The Bruno Psalter 1475

LIBR 280

Dawn Jamros

San Jose State University

The Bruno Psalter Study

March 5, 2013

Introduction

     The Bruno Psalter 1475 is the oldest printed book that is housed at The Foley Library on the campus of  Gonzaga University in Spokane,Washington. According to the Gonzaga Univeristy website, "Gonzaga University owes its founding and early formation to Sicilian-born Fr. Joseph Cataldo, S..J. (1837-1928). Chronically frail in health and seemingly unfit for the rigors of missionary life, Cataldo is a figure that continues to amaze and inspire researchers. He first joined his Italian Jesuit confreres in the Turin Province's "Montium Saxorum" Mission in 1865, established himself at St. Michael's Mission among the Upper Spokane's, and quickly became a dominant force in the area. Cataldo was appointed General Superior of the Rocky Mountain Mission in 1877, then comprising eight Residences and thirty-eight active members scattered throughout Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon.

The The Ralph E. and Helen Higgins FoleyCenter Library opened on September 1, 1992. The facility is named in honor of Gonzaga alumnus Ralph E. Foley, who served with distinction as a Superior Court Judge in Eastern Washington for 34 years and was a member of the faculty of the Gonzaga University School of Law, and his wife Helen Higgins Foley, a former school teacher and the daughter of pioneer settlers. Judge and Mrs. Foley's son, the Hon. Thomas S. Foley, represented Washington's 5^th Congressional District in the U.S.House of Representatives for 14 consecutive terms and served as Speaker of the House from 1989-1995.(History of Gonzaga)

The Bruno Psalter is housed at the Foley Library in the Rare Book Collection on the third floor of the library.  The collection has more than 16,000 books. When viewing an item from the collection you are asked to wash your hands and wear white gloves provided by staff as well as use a book cradle. You can bring with you paper, pencils and laptop. I was not permitted to take my own pictures of the Bruno Psalter but was given permission to use the pictures from the library website.

What is a Psalter?

A Psalter is defined by Webster's dictionary as, the Old Testament book that contains hymns and poems traditionally ascribed to the Holy Prophet and King David, ancestor of our Lord Jesus Christ. Virtually every aspect of worship—praise, thanksgiving, penitence, intercession—is covered in the Psalter. The Bruno Psalter, "presents the text of the psalms in one column alongside a second column with the commentary of Bruno, Bishop of Würzburg (d. 1045), who was learned in Greek and Hebrew. Historically this was the first work printed in Würzburg, by Reyser." Wurzburg is located in Germany, is a city in the region of Franconia, Northern Bavaria, Germany.  Georg Reyser was a well known printer in Germany.

Context
     The Bruno Psalter was published in what is known as the "cradle days" of printing or the 15th century. Books published in this time, " include products of more than 1,000 presses, including such famous printers as Gutenberg, Jenson, Caxton, and Aldus Manutius and give evidence as to the development of typography in its formative period. These books were generally large quarto size, bound in calf over boards of wood, decorated with red initials (rubricated) and ornamental borders, and carrying a colophon but no title page."(Bruno Psalter)

Author 

Bruno of Würzburg (c. 1005 – 27 May 1045), also known as Bruno of Carinthia, was imperial chancellor of Italy from 1027 to 1034 for Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, to whom he was related, and from 1034 until his death prince-bishop of Würzburg.

Title 

 Throughout the Middle Ages Psalters were produced in relatively large numbers for different patrons and uses. The psalter is the most frequently preserved liturgical book from the early Middle Ages, and the most extensively illustrated medieval liturgical book.(Reardon)

 Incipit 
   Incipit   is a Latin word meaning "it begins". "The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is the first few words of its opening line.  Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits, as with for example Agnus Dei. In the medieval period, incipits were often written in a different script or color from the rest of the work of which they were a part, and "incipit pages" might be heavily decorated with illumination."(Avrin) As you can see the Bruno Psalter is heavily decorated and illuminated with leaves of gold on the first page.


Explicit-Because the Bruno Psalter is a work of religion the first text was not began with incipit "here begins" it would not be ended with explicit or Finit. In fact the Bruno Psalter ends with Amen.
Colophon

 As noted above the Bruno Psalter carries a colophon but no title page. A colophon is,

• A brief description of publication or production notes relevant to the edition, in modern books usually located at the verso of the title-leaf, but also sometimes located at the end of the book, or
• A printer's mark or logotype

 Size- I was not allowed to carry a ruler in to view the Bruno Psalter to measure it accurately. However it is a larger book measuring approximately 12inx 8in.

Binding

The binding of the Bruno Psalter is a contemporary or near-contemporary binding of pigskin over pine boards which are richly blind-tooled. The book has brass clasps and green edges.

Material Written on
The Bruno Psalter is written on parchment and is very delicate. A few of the pages have even been eaten away by a bookworm which you can see in a picture below.

How was it put together

  The Bruno Psalter was constructed by having a sheet of," material  "pasted down" on the inside of the cover and can extend onto the first page of the text block. In later books, in which paper is used for the pastedowns, they are usually called "endpapers." In many incunabula, however, these "pastedowns" are actually folios from medieval manuscripts. Gonzaga University's copy of the Bruno Psalter is enhanced with pastedowns from a medieval vellum antiphonary (13th/14th century), written in red and black, with floral borders. The original antiphonary was made on a large scale so that it could stand on a lectern in the midst of a schola and all the singers could read the words and notes. An illuminated miniature depicts St. Martin seated on his episcopal throne receiving a goose and a vessel of wine from two peasants. The miniature fills the initial M, the first letter of the first word of the antiphon: "Martinus abrahe sinu letus" ("Martin, happy in the bosom of Abraham..."). The text appears to be the antiphon for First Vespers of November 11. The manuscript pastedown at the back of the Bruno Psalter is possibly from the prior page of the same antiphonary. The antiphon Te gloriosus Apostolorum is used for All Saints (November 1), and here seems to be used for November 9 as well, given that there is a reference to Theodor, who is mentioned in the Oratio for the Dedication of the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior (Lateran?) on November 9. Liturgical instructions are often called rubrics because of the custom of writing them in red, as seen here."(Rare Book Collection)

Type of Writing 

Early printed books imitated the abbreviations used in manuscripts. The Bruno Psalter housed at Gonzaga also shows us that book worms do exist. The text shown beside the worm hole is "Ego autem in domino et non in mea iusticia, sed in fide divine protectionis gaudebo." In several places, abbreviations have been used, including a "suspension mark" above a word, to mark the omission of one or more letters, usually an m or n. An example is the word autem which appears simply as aut with a suspension mark. Names for God and the saints, nomina sacra, are frequently abbreviated. The standard abbreviation for dominus (Lord) is dn plus the final letter of the word, to indicate its grammatical case. (Bruno Psalter)

Ink
     The volume was printed in black with red ink used for initials and paragraph signs. This use of red ink is called rubrication, from the Latin word rubor, "redness."




Illumination

     The first page of the Psalter was illuminated, that is, it was decorated by hand with gold as well as colored ink. In this way the printer continued the practice of medieval scribes of adorning the first word of the first psalm, which begins with the words "Beatus vir" (Blessed is the man...).







Summary
     The Bruno Psalter was memorizing to view. In my hands I touched a book printed in 1475. It looked and smelled old and full of a history that one will never know. Such as who had touched the book, who had the book touched with its message. This experience allowed me to even deeper understand our need for libraries and an example of why libraries will not fade away. We will always need special places such as the Foley library to care for these items and allow other curious students and patrons to peruse their pages and imagine what history the book would tell if it indeed could talk.

References

Avrin, L. (1991).
     Scribes, script and books: The book arts from antiquity to the renaissance
     Chigago, IL: American Library Association.

 Bruno psalter

      (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gonzaga.edu/Academics/Libraries/Foley-
      Library/Departments/Special-Collections/Collections/rare-bookcollection/
      Bruno_Psalter.asp

 History of gonzaga university

     (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gonzaga.edu/About/Mission/History.asp

 Rare book collection

      (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gonzaga.edu/Academics/Libraries/Foley-
      Library/Departments/Special-Collections/Collections/rare-bookcollection/
      default.asp

 Reardon, P. (2000). Christ in the psalms. Conciliar Press.