Featured Book archaeology: Catonis Disticha Moralia (1571)

This post is about a book I bought almost 20 years ago in the Czech Republic and was my first book with so called disjecta membra (recycled vellum manuscripts) in my collection.

The book itself is a Latin/Czech learning book of the Distichs of Cato, printed in "Hradiceni" in 1571. I am not sure which place this is, but I guess it is somewhere in Bohemia. I know in the Slavic languages the word "hrad" of "grad" can mean city or castle (Beograd, Stalingrad). In the current Czech Republic there are several places with Hrad in the name liken Hradec Králové.

As this book was a school book, the texts of Cato are printed in Latin (in roman letters) and in the Czech language (in gothic/fractur letters).

The binding was made from a recycled medieval manuscript in a late Gothic hand. I haven't found out the exact texts, but it is written in Latin and dates probably from the end of the 15th century.

The book is also bound with plainchant music scores. This probably a religious text because I can read "Domine iesu christe".

On the title page there is a book mark (ex libris) that reads something like "ExLib Anton Frackii" Throughout the book many empty pages are filled with comments, all written in Latin, probably added in 1640.



The combination of the these elements is what I like in old book . I feel like an archaeologist that is looking into the past. In this case a typical Renaissance history...



I think this capital depicts Tantalus



A beautiful phrase from this book to end my post:

If you can, even remember to help people you don't know.
More precious than a kingdom it is to gain friends by kindness.

 

Via Twitter somebody told me the music scores are not chant but instrumental (violin?) scores and part of a Requiem (Mass for the dead), because of the text "Domine Jesu Christe rex gloriae" (Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory)

 

Interesting book. I've seen similar bindings in university libraries -- I think in most cases the leather of the outer spine was missing or worn away, making for some odd bindings visible on the shelves...!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Aquilinas
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q29848881

from his origins and from the year I guess latinised of Czech Hradeceni is Genitive of Grätz (later Königgrätz), a well known university.

Vade retro, Satanas !
with all your Catholic books it doesn't fit into your collection, send it to me.

 

Hahaha, I do not only have Catholic books in my collection, also non religious and even Protestant (personally I do not mind as an atheist...). I collect books as an object, not so much as the content of the books (otherwise I would collect Tolkien or Pratchett maybe).

So Königgrätz is the German name of Hradec Kralove in Czechia.

By the way, via twitter someone told me the manuscript is a bible fragment from the 14th century (1 Peter 4:11).

 

By the way, you like to give things away. I have something to give away to you if you are interested. Something small, medieval (dated July 12 1493), not expensive, but quite important as an object.

 

It is indeed a beautiful phrase

 

not interested, ta. no place left.

 

My gift would take up no space, but it's your choice
.

 

After your post I started thinking about the topics in my collection. I have made a pie chart of the topics. As you can see 75% of my books that I have catalogued are religious. Because most of the books were printed in Antwerp 95% of them are Catholic.

I do not collect specific religious books, but in my price range (read: the lower range), religious books are the most common.

 

So this is essentially the Erasmus edition of Cato's Distichs, with a translation in Bohemian Slavic (old Czech) by Pavel Aquilinas at the bottom of every page.
Later someone added part of the score for a Requiem, and the binding was recycled from a 14th century fragment of 1 Peter 4:11.
The lives books lead, right?

The difficult part would be finding the Requiem. I am sure there is someone out there who would love to delve into that, and you never know...

 

Have you been cataloging them all along? What program do you use?

I've never cataloged my book collection. I do keep the numbers small-ish, but probably have a few hundred.

 

When I started to catalogue my books, I could not find a specific program or database that met my needs. As you can understand for cataloguing old books, things like ISBN-number are a bit difficult. So I have chosen a simple spreadsheet (Google Docs in my case). The advantage of using a spreadsheet is you can make your own overviews and for Google Docs you keep the data in the cloud so you can access it from any device.

 

What an amazing book and what history it holds.
Fabulous

 

Thank you!

 

Parchment/vellum is a material that is even better for binding books than leather. It is incredible strong, but it is/was quite expensive.

Look at this old piece of parchment (a formal deed in Dutch dated July 7 1492). Someone cut two strips out of the material and added two wax seals to it. The seals are relative heavy, but it is incredible this deed is still intact after 525+ years.


Some of the vellum bindings in my collection:

 

I just try to explain why I find old books so fascinating. It brings together so much subjects: history, religion, music, poetry, rhetoric's, daily life, et cetera. Unfortunately, I am one of the few on this forum with this specific hobby, but I hope i can show some of my enthusiasm about it and share some information.

 

Your threads are always educational and show your love for your field of interest.

Many of us have interests that none of the other members share.
I think I am the only one at the moment who collects kohl bottles and Chinese snuff bottles. But all of us admire each other's items, because they are beautiful and/or of historic, anthropological or artistic interest, and because we know what it means to love a specific subject.