New Resource: Early Printed and Manuscript Leaf Collection Finding Aid

While summer may mean the end of the school year, you can still explore library resources from home!  If you have some spare time, explore hidden gems in Special Collections and University Archives like the Early Printed and Manuscript Leaf collection.  The collection consists of printed and illuminated manuscript leaves from Europe dated from the 12th -16th centuries and includes some of the oldest items in Hornbake Library. There are a total of 70 whole and partial leaves, representing a variety of styles and techniques that serve as a sampling of early print and manuscript book history.

The Early Printing Collection: An Introduction

Special Collections and University Archives at UMD is home to a new (very old!) collection of early printing. The collection has been processed and digitized, and is available in Digital Collections or by request in person in the Maryland Room in Hornbake Library. You can also view our Flickr album featuring images from the collection.

Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493

The Early Printing Collection is a set of thirty-six leaves and pages that were printed in Europe in the late 15th century. It includes printed pages from many well-known works, including the The Nuremberg Chronicle, Historia Scholastica and The Cologne Chronicle.

Incunabula

Typographical printing done before 1501 in Europe is often called Incunabula, a funny pseudo-Latin phrase that refers to the birth of printing in the 15th century. The 15th century saw important advances in the movable type printing press thanks to Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press invented around 1450. The Gutenberg Bible is the first (and probably most famous) book printed using movable type, and while you won’t find any of its pages in the Early Printing Collection, the collection does feature many other pages from Bibles and other religious and historical chronicles printed around the same time period. Within the collection the printing itself is generally clear and easy to read — that is, if you understand Latin or Middle German!