To the praise and glory of the undivided Trinity and of the glorious Virgin Mary, and to the profit of the church, the sermons of Master Albert of the order of Preachers were printed and finished in Cologne by me, Arnold therhoernen, in the year of our Lord 1474, on the very day of the glorious and holy vigil of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Examples of colophons in this vein could be multiplied almost indefinitely. That appended by the Brothers of the Common Life, at their convent of Hortus Viridis (Green Garden) at Rostock, to an edition of the “Sermones de Tempore” of Johannes Herolt is much more distinctive. Herolt’s name is duly recorded in editions printed at Reutlingen and Nuremberg, but his work was usually quoted as the “Sermones Discipuli,” and the good brothers begin by commenting on his modesty.
Humilibus placent humilia. Huius gratia rei Doctor hic precellens supresso proprio nomini uocabulo Sermones hos prehabitos Discipuli prenotatosque alias maluit nuncupari. Quique tamen, ut luce clarius patet, de sub manibus euasit Doctor magistri. Huic applaudere, hunc efferre laudibus, hunc predicatum iri, miretur nemo, cum certissime constat inter modernos sermonistas eum in uulgi scientia tenere principatum. Huius igitur zeli cupientes fore consortes nos fratres presbiteri et clerici Viridis Horti in Rostock ad sanctum Michaelem, non uerbo sed scripto predicantes, virum hunc preclarum apud paucos in conclauis iactitantem foras eduximus Arte impressoria, artium omnium ecclesie sancte commodo magistra, in notitiam plurimorum ad laudem cunctipotentis Dei. Anno incarnationis Dominice M.cccc.Lxxvi. tercio Kalendas Novembris.
Humble courses please the humble. For which cause this eminent Doctor preferred to suppress his own name and have these Sermons, already delivered and set down elsewhere, announced as the Sermons of a Disciple. And yet he, as is clearer than day, has passed as a Doctor from the rule of his master. Let no one wonder that he should be applauded, that men should extol him with their praises, that he should be preached, since it is most assuredly true that among modern sermon-writers he, in knowledge of the people, holds the first place. Desiring, therefore, to be partners of this zeal, we, the brothers, priests, and clergy of Green Garden in Rostock attached to S. Michael, preaching not orally but from manuscript, have thought that this admirable book, which was lurking in the hands of a few in their cells, should be published abroad by the printing art, chief of all arts for the advantage of holy church, that it may become known to many, to the praise of Almighty God. In the year of the Lord’s incarnation 1476, on October 30th.
Of the dated editions of the Sermons this of Rostock is the earliest, so that the claim of the brothers to have rescued it from neglect was apparently justified. Their praise of printing as “chief of all arts for the advantage of holy church” is very notable, though quite in accordance with German feeling. In the sixteenth century the doctors of the Sorbonne were much more doubtful on the subject. The brothers printed a few secular works at Rostock, e.g. the Metamorphoses of Ovid and Guido delle Colonne’s History of the Destruction of Troy. But the bulk of their work was theological or devotional, and their desire to improve their own sermons seems touchingly genuine and by no means commercial.
In the same year as the Rostock brothers printed the “Sermones Discipuli,” Leonardus Achates of Basel issued at Vicenza a Latin Bible to which was appended a lengthy colophon in praise of the study of the Scriptures, almost the only eulogy of the kind with which I have met.
Latin Bible. Vicenza: Leonardus Achates, 1476.
Lector quisquis es, si christiane sentis, te non pigeat hoc opus sanctissimum, que biblia inscribitur, magna cum animi voluptate degustare, degustandumque aliis persuadere: nuper impressum a Leonardo Basileensi magna cum diligentia. In eo enim fidei nostre fundamentum situm est: et christiane religionis decus ac radix. Ex eo tibi cognitionem rerum omnium in quibus salus nostra consistit legendo comparabis: quod eo libentius facere debes quo in tam felici seculo codex hic preciosissimus in lucem emendatissimus uenit, pontificatus uidelicet sanctissimi domini nostri pape domini Xisti [Sixti] quarti anno quinto, et imperii christianissimi Frederici tertii anno uigesimo sexto, et Andree Vendramini ducis inclyti uenetorum anno primo. MCCCCLXXVI sexto ydus maias.