After exact and diligent revision, by the help of God, this renowned and excellent work has been completed, the Explanation of the Psalms of the divine and great doctor Augustine, a work in very truth approving itself to its readers as worthy of greater praise than can be unfolded in any words, as can plainly be gathered from its preface and prologue. But with how much study and accuracy it has been corrected, emended, and set in order, let those judge who have compared it with other texts like itself, whether in manuscript or in brass-printed letters. Finished at Basel by Master Johann von Amerbach A.D. 1489.
Perhaps even more cheering than this pleasant and reasonable self-confidence is the mild shadow of an oath, a simple “Hercule,” with which Heinrich Quentell asseverates that his edition of the De Veritate of S. Thomas Aquinas truly rejoices in the true title of truth! We may note also the little arrangement by which the printer contrived to bring his work to an end on the very day of the saint’s festival.
Diui Thome aquinatis doctoris angelici illuminatissimi summa de veritate, per theozophie professorem eximium, Magistrum Theodericum de Susteren, insignis conuentus Coloniensis ordinis fratrum Predicatorum regentem profundissimum, denuo peruigili studio in luculentam erecta consonantiam, adeo hercule vt vere vero veritatis titulo gaudeat. Impressa Agrippine opera atque impensis prouidi viri Henrici Quentell, ciuis eiusdem. Anno salutis humane nonagesimonono supra millesimum quadringentesimum Ipso die celebritatis autoris cursu felici ad finem vsque perducta.
The Summa de Veritate (Epitome of Truth) of St. Thomas Aquinas, the angelic and most illuminate doctor, by the distinguished professor of divine learning Theoderic of Susteren, a regent deeply versed of the famous Cologne Convent of the order of Preaching Friars, newly by assiduous study restored to a fruitful harmony, so by Hercules that it truly rejoices in the true title of Truth, and printed at Cologne by the efforts and at the expense of the prudent Heinrich Quentell, citizen of the same, in the year of man’s salvation 1499, has been brought with favorable course even unto completion on the very festival of its author.
In all these books editors could have had no difficulties to deal with save those which arise when texts are copied and recopied with the inevitable introduction of small errors at every stage, and perhaps some even more dangerous attempts to correct those already made. But in one class of printing, that of liturgical books, in which absolute accuracy of text and punctuation was of supreme importance, the need for careful supervision was really very great,—so much so, indeed, that the great bulk of liturgical printing was entrusted to firms who made a specialty of it. It is not surprising, therefore, to find some special insistence on the editorial virtues of a missal-printer; and the colophon to the Salzburg Missal printed by Georg Stuchs at Nuremberg in 1498 is interesting for its detailed account of the system of punctuation.
Missale et de tempore et de sanctis non modo secundum notulam metropolitane ecclesie Salisburgensis ordinatum, verum etiam haud exigua opera adhibita, tum in quottis foliorum locandis, tum in remissionis discreto numero tam circa quamlibet lectionem vel prophetalem vel apostolicam quam circa quodlibet euangelium alio in loco plenarie locatum, situando reuisum. Deinde autem per cola et comata distinctum. Simplici puncto in collectis secretis complendis lectionibus epistolis et euangeliis locato colum indicante, gemino uero puncto coma significante: sed in introitu graduali alleluia sequentiis offertoris et communione puncto simplici locato mediam distinctionem que comatis appellatione venit presentante, gemino autem puncto subdistinctionem que colum nuncupatur signante. Demum uero in officina Georii [sic] Stöchs ex Sulczpach, ciuis Nurnbergensis, expensa Ioannis Ryman impressum. Idibus Augusti anni ab incarnatione Messye nonagesimi octaui supra millesimum quadragintesimum: finit.
A missal both for the seasons and saints’ days, not only arranged according to the order of the metropolitan church of Salzburg, but also revised with no small pains, both in setting down the numbers of the leaves and in assigning a distinctly numbered reference for every lesson, whether taken from the books of the Prophets or of the Apostles, and also for every gospel placed elsewhere in its full form: Distinguished, moreover, by colons and commas: in the Collects, Secrets, Post Communions, Lessons, Epistles and Gospels, the placing of a single point denoting a colon, a double point signifying a comma; but in the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Sequences, Offertory and Communion the placing of a single point indicating the middle distinction which goes by the name of a comma, the double point the subdistinction which is called a colon. Now at last printed in the workshop of Georg Stuchs of Sulzbach, citizen of Nuremberg, at the expense of Johann Ryman, and completed on the 13th August of the year from the Messiah’s incarnation 1498.
In a Roman missal printed by G. Arrivabenus & P. de Paganinis at Venice in 1484 the colophon alludes to the common practice of correcting the text of a printed missal by hand, sometimes to bring it up to date, but also for the elimination of the printer’s errors. In this case the printers make bold to say that their text is so correct that any one who tampers with it rashly is as likely to turn right into wrong as wrong into right.
Roman Missal. Venice: G. Arriuabenus and P. de Paganinis, 1484.