Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 | Page 4

(_Vid._ Quetif et Echard, i. 176.), but what I believe to be a volume of older date is "sine ulla nota;" and a bookseller's observation respecting it is, that it is "very rare, and unknown to De Bure, Panzer, Brunet, and Dibdin." {324}
4. Has any discovery made as to the author of the extraordinary 4to. tract, _Oracio querulosa contra Inuasores Sacerdotum?_ According to the Crevenna Catalogue (i. 85.), the work is "inconnu �� tous les bibliographes." Compare Seemiller, ii. 162.; but the copy before me is not of the impression described by him. It is worthy of notice, that at signature A iiiij the writer declares, "nostris jam temporibus calchographiam, hoc est impressioram artem, in nobilissima Vrbanie germe Maguncia fuisse repertam."
5. Are we to suppose that either carelessness or a love of conjectures was the source of Chevillier's mistake, not corrected by Greswell (_Annals of Paris. Typog._, p. 6.), that signatures were first introduced, anno 1476, by Zarotus, the printer, at Milan? They may doubtless be seen in the _Opus Alexandride Ales super tertium Sententiarum_, Venet. 1475, a book which supplies also the most ancient instance I have met with of a "Registrum Chartarum." Signatures, however, had a prior existence; for they appear in the Mammetractus printed at Beron Minster in 1470 (Meermau, ii. 28.; Kloss, p. 192.), but they were omitted in the impression of 1476. Dr. Cotton (_Typ. Gaz._, p. 66.), Mr. Horne (_Introd. to Bibliog._, i. 187. 317), and many others, wrongly delay the invention or adoption of them till the year 1472.
6. Is the edition of the _Fasciculus Temporum_, set forth at Cologne by Nicolaus de Schlettstadt in 1474, altogether distinct from that which is confessedly "omnium prima," and which was issued by Arnoldus Ther Huernen in the same year? If it be, the copy in the Lambeth library, bearing date 1476, and entered in pp. 1, 2. of Dr. Maitland's very valuable and accurate _List_, must appertain to the third, not the second, impression. To the latter this Louvain reprint of 1476 is assigned in the catalogue of the books of Dr. Kloss (p. 127.), but there is an error in the remark that the "Tabula" prefixed to the editio princeps is comprised in eight leaves, for it certainly consists of nine.
7. Where was what is probably a copy of the second edition of the Catena Aurea of Aquinas printed? The folio in question, which consists of 417 unnumbered leaves, is an extremely fine one, and I should say that it is certainly of German origin. Seemiller (i. 117.) refers it to Esslingen, and perhaps an acquaintance with its water-marks would afford some assistance in tracing it. Of these a rose is the most common, and a strigilis may be seen on folio 61. It would be difficult to persuade the proprietor of this volume that it is of so modern a date as 1474, the year in which what is generally called the second impression of this work appeared.
8. How can we best account for the mistake relative to the imaginary Bologna edition of Ptolemy's Cosmography in 1462, a copy of which was in the Colbert library? (Leuglet du Fresnoy, _M��th. pour ��tud. l'Hist._, iii. 8., �� Paris, 1735.) That it was published previously to the famous Mentz Bible of this date is altogether impossible; and was the figure 6 a misprint for 8? or should we attempt to subvert it into 9? The editio princeps of the Latin version by Angelus is in Roman letter, and is a very handsome specimen of Vicenza typography in 1475, when it was set forth "ab Hermano Leuilapide," alias Hermann Lichtenstein.
9. If it be true, as Dr. Cotton remarks in his excellent _Typographical Gazetteer_, p. 22., that a press was erected at Augsburg, in the monastery of SS. Ulric and Afra, in the year 1472, and that Anthony Sorg is believed to have been the printer, why should we be induced to assent to the validity of Panzer's supposition that Nider's Formicarius did not make its appearance there until 1480? It would seem to be more than doubtful that Cologne can boast of having produced the first edition, A.D. 1475/7; and it may be reasonably asserted, and an examination of the book will abundantly strengthen the idea, that the earliest impression is that which contains this colophon, in which I would dwell upon the word "_editionem_" (well known to the initiated): "Explicit quintus ac totus formicarii liber uxta editionem fratris Iohannis Nider," &c., "Impressum Auguste per Anthonium Sorg."
10. In what place and year was Wilhelmi Summa Viciorum first printed? Fabricius and Cave are certainly mistaken when they say Colon. 1479. In the volume, which I maintain to be of greater antiquity, the letters c and _t_, s and _t_, are curiously united, and the commencement of it