The Mainz Psalters and Canon Missae, 1457-1459

Bibliographical Society, London, first edition, 1954. Cloth-backed boards, folio, 42 cm,. viii, 72 pp, ills, facs, tables. From the introduction: "The primary aim of the special methods adopted in this study was, first, to sort out among all available copies of the 1457 Psalter whatever different printings might prove to be represented among them, and then to array these printings in the chronological order of their production as far as the combined evidence from those methods might show it. Throughout, a radical distinction is made between variants on a page which are due merely to current improvements in the forme at the press, and those which are due to a completely fresh setting from case, i.e. a true reprint The same kinds of evidence, extracted from the Canon Missae in all its examples, and from the 1459 Psalter in some of its examples, would also enable one to relate the period of the printing of the Canon to those of the Psalters…. In the rest of this account the more general features of the 1457 Psalter, and the classification of its extant copies, are first critically examined, results of my own observations being brought in; then, after a digression upon pinholes, the results of a series of detailed typographic surveys of both the Psalters and the Canon Missae all together are given under several heads; these establish a number of points of technique, and also enable conclusions to be stated upon the sequence of printing the 1457 Psalter and the make-up of its extant copies. Major aspects of the Canon Missae are then examined, and its relations to the Psalter of 1457 and that of 1459 are stated. Unexpectedly, connexions were found between the 1457 Psalter and the 42-line Bible, and these are discussed at suitable points. Board edges a little darkened, otherwise a Very Good copy.