19. FROM AN EARLY ‘SAMMELBAND’

 (Pseudo-)AUGUSTINUS, Aurelius, Saint (354-430 CE). De cognitione verae vitae. [Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, not after 1474].

Frequently ascribed to St. Augustine, this little-known text was most likely written by Honorius of Autun (12th century). The original owner of this book, Wenceslaus Brack (d. 1495) of Salzburg, was the author of a popular schoolbook known as the Vocabularius rerum, which went through at least a dozen editions before 1500. He evidently had this brief tract from Schoeffer’s press bound together with five other works authored by Jean Gerson, as he inscribed the vellum flyleaf of his book with a table of contents that includes those works as well. The lost contents were most likely the collection of these five Gerson tracts printed together by Ulrich Zel at Cologne, c. 1472. Although Brack may have combined these disparate editions himself in this Sammelband (works bound together), his table of contents is perhaps evidence of Schoeffer’s continued practice of selling his own works alongside those of fellow printers such as Zel.

Full page view

Ownership inscription