Pontificale Romanum

Pontificale Romanum
Stephan Plannck, 1485
MUSIC – Pontificale Romanum. Rome: Stephan Plannck, 20 December 1485.

First edition, illuminated. The first dated book to use this method of printing music was Ulrich Han's Missale romanum of 12 October 1476. Stephan Plannck, who worked for Han before he set up on his own in 1478, inherited and used Han's music type. His two editions of the Roman Pontifical, the present first edition and a second edition of 1497, were the only two editions printed in the 15th century of this book of rites and ceremonies performed by bishops. The text of the pontifical is unusual for the amount of red printing it contains, a consequence of the long rubrics giving liturgical instructions. The normal practice in two-color incunable printing was to print the red first, followed by the black. In Plannck's pontifical the red lines of the musical staves appear to lie over the black neumes. This may be due in part to the rejection of the black ink by the shiny red ink underlying it. HC 13285; BMC IV 86; Bod-inc P-441; IGI 8020; Goff P-933; ISTC ip00933000.

Median folio (329 x 230mm). 300 leaves (of 302, without first and last blanks; 3 leaves of manuscript prayers bound at beginning). Printed in red and black throughout. Red and blue initials in a variety of styles and sizes, some illuminated; partially-completed illuminated floral border on first text leaf, woodcut music (first few leaves remargined at gutter and with other small repairs, worming, some dampstaining and other stains; loss of pigment and gold on some initials, some initials smudged). Contemporary Italian blindtooled calf over wooden boards (rebacked, worn, lacking straps, worming). Provenance: marginalia and additional prayers in several hands from several time periods – acquired from Menno Hertzberger and Co, Amsterdam, 18 May 1966.