by
Andrew Pettegree
Malcolm Walsby
A - J
Leiden • boston
2011
this book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
netherlandish books : books published in the Low Countries and dutch
books printed abroad before 1601 / edited by Andrew Pettegree, Malcolm Walsby.
  v. cm.
 includes bibliographical references and index.
 Contents: v. 1. A–J — v. 2. K–Z.
 isbn 978-90-04-19590-5 (v. 1 : hbk. : acid-free paper) — isbn
978-90-04-19591-2 (v. 2 : hbk. : acid-free paper) — isbn 978-90-04-19197-6
(set : hbk. : acid-free paper)
 1. benelux countries—imprints—bibliography. 2. netherlands—imprints—
bibliography. 3. early printed books—benelux countries—bibliography.
4. early printed books—netherlands—bibliography. 5. dutch imprints—
bibliography. 6. bibliography, national—benelux countries. 7. bibliography,
national—netherlands. i. Pettegree, Andrew. ii. Walsby, Malcolm.
 Z2402.n4 2011
 015.492—dc22
2010041483
isbn 978 90 04 19590 5 (Volume i)
isbn 978 90 04 19591 2 (Volume ii)
isbn 978 90 04 19197 6 (set)
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke brill nV, Leiden, the netherlands.
Koninklijke brill nV incorporates the imprints brill, Hotei Publishing,
idC Publishers, Martinus nijhoff Publishers and VsP.
All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke brill nV
provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood
drive, suite 910, danvers, MA 01923, UsA.
Fees are subject to change.
PRinted in tHe netHeRLAnds
tAbLe oF Contents
VoLUMe i
introduction  ..................................................................................................................... vii
Literature  ......................................................................................................................... xxv
Abbreviations  .................................................................................................................. xxix
Library Codes  ................................................................................................................. xxxi
bibliography 
 A - J  ............................................................................................................................ 1
VoLUMe ii
Abbreviations  .................................................................................................................. vii
Library Codes  ................................................................................................................. ix
bibliography 
 K - Z  ........................................................................................................................... 763
index of Printers  ............................................................................................................ 1407

intRodUCtion
the sixteenth-century book world was in many respects one integrated market. it mattered
not to a purchaser whether a book was published in Paris or basel, so long as they could
obtain the desired title, at a price they could afford, and in a timely fashion. At an early
stage in this history of print there developed a market of great efficiency and sophistication
to ensure than books could be transported around europe in this way.
Yet within this european book market, each local or national market developed its own
distinct particularities. each, obviously, catered to a particular, and largely separate, ver-
nacular trade. And each commanded a different part of the international trade, often with
distinct strengths and specialisations.
in this sophisticated world of print the booksellers and publishers of the Low Countries
established an important role. the lands ruled by the heirs to the burgundian inheritance,
and later the kings the spain, possessed several distinct advantages. Flanders and brabant
were favourably placed at the northern end of one of europe’s principle arteries of trade,
along the Rhine to italy. the Low Countries were home to some of the largest and most
vibrant trade communities of the late mediaeval centuries; and in the sixteenth century
Antwerp would emerge as europe’s principle international trading metropolis. this highly
urbanised society had a proud schools tradition, and its population was among the most
literate and educated in europe. the population, divided between a French-speaking minor-
ity in the south, and the dutch-speaking northern provinces, also played host to a large,
polyglot merchant community from all parts of europe.
All of these distinctive characteristics might have been expected to make the Low Coun-
tries particularly fertile territory for the dynamic book world that flourished after the inven-
tion of print. this was indeed the case. in the sixteenth century the printers of the Low
Countries played a role in the european publishing industry out of all proportion to the
size of the local population.
The Bibliographical Inheritance
the importance of the Low Countries to the early history of print is not in doubt. this
makes it all the more curious that it has not until this point been possible to create a com-
plete survey of books published in the Low Countries during this period. this is partly a
consequence of the normative bibliographical tradition that separates the fifteenth century,
the incunabula period, from sixteenth-century print. but it also owes much to the circum-
stances in which surveys of print were undertaken in the twentieth century, divided in a
manner that paid more attention to modern political boundaries than to the geographical
realities of the sixteenth century.
the task of documenting the printing achievement of the first decades of print, the incu-
nabula age of the fifteenth century, fell to the english bibliographer M.F.A.G. Campbell.
His Annales were published in 1874, and were thought even at the time to be unsatisfac-
tory. Various supplements and continuations were published by M.e. Kronenberg and by
Campbell himself into the twentieth century. Campbell’s work, as is the case with all early
surveys of incunabula, is now in effect superseded by the on-line collaborative project,
the istC hosted in the british Library, London. this records some 2,229 books published
for the Low Countries. the present survey has augmented this total with a small number
viii introduction
of editions not yet included in the istC (mostly vernacular French editions discovered in
French provincial collections): but the istC is regarded as the definitive basis for ques-
tions of dating and attribution. the istC records have been collated with the records of
the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrücke, the august and detailed survey of early printing
managed from the staasbibliothek, berlin, which also provides valuable additional data
on formats and collations.
the work undertaken by Campbell was continued for the sixteenth century by Wouter
nijhoff and M.e. (Maria elizabeth) Kronenberg, who published in three parts between 1923
and 1942 a bibliography of all books published in the Low Countries between 1501 and
1540, the post-incunabula period. based on a wide-ranging survey of collections spread
throughout belgium, the netherlands, and elsewhere in europe, nijhoff and Kronenberg
offered a meticulously scholarly and reasonably complete survey, including intelligent attri-
butions for works with no identified printer. inevitably a work compiled over so long a
period (and in the case of the first volume, almost one hundred years ago) poses challenges
to the user. the sequence of editions is arrayed in three alphabetical ranges, ordered by
author, with additional lists of corrections and emendations, and other located copies. the
user wishing to study early dutch editions of erasmus (of which there were very many)
would have to search in at least eight different places to create a full list with library
locations.
is a credit to the quality of the work undertaken by nijhoff and Kronenberg and their
assiduousness in searching out copies that nK remains the cornerstone of serious work on
this period. inevitably since this time further specialist work has both added to the corpus
of known works and corrected many attributions. the turmoil of the war years means
that many copies are attributed to libraries that no longer exist: other copies have been
bought, sold, or destroyed. Most challenging for the user is the inclusion at the beginning
of volume three of a separate numerical range representing references to editions at that
point known to the authors only from bibliographical references (these have been given
numbers beginning with a 0, thus 0195). this supplementary range is then progressively
integrated into the main sequence as references are matched to surviving copies: thus nK
4313 replaces the item listed as 0199 in the supplementary sequence. A concordance of
these attributions is provided at the conclusion of volume three. others are discounted
because they fall outside the period under consideration, or because the bibliographical
reference appears implausible. but this still leaves a substantial residue of items not yet
matched to surviving copies which nevertheless can with a fair degree of probability be
regarded as authentic. 350 items from this supplementary range have been included in this
bibliography on this basis. since these recovered attributions are often based on contem-
porary manuscript sources, they can additionally provide extremely valuable information
on their commissioning by institutional customers, prices and print runs.1
the completion of nijhoff and Kronenberg, set alongside the survey of dutch incu-
nabula, left an obvious gap, compared with other bibliographical projects, for the period
1541–1600. this was the period when Low Countries typography experienced its great-
est period, as well as the disruption and turbulence caused by the dutch Revolt. A first
attempt to address this lacuna was begun around fifty years ago, with a survey of books
undertaken by the Royal Library in brussels. A decision was taken at this point that, in
contrast to the practice of nijhoff and Kronenberg, the production of modern day belgium
and the netherlands would be treated separately. in fact the first volume of what became
Belgica Typographica listed only the holdings of the Royal Library in brussels, and only
1 see, for instance, nK 0520, 0530, 0703, 0819, 0938.
introduction ix
those books in the collections printed within the borders of modern day belgium (a total
of 4,933 items). this foundation collection was then augmented by two further volumes,
recording additional items in other belgian libraries; these include, in volume two, the
significant collections of the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, and in volume three,
the holdings of the Rijksuniversiteit Gent. A fourth volume provides a chronological survey
and a concordance of printers. All told, this makes a repertory of 9,755 works printed in
belgium between 1541 and 1600.
once again, as with the earlier work of nK, the user interested in a particular work or
author must consult all three volumes, for three separate alphabetical listings. nor is it
always entirely clear why a copy listed in volume two or three is a separate edition rather
than simply a further copy: many entries contain only an enigmatic invitation to ‘compare
bt 292’.2 the mode of description also varies between volumes. Whereas volumes two
and three include a brief summary of the work’s pagination, this is not included in volume
one for the editions in the Royal Library. the descriptions also omit the book’s format,
preferring instead the precise but seldom used measurement of ‘type body size’. Particu-
larly in the smaller formats it is sometimes difficult from this measurement to determine
whether we are dealing with a book in quarto, octavo, duodecimo or sextodecimo. these
idiosyncrasies apart, the major limitation of Belgica Typographica as a national bibliog-
raphy is that it has surveyed only books currently located in belgian libraries. When the
st Andrews book project published its work on France (FB – French Vernacular Books)
it was immediately clear that a survey limited to the present holdings of French libraries
would have vastly understated the total corpus of French publishing. When we consider that
much of the production of the southern netherlands was of books specifically intended for
an international market, it is very likely that this is also the case for the netherlands.
the publication of the Belgica Typographica posed a challenge to bibliographers of the
northern netherlands, the only part now not covered by any bibliographical survey for
the period 1541–1600. the task of addressing this deficiency was pursued by two paral-
lel projects: the stC netherlands, based at the national Library in the Hague, and the
Typographia Batava, based at the University Library in Amsterdam. the Typographia
Batava, published in 1998 as a repertoire of some 7,438 items, was for many years the
work of a single scholar, Paul Valkema blouw, assisted towards the end of his life by
other colleagues in the University’s Rare book department. Valkema blouw was a bib-
liographer of some genius, and over the course of many years he painstakingly recon-
structed the oeuvre of many printers who, in these difficult times, printed under the cloak
of anonymity. some 80 per cent of the (very many) anonymously published editions are
attributed to a printer: it is a phenomenal piece of detective bibliography, which may be
re-constructed in the individual studies shortly to be republished in two collected volumes.3
the Typographia Batava casts its net widely. the list of surviving copies includes many
recorded in libraries in belgium, continental europe, Great britain and the United states.
sometimes these copies located abroad are the only known examples. Valkema blouw also
included references to books known from contemporary documents but not yet located:
Typographia Batava lists about four hundred of these lost books.
the Typographia Batava is a formidable achievement, though some unconventional edi-
torial decisions make it more difficult to use than would otherwise be the case. Uniquely
Valkema blouw determined that a book would only be listed under its author’s name if
the name was stated on the book. other books commonly attributed to the same author
2 As for instance, vol. ii, bt 5178.
3 Paul Valkema blouw, The Collected Works of Paul Valkema Blouw on Sixteenth-Century Dutch Typography
ed. A.R.A. Croiset van Uchelen & P. dijstelberge, tr. Alastair Hamilton (Leiden, brill, 2011).
x introduction
will be listed alphabetically by title. this scheme is rigorously followed even when deal-
ing with two editions of the same work. For those authors whose work was generally
published anonymously a list of cross references is provided: to reconstruct the oeuvre of
the spiritualist writer david Joris, for example, a user of tb must search in eighty-eight
different locations.4
Valkema blouw was also working in the pre-digital age, so reliant on published cata-
logues or correspondence with friendly librarians for information on dispersed editions.
instinctively distrustful of catalogues, he decided not to record formats, since he believed
library catalogues were often hopelessly inaccurate in this area. this is indeed true, but
it means that much useful standard bibliographical information is lost. these omissions
and limitations are to some extent repaired by the completion of the short title Catalogue
netherlands (stCn), an on-line resource compiled to modern bibliographical standards
and fully searchable by a number of criteria. A large collective enterprise covering the
whole period to the end of the eighteenth century, the stCn has now accomplished the
re-examination and bibliographical description of all of the major collections of sixteenth-
century books in the netherlands. Using the stCn fingerprint system to identify different
and variant printings, it has identified many editions not recorded in Typographia Batava.
its strength is also its limitation, however, in that it includes at present only books located
in dutch libraries: for the sixteenth century this means that a large proportion of the items
listed by Valkema blouw are not to be found in the stCn. to reconstruct the whole
printed output of the northern netherlands the printed bibliography and on-line resource
have both to be consulted.
surveying the different genesis and terms of reference of these various projects, the
merit of a single bibliography bringing together all these records in one place is obvious.
together the published bibliographies described above provide information on a total corpus
of 23,464 books published in the Low Countries before 1601. but the transformation of
bibliographical resources that has occurred in the digital age provides the opportunity to
enhance and compare these published resources with a mass of other data now available.
information on belgian books now located in dutch libraries will not have been included
in Belgica Typographica; belgian collections have not been surveyed for the stCn. in
addition vast numbers of Low Countries imprints have made their way to libraries in
Germany, italy, France, britain and the United states. Very many of these books turn out
to be editions not included in the published bibliographies. the incorporation of this data
has a transforming effect on the known corpus of books published in the Low Countries.
the table below compares the editions listed in the standard published bibliographies with
the corpus of copies in the present work.
Against a total of 23,954 items listed in the combined published bibliographies (reduced
to 23,464 by the elimination of duplicates) nb lists a total of 32,153 items: an enhance-
ment of the total known output of 37 per cent. With this vastly enhanced production the
Low Countries lies some way behind the three main production centres of europe, France,
Germany and italy, but well ahead of england, spain or the swiss Confederation. Relative
to the size of the local population, the Low Countries had by some distance the largest
publishing industry in europe.
Furthermore the work presented here requires a considerable readjustment of the estab-
lished geography of printing in the Low Countries. As we have seen, the two published
bibliographies, Belgica Typographica (bt) and Typographia Batava (tb), suggest a rough
equality of production in belgium and Holland. the slightly larger total in Belgica Typo-
4 see tb, i pp. 302–303.