Philippus de Barberiis (Filippo de Barbieri)

Discordantiae sanctorum doctorum Hieronymi et Augustini;
Sibyllarum et prophetarum de Christo vaticinia.

[with:] Faltonia Betitia Proba: Cento vergilianus;
Donatus Theologicus;
Pseudo-Thomas Aquinas: Praefatio super symbolum Athanasii;
etc.


Rome: Giovanni Filippo De Lignamine, 1 Dec 1481.



Price: $22,000

Text in Latin. Profusely illustrated with woodcuts.

We are pleased to offer a COMPLETE example of the RARE SECOND ISSUE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS FASCINATING INCUNABULUM.

Considerably enlarged, this second issue is generally preferred to the first issue (with the same colophon date 1 Dec. 1481), which comprised only 70 leaves and only 13 illustrations. It is expanded to 82 leaves and ILLUSTRATED WITH 29 FASCINATING LARGE WOODCUTS of twelve Sibyls, twelve Biblical Prophets, Christ, John the Baptist, the Virgin adoring the Holy Child, Plato, and Proba Faltonia. Of these only the Proba woodcut comes from the first issue. The sibyl cuts, with slight shading and architectural settings, differ from the initial outline cuts; the other illustrations did not appear in the first issue at all. This is, actually, the only incunable printing of this work which is so richly illustrated (all others containing only the 12 sibyls and Proba).

The two issues of the 1481 first edition of Barberiis' Discordantiae are AMONG THE FIRST ILLUSTRATED BOOKS PRINTED IN ROME.

Bernard Quaritch calls this edition "EXTREMELY RARE" and notes that "It has the merit of being one of the earliest books printed in Rome illustrated by an Italian artist, as previous works contained woodcuts either by German masters or much influenced in style by these latter." (B. Quaritch, Cat. 245 [Dec. 1905], no.173)

The woodcuts of this edition are strikingly minimalist and naive, but vigorous and expressive in their medieval simplicity. Lippmann writes about them: "Although angular in manner, and coarse in their outlines, they were evidently designed by an Italian artist of no mean ability." (F. Lippmann, Art of Wood-engraving in Italy in the Fifteenth Century, p.12)

Although most of the woodcuts are believed to be of Italian design, those on depicting the Christ and the Nativity are based on engravings by the Master E.S. (c. 1420 - c. 1468), an unidentified engraver and printmaker of the late Gothic period, who came from southwestern Germany or Switzerland, and was the first major German artist of old master prints. Also, the woodcut showing disgorging of Jonah by the whale is loosely based on a Jonah's image in an Netherlandish or German Biblia pauperum block-book (ca. 1460). This spectacular book and is extremely important as "THE PRIMARY LITERARY SOURCE FOR THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE SIBYLS, USED DURING THE QUATTROCENTO" (C. De Tolnay, Michelangelo: The Sistine Ceiling, p.152).

Most scholars believe that Michelangelo's depiction of the sibyls and prophets in his masterpiece frescoes in the Sistine Chapel was, in fact, inspired by the woodcuts in this 1481 edition of Barbieri's Discordantiae: "The sibyls [...] had been represented in the art of the Middle Ages and the earlier Renaissance but had never loomed as large as they do in the vault of the Sistine Chapel, where they are given equal status with the prophets. Michelangelo's innovation reflects the shifting theology of his times. In fifteenth-century Italy, humanist scholars had pioneered a revival of interest in the writings of the classical and early Christian periods, as a result of which the sibyls had become the focus of renewed attention. The culmination of this process was the publication of a treatise on [...] the oracles of the sibyls by the Dominican friar Filippo Barbieri, in 1481. The attributes which Michelangelo gave to some of the five sibyls whom he chose to represent suggest that he, or somebody advising him was familiar with this book.” (Andrew Graham-Dixon, Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel, Part 2, Ch.VII)

"In 1481, the physician-printer, Joannes Philippus de Lignamine, issued an edition of the Opuscula of Philippus de Barberiis adorned with twenty-nine cuts representing twelve prophets, twelve sibyls, St. John the Baptist, the Holy Family, Christ with the Emblems of his Passion, the virgin Proba, and the philosopher Plato. Plato, Malachi, and Hosea are all represented by the same cut, another serves for both Jeremiah and Zechariah, and two of the Sibyls are also made to merge their individualities. With the exception of the figure of Christ, which is merely painful, the cuts are pleasantly [...] rude, the rakish appearance of the prophets being especially noticeable. Nevertheless, they are not without vigour, and are, to my thinking, greatly preferable to the more conventional figures of the twelve Sibyls and Proba which appeared shortly afterwards in an undated edition of the same book, printed by Sixtus Riessinger of Strassburg, during short stay at Rome..." (Alfred W. Pollard, Early Illustrated Books, p.85)

"The woodcuts of the prophets and sibyls face each other (cf. the prophets and sibyls in Michaelangelo's Sistine chapel paintings), King David facing the the Sibyl of Cumae, who is said by Virgil in Eclogue IV to have foretold the birth of Christ (lines 4-10 of the poem are actually quoted beneath the woodcut; the other legends are all in prose, largely taken from the O.T.), and Isaiah facing Christ, followed by John the Baptist facing a cut of the Nativity with a non-biblical text. Last comes Plato (with the opening words of St. John's gospel as legend), but facing a page of text in which Augustine statements about Plato are given, followed by mention of Hermes Trismegistus and Aristotle. The Cento of Faltonia Betitia Proba, Christian poetess and the wife of the prefect of Rome in 351, is preceded by a woodcut of her. This Cento is made up of lines of Virgil arranged to give an account of the creation of the world and the life of Christ, a suitable adjunct to what has been foretold foretold by sibyls and prophets about his coming.

"The remaining texts of St. Thomas on the Credo and the great hymns and prayers of the church, again form a most fitting sequel, and the Donatus theologus, [...] a brief summary of Christian doctrine, its title taken from the most famous grammar textbook of the Middle Ages, and a work using grammar for theological questions [...] closes the volume." (Sotheby's Catalogue: A Second Selection of Printed Books mostly from the Fifteenth Century the Property of Mr. J. R. Ritman, Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, London, 5 Dec. 2001)

Physical description:

Quarto; text block measures 182 mm x 130 mm. Bound in late 16th-century (probably German) gilt-stamped vellum: boards with an arabesque lozenge shaped centerpiece and a fillet ruled border with fleuron corner-pieces.

82 leaves (forming 164 pages), without foliation or signature-marks.
Signature collation [1-28 36 4-108 114].
Collated and COMPLETE.

Printed in single column; 26–27 lines per page; in Roman letter: Typ. 2:114R.
Illustrated with 29 fine large woodcuts (ranging in size from 97 x 70 mm to 134 x 85 mm).
2- to 7-line capital spaces without guides (unrubricated).

Recto of the first leaf 11 blank; Dedicatory preface by the printer to Pope Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere) on leaves 11v-22v. Colophon on recto of the final leaf (114), verso blank.

Princeton University library catalogue notes that in their example (Dyson-Perrins - Ritman - Princeton copy) "gathering [11] is printed on a different stock of paper from the rest of the book; in texture and color it resembles parchment". In our example two final gatherings [10-11], i.e. the last twelve leaves, are, too, printed on a different stock with such characteristics.

Provenance:

Several early ownership inscriptions on the blank recto of the first leaf in early (15th and 16th-century) hands; one by Joachim Fenner (?) dated 1595, others mostly washed out or inked over, rendering them virtually illegible.

Early 20th-century catalogue clipping (in German) describing the book affixed to the front pastedown.

Condition:

Good antiquarian condition. Complete. Binding slightly rubbed and with light soiling; original cloth ties perished; endpapers renewed at some time (in 19th (?) century). Top margin trimmed somewhat closely, cutting slightly into the caption ’Sibylla Libica’ (on leaf 24), and just touching the top line of text on the bifolium 103,6, but without any loss of legibility. Woodcut of ’Sibylla Cumana’ (on leaf 31r) with partial hand-coloring in green and pink to the leg of the book-stand. Leaf 35r with a minor pinkish smudge to top margin (woodcut not affected). Blank recto of the first leaf (11r) reinforced along inner margin, somewhat browned and soiled, and with several early inscriptions, most inked-out or erased. Some infrequent ink manuscript marginalia in early (probably 15th-century) hand and a few minor corrections and underlinings in text; some of the manuscript marginalia partially shaved. Occasional minor soiling and light browning. A few quires slightly sprung (straining binding a bit), but binding tight and secure. In all, a solid, complete and clean example of this rare, richly illustrated incunable.

Bibliographic references:

Goff B119; Reichling (Appendix to Hain-Copinger) 2455; Proctor 3961; BMC IV 131; GW 3386; GfT 2192; Pellechet 1843; IGI 1246; Sander 773; Bod-inc B-053; Sheppard 3136; Walsh 1484; Dibdin, Bibliotheca Spenceriana III, 626.


Please click on thumbnails below to see larger images.


Further notes:

The Sibyls were female oracles in ancient Greece believed to possess prophetic powers. The earliest Sibyls (who admittedly are known only through legend) prophesied at certain holy sites (such as Delphi and Pessinos), under the divine influence of a deity, originally one of the chthonic deities. A number of sibyls of later antiquity are attested by various writers, in Greece and Italy, but also in the Levant and Asia Minor. From the high Middle Ages on, theologians interpreted the prophecies of some of the sibyls as announcements of Christ's birth, death, and resurrection.

In the first treatise of this compilation Barbieri appeals to the authority of the pagan sibyls to resolve doctrinal differences between Jerome and Augustine on the validity of prophecy coming coming from outside Christian tradition. The author appears to be an adherent (or at least a sympathizer) of the fashionable humanist idea of the Prisca Theologia (the ancient, or primordial theology) propounded by the great Italian Renaissance neo-platonists such as Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, who allowed that Christianity was merely the latest and best form of divine revelation to the human race. They argued that pagan religious traditions had also been based on revelations to great religious thinkers such as Plato and Hermes Trismegistus, and that high paganism conveyed divine truths essentially identical to those of Christianity, though more obscurely. Drawing parallels between the female prophets of the pagans - the sibyls - and the Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament, like Barbieri does in this book, fit well within this tradition.

Barbieri's admiration of Plato is obvious as he is the only philosopher whose woodcut portrait is included in the book, alongside Christ, St John, Hebrew prophets, and the sibyls: "Plato philosophies" is depicted on verso of f.[24] (recto being occupied with a woodcut of the Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child), with a truly perplexing caption: "Plato dicit: In principio erat verbum & verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat verbum, etc. [...]", i.e. attributing to Plato (?!) the famous opening of John 1:1.

Barbieri also speaks rather favorably of astrology, saying in effect that the astrological "science of the stars" is rooted in divine revelation.

Before Barbieri's work appeared, the main source of information on the Sibyls had been Lactantius' Divine institutes, who (quoting from a lost work of Varro) describes ten sibyls: Persian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian, Erythraean, Samian, Cumaean, Hellespontine, Phrygian and Tiburtine. However, Barbieri's treatise, which systematically describes the twelve [sibyls], noting their place of origins and providing for each of them an attribute, a fragment of their oracular prophecy, and a corresponding prophet, "in Italy, at any rate, quite superseded Lactantius and ... had an extraordinary influence on the art of all Europe. In this treatise, which is entitled Duodecim Sibyllarum Vaticinia, Barbieri adds two new Sibyls, Agrippa, and Europa, and gives the age, appearance, costume, and attributes of nearly every Sibyl. Moreover, the prophecies which he assigns to them differ completely from those of Lactantius. AS THE RESULT OF THIS TREATISE THE SIBYLS HAD A VERY GREAT VOGUE IN ITALIAN ART, CULMINATING WITH THE STUPENDOUS FIGURES OF MICHELANGELO IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL." (Arthur A. Tilley, The Dawn Of The French Renaissance, p.547)

A remarkable typographical error that occurred in this edition is believed to have been responsible for the presence of Jonah among the seven prophets depicted by Michelangelo on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. A. H. Mayor remarks that Barbieri "was probably in Sicily when a relative [Lignamine] in Rome published his manuscript, [...] [as] Gideon's request to God in Iudici (Judges) was printed as from "Ione” - for which the illustrator [...] copied the whale spewing up Jonah from a northern block-book Bible of the Poor [Biblia Pauperum]. [...] 27 years later, when Michelangelo started to fresco the Sistine Chapel with five of the sibyls and seven of the prophets illustrated in Barberiis' book, he put Jonah thrown up out of the whale's jaws (instead of Gideon and the fleece) centrally over the altar." (Alpheus Hyatt Mayor, Prints & People: A Social History of Printed Pictures, p. 67-8).

This observation has apparently been first made in early 20th century by the French art historian Émile Male (1862 - 1954), director of the Académie de France à Rome: "That the splendid figure of Jonah in the painting by Michaelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel of the Vatican, is due to a typographical error seems to be clearly demonstrated by Émile Male, a French savant. Up to now the art critics have been wondering how the 'minor prophet' Jonah came to be placed among the company of more illustrious prophets and sibyls in this composition of Michaelangelo's. M. Male gives this explanation: A Dominican, Philippo Barbieri, in 1481, wrote a treatise on the sibyls and prophets, whose presentation coincides in a remarkable manner with that of Michaelangelo in his picture. In this work Barbieri puts words into Jonah's mouth which were borrowed from the sixth chapter of Judges (verses 37-39), and which refer to the fleece of wool of Gideon. This quotation was supposed, in the Middle Ages, to prophesy the coming of the Messiah and was always placed among the predictions of the prophets and sibyls. The explanation of this mistake in Barbieri's treatise is to be found in a gross compositor's error, as it is not to be supposed, since Barbieri was a learned theologian, that he would be guilty of the misprint. Very likely, in his Latin manuscript he had written 'Judic. VI,' of which the compositor made 'Jona VI.' (The Book of Jonah has but four chapters.) The illustrator of the treatise, who, it seems, did not inquire into the correctness of the text, added a woodcut representing Jonah and the whale. [...] And Michaelangelo, being perhaps a better painter than Bible student, queried nothing and took Barbieri's prophets as he found them and incorporated Jonah with the rest in his immortal work in the Sistine chapel, thereby confounding the art critics." ('Incidents in Foreign Graphic Circes', in Inland Printer, Vol. LXV (1910), pp. 877-8)

Regarding the bibliography of this edition and the relation between its two issues Alfred W. Pollard writes: "The bibliographical puzzle which this book presents has recently been cleared up by the discovery that there are two issues identical as regards 52 of their leaves including that which gives the register and colophon. The earlier issue consisted of only 70 leaves, of which the first two were added after the book was printed while the other nine quires agree with the register... Either to meet the competition of Riessinger's edition or because his fellow countryman and kinsman the author supplied him with additional copy, Lignamine must have determined to enlarge the book almost as soon as it was issued. The 12 woodcuts of the Sibyls were replaced by new ones, and each is now followed by a cut of a prophet, and the double series of 24 woodcuts by pictures of Christ, John Baptist, the Virgin adoring the Holy Child, and Plato, the designs, which must themselves have been rather fantastic [and] often full of life, being sadly spoilt by bad cutting. The prefatory letter to the Pope takes note of these additions." (Alfred W. Pollard, Italian book-illustrations and early printing [...] in the library of C. W. Dyson Perrins, no.23)

The printer of this fine illustrated incunabulum, Giovanni Filippo De Lignamine, born in Messina in 1428, "became papal physician to Sixtus IV. He printed some forty books in the years 1470-6, and then ceased work for some time, possibly because the death of the Pope obliged him to leave Rome to escape the numerous enemies to whom he alludes in the dedication of the Chronica Summorum pontificum which he edited and printed in 1474. In 1481 he resumed printing, but only issued two books in addition to this. Filippo de' Barbieri, a Dominican and an inquisitor, was a contemporary and like his printer a Sicilian." (Pollard/Dyson Perrins, no.23)

Lippmann writes about Lignamine: "Amongst the chief promoters of the new art of Typography, was Joannes Philippus de Lignamine, a physician who had achieved distinction in various branches of literature, and one of the most intimate friends of Cardinal Francesco della Rovere (afterwards Pope Sixtus IV). He set up a press in Rome, and worked at it himself, rather as an enthusiastic dilettante than for the purpose of gain. [...] Besides directing his efforts to the procurement of a handsomer and more tasteful Latin type than had yet been employed in Rome, Lignamine also conceived the idea of sending out his books - mostly of small size and extent - decorated with woodcuts." (Friedrich Lippmann, The art of wood-engraving in Italy in the fifteenth century, p.12)

The author, Filippo Barbieri (1426 - 1487), a relative of the printer, de Lignamine, was a noted Dominican historian, theologian and a member of the Dominican order, and chief inquisitor of Sicily, Malta, and Sardinia. He was born in Syracuse, travelled much in Spain, where he was involved in the prosecution of the Jews in 1479-80.