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

first printed? I
do not mean the supposititious work, which is often confounded with
the other one; but that which is also styled Super Evangelium Missus
est _Quæstiones_. And why are these Questions invariably said to be
230 in number, when there are 275 chapters in the book? Beughem
asserts that the earliest edition is that of Milan in 1489 (_Vid._ Quetif
et Echard, i. 176.), but what I believe to be a volume of older date is
"sine ullâ notâ;" 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 à 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, _Méth. pour étud.
l'Hist._, iii. 8., à 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