history of chemistry

Incunables

The Department holds over 560 exemplars of books printed in Europe from movable type before 1501. Sixty-six of these titles are the only recorded copies in North America. These volumes contain texts in religion, philosophy, and ancient and modern literature.

Hand-colored woodcut of Helen of Troy from Boccacio's Von etlichen frowen
A few notable exemplars include the Aldine Aristotle (Venice 1495-1498), which complements the Department's many other early printed editions of and commentaries on Aristotle, as well as its manuscript commentaries on Aristotle; Boccaccio's De claris mulieribus in German, Von etlichen frowen (Ulm: Johann Zainer, [not before 15 August 1473]), a copy with beautifully hand-colored illustrations; the Inamoramento di Carlo Magno ([Venice:] Georgius Walch, 20 July 1481), one of the only two known surviving copies of this vernacular (Italian) verse romance on the life of Charlemagne; one of two recorded copies in North America of the editio princeps of Horace (Venice, ca. 1471-2); and a number of titles "not in Goff"--not listed, that is, in Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census, comp. and ed. Frederick R. Goff (New York 1964)--such as the Summa in virtutes cardinales et vitia illis [con]traria . . . [Paris: Ulrich Gering and Guillermus Maynyal, 16 August 1480] (Hain 15173), a treatise on the virtues and vices that is part of a collection of texts on this subject.