MU Library Treasures
The MU Library Treasures Blog provides an insight into the early print, manuscript and other special collections of the Russell Library and John Paul II Library at Maynooth University. It has a range of highlights and interesting facts about the 40,000+ works in Special Collections & Archives and contains exhibition sneak peeks, staff picks and focus features. Check out this blog at MU Library Treasures.
Blog Posts
Video Series
- Library Treasures: Heritage Week 2022| The St. Canice’s Cathedral Library CollectionThis link opens in a new windowAug 19, 2022
For this National Heritage Week 2022 edition of our Library Treasures video, Rare Books Librarian Yvette Campbell takes us on an exciting adventure with some stunning book history from the St. Canice’s Cathedral Library Collection. Prepare yourself for the most beautiful incunabula, early printed books, inscriptions and even a little fragmentology!
Podcast
- Interview with Poet Dr. Kimberly Campanello Pt. 2This link opens in a new windowMay 4, 2023
In this episode of the Library Treasures Podcast, our Archivist Ciara Joyce and Library Assistant David Rinehart interview associate professor of Creative Writing at the University of Leeds, and poet Dr. Kimberly Campanello. We discuss her work, such as MOTHERBABYHOME, and the work she is doing with the Pearse Hutchinson Archive at Maynooth University’s Special Collections and Archives.
Music By: bensound.com
Latest Blog
- Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, What is the Oldest Book of All?This link opens in a new windowApr 1, 2025
By Yvette Campbell, Assistant Librarian, Special Collections & Archives
One of the most common questions we receive from guests and visitors to the Russell Library is “what is the oldest book you have in the library” – well look no further, below we will take you on a deep dive of one of the recently catalogued treasures of St. Patrick’s College Maynooth.
A rediscovered incunable
The oldest printed book held in the Russell Library is known as the Comestorium Vitiorum (RB 5) written by the Dominican theologian Franciscus (Franz) de Retza (1343–1427) who was Professor of Theology at Vienna. It is the only printed edition of this work created during the 15th century and the first dated book to be printed at Nuremberg in 1470. During the first 100 years of the printing press, Nuremberg was a major centre for production of incunabula.
Colophon The Comestorium Vitiorum was printed by Johann Sensenschmidt and Heinrich Kefer – both men with strong connections to Johannes Gutenberg. Kefer is known to have been an assistant of Gutenberg, and both printers were involved in the printing trade in Mainz. Sensenschmidt was the earliest printer in Nuremberg and worked there until approximately 1478, when he moved his establishment to Bamberg.
The text which literally translates as ‘Vice Eaters’ explores the treatise on the causes of the seven deadly sins (Greed, Pride, Sloth, Lust, Wrath, Envy and Gluttony), together with references to the corresponding seven virtues (Faith, Hope, Fortitude, Temperance, Charity, Justice and Prudence). The initials in this copy remain un-decorated with blank spaces for rubrication and illumination. Unsurprisingly, because of its early age, the leaves contain remnants of the textual features of manuscripts as evidenced in the typeface and in the use of manicula (little hands) and marginal space.
Binding
Decorative claps details of a little musical Fool The text-block is protected in its exquisite full contemporary German blind-stamped calf over beveled-edge wooden boards, with a large blind tooled central panel of four lozenges and twelve diamond shapes featuring fleur-de-lys, trefoils, flower motifs and arches, intersected by double fillets.
The metal clasps have the distinctive “fishtail” shape due to the splayed attachment ends which would have been riveted onto a leather strap. The fore-edge bears the remains of these straps. The binding also features the cutest metal clasps with decorative jester-type figures playing the violin and pipes wearing the signature donkey-ear hood! (see image below). These clasps compliment the Comestorium perfectly with the Fool representing vice itself – a common depiction of the Middle Ages and associated with the seven deadly sins.
Provenance
Provenance research carried out while cataloguing this incunable has revealed that this book was originally in the possession of the seminary library of Pelplin in Poland (now the Diocesan Library of Pelplin). The incipit bears a 15th century inscription and evidence of a bookplate, long-removed. The inscription reads: “Liber B. Mariae in Polplin” and the book plate (should it have remained) would have likely been that from the seminary itself.
Further research has uncovered that there were originally two copies of this work held in Pelplin seminary with one copy containing fully decorated initials with rubrication, and the other copy remained un-decorated showing the book as it came from the printing press. The un-decorated copy is held in Maynooth.
Use slider in centre of image to see a comparison of the incipit from Pelplin copy (left) and Maynooth copy (right). Furthermore, this association with Pelplin connects this text to another very well-known work housed in the Diocesan Museum in Pelplin – notably the famous Gutenberg Bible of which only 48 of 200 have survived worldwide. This two-volume treasure also known as the Pelplin Bible, was printed with the new technology of moveable type between 1452 and 1453 in Gutenberg’s Mainz workshop. It is the only Gutenberg Bible in Poland and one of the few whose two volumes have survived from the 15th century despite its turbulent history.
Provenance inscription and remains of bookplate During World War II, some of the treasures of Pelplin seminary library including the Gutenberg Bible was hidden in a bank vault and transported by train across Europe, surviving gunfire, and eventually to Canada for safekeeping to prevent them from falling into Nazi hands. While the exact circumstances remain unknown in how and when precisely the Comestorium came to Maynooth, it is likely that this remarkable work found its way to St. Patrick’s College at some point in the preceding century. However one thing is certain, the famous Gutenberg Bible would have been part of its original family!
Cataloguing
This 15th century treasure has long remained uncatalogued until now, allowing enthusiastic visitors and staff an opportunity to appreciate its status as the oldest printed book in the collection. According to the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), a database listing copies of incunabula held in institutions around the world, this is the only known copy of this work held in Ireland. Future work to consolidate the history of this copy will include a contribution of our bibliographic record to the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL)’s Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database designed to record and search the material evidence of 15th-century printed books.
A special thank you to Magdalena Meller-Konieczna from the Diocesan Library of Pelplin for the invaluable assistance with this research. Image from Pelplin copy used with kind permission of the Director Rev. Prof. Jan Walkusz of the Diocesan Library of Pelplin.
