Obsequiale Augustense

Obsequiale Augustense
Erhard Ratdolt, 1487
MUSIC – Obsequiale Augustense. Augsburg: Erhard Ratdolt, 1 February 1487.

An attractive liturgical manual from the press of Erhard Ratdolt, in a 17th-century binding for the Abbot of Lambach. Ratdolt moved his press across the Alps from Venice to his native Augsburg in 1486, having been summoned by Bishop Johann II von Werdenberg to produce liturgical books for his diocese. This is one of the first works completed upon his re-settling in that city, and its prefatory material includes a letter describing this new relationship. In addition to a woodcut illustration of the bishop, this work includes musical notation printed using metal rules for staves mixed with woodcut gothic notation—a difficult combination which probably inspired his commissioning a metal musical type several years later. This copy was later bound for the Abbot of Lambach—a house long known for its Medieval musical scriptorium, and which would later inspire musical works by both Mozart and his father. ISTC records only one other copy in the US (incomplete); ABPC and RBH record no copies at auction in over 50 years. HC 11925*; BMC II 380; BSB-Ink R-199; Boh(LB) 743; Meyer-Baer 222; Goff O-1; ISTC io00001000.

Super-chancery quarto (215 x 160mm). 100 leaves. Printed in red and black. Full-page woodcut of a bishop and Augsburg episcopal armorials with hand-coloring, woodcut initials, printed musical notation (some headlines just shaved, wormholes and dust-soiling, M1 strengthened at inner margin, textblock cracked). 17th-century blindstamped pigskin over wooden boards, brass clasps, front board stamped with PAZL and 1659, manuscript fragments reused as pastedowns (some worming). Provenance: manuscript notes (some trimmed) and prayers dated 1545 – Placidus, Abbot zu Lambach (1640-1678; binding) – acquired from William H. Schab, New York, 8 February 1960.