MAYNO DE MAYNERIIS Dialogus Creaturarum Moralisatus.

CIBN, D-83; William Martin Conway, The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the Fifteenth Century, Cambridge, CUP, 1884, pp. 32-34 & pp. 216-220; Goff, N-151; GW, M22260; HC, 6124; ISTC, id00159100; Ina Kok, Woodcuts in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries, I, pp. 154-161; Gregory Kratzmann & Elizabeth Gee, The Dialogues of Creatures Moralysed, A Critical Edition. Leyde, Brill, coll. Medieval and Renaissance Texts, 1988; Pellechet, 8390; Polain, 1263; Proctor, 8920; Pio Rajna, Intorno al codietto Dalogus creaturarum et al suo autore, in : Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 10 (1887), pp. 75-113; Pierre Ruelle, Le Dialogue des creatures. Bruxelles, Académie royale de Belgique, 1985, pp. 7-12 (for the manuscript copies and incunabula editions of the texte); Gerard van Thienen & John Goldfinch, Incunabula Printed in the Low Countries (ILC), no. 703.

Extremely rare Editio Princeps off the Dialogus Creaturarum. one of the most beautiful Dutch incunable.

First use of the woodcuts, the first illustrated book printed by Leeu. The Dialogus creaturarum stands alongside Aesop and the Fables of Bidpai (Johannes de Capua) as one of the three great illustrated fable-texts of the early years of printing.

‘These dialogues, or rather controversies, on the elements of Creation are one of the first manifestations of the fable in the modern sense. It consists of a succession of 122 fables grouped by theme (astronomy, precious stones, metals, birds, fish, etc.), covering everything from heaven, earth and the animal kingdom to man, before concluding with a discussion of death.

Beyond its moralizing and edifying purpose, the plan of the work evokes the order of the medieval world and divine creation. For a long time, the text was attributed to Nicolaus Pergamenus (Nicholas of Bergamo) on the basis of a manuscript preserved in Paris (BnF, shelfmark MS. Lat 8512). At the end of the 19th century, however, Pio Rajna proposed attributing it to the famous Milanese physician and astrologer Mayno de Mayneriis (Magninus Mediolanensis), on the basis of a study of other manuscripts (Ambrosian, Vatican, Cremona and Turin libraries, etc.) and by comparing them with the local references he had found in the text. Whatever the case, the editor had access to a rich library, with so many scholarly and religious references: the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, the Legenda aurea, not to mention borrowings from medieval literature and antiquity, notably Pliny, Cicero and Ovid.

Illustration

The picturesque illustration is attributed to the First Gouda Woodcutter active around 1480/1484, as it was called in 1884 by Conway, who stresses the importance of the printing office founded in Gouda by Gerard Leeu – ‘an energetic hardworking man, above most a passionate man’ – who distinguished himself in the late fifteenth century by his abundant output and the number of woodcutters he employed. He owned more than 850 original woodcuts, which he used extensively (Ina Kok, 1, p. 147). This is the first illustrated and dated book by Leeu, who chose to accompany each of the 122 dialogues with illustrations. The illustrations (121 in all, plus the large woodcut at the head) were engraved by the same artist. They mainly feature animals: the elephant, crocodile, rhinoceros and panther are among the first representations of these exotic species in a printed book. Gerard Leeu, who had introduced printing to this city in the Burgundian Netherlands, reused these same woodcuts in the successive editions he published of the same text until his death in 1493.

These editions bear witness to the undeniable success of this living representation of the medieval imagination, combining folklore and literary culture: Gerard Leeu went on to print two editions in 1481 (on 4 April and 6 June), three editions in 1482 (on 20 April for a translation into French, as well as on 23 June and 31 August) and two more in 1486 and 1491 in Antwerp, where he had moved. Not counting the one that the printer Christiaen Snellaert delivered to Delft in 1488, borrowing the said woodcuts, there are thus eight editions printed by Gerard Leeu, of which the first, the present one, delivered on 3 June 1480, is undoubtedly the rarest in private hands’ (see Diesbach).

A rubricated copy with letters painted in blue and red.

Copy without the quire π (4 ff. of which the first is blank) and leaves 2π2, m2, and m5 (total of 6 ff. of text, illustrated with 2 woodcuts: one on the opening of the text, and one on leaf m5). Last leaf with colophon and printer’s device with restaurations touching approx. 10 letters.

Copies of this edition are extremely rare on the market. The only complete copy of this book we could trace was part of the Otto Schäfer collection (sale 1995). Another, incomplete copy missing 12 leaves, was offered on the antiquarian book market in 1964.