“The clue is in the question.” (Les Dawson, 1931–1993)
1. Visually analyze the item, looking specifically for clues that might assist identification.
So, what do we have here?
Well, perhaps the best way to start to answer this question is also to ask: What don’t we have here?
Clearly, we have a book. Contemporary, full brown sheepskin with ornate, blind-tooled paneling over beveled beechwood boards. The lower board is missing. As is often the case with items from the Braun Rare Books Collection, a C. F. Lummis bookplate is present. Less common is the “Ex Libris Aloysii Gallottae” bookplate. Good, useful, provenance-related information that we can use later, but not directly helpful for our task of identifying the book.
Crucially, we do not have an obvious title page, the “chief source of information” relied upon by catalogers to catalog almost all materials we work with. In addition, the book contains no pagination. So, is the game over already?
Thankfully, no. Not yet, at least.
Early printed works, including incunabula (defined for European works as those published prior to 1500) often contain manuscript lettering on the spine, indicating the author and/or title of a work.
Admittedly, we don’t have a lot to go on here. Does the top line look something like “D … OMA”? And is that date 1424 or 1494?
Such works also often provide publication information via a colophon. This information usually complements any similar details located on the title page. The final leaf of our book block does indeed include such a colophon:
Although a little verbose, the top paragraph reveals a lot of essential information. Starting at the end of the ninth line, we have a name: “Joānes rubeus vercellensis.”
Johannes Rubeus Vercellensis—better known by his vernacular nickname of Giovanni Rosso—was a Venetian printer active between 1480 and 1519. Three lines farther down we have the statement “im-pressam In Alma Venetiarum,” which confirms the book was printed (“pressed”) in Venice. Finally, we have a very detailed date: “Anno dominice salutis MD CCCC LXXXXIIII.” In Arabic numerals, the year is 1494. And we are given an even more precise date of printing: “Xxviiij aplis’”—29 aplis; i.e., 29 aprilis; i.e., 29 April.
The colophon also states “De Sancto doctore Thoma de aquino.”
In the following detail from the first leaf of our book we discover a few more clues:
First, a manuscript note by Lummis supports our assumed publication information of Venice: 1494. Let’s forgive him 24 hours here—Lummis seems to have mistranscribed the day of printing as “ap. 28” (i.e., April 28). Also, we learn that the work is not listed in the Quaritch catalogues (Bernard Quaritch Ltd. survives today as an eminent London rare bookseller).
More important, “diuiniqz [divinique] doctoris Sancti Thome de Aquino” makes another appearance, referring again to the “divine doctor” Saint Thomas of Aquinas. Several other mentions of Aquinas can quickly be found—often at the head or foot of paragraphs. Finally, let’s just take a note of the first three words in the image above: “Cathena aurea angelici.”
2. Construct a logical search on a bibliographic database
So far, we have:
- A place of printing and/or publication (Venice, Italy)
- A date of printing and/or publication (1494)
- A printer: Johannes Rubeus Vercellensis—aka Giovanni Rosso
- A recurring name (Saint Thomas of Aquinas)
Now, let’s use this information to undertake a search on OCLC’s WorldCat database:
Name: Thomas,Aquinas, Saint,1225?–1274 (the authorized form of the recurring name)
Name: Rosso, Giovanni, active 1480–1519 (the authorized form of the printer)
Date: 1494
This search retrieves only three bibliographic records. All have the title “Cathena aurea angelici,” which 100% matches our note above.
The most complete of the three records is ocn44133294, so let’s take a closer look.
3. Check and verify detailed copy-specific dcrm(b) data
In the absence of pagination, it seems a good idea to start with a formulation of printer’s signatures. Despite our copy’s seeming lack of a title page, the signatures match perfectly: pi4 [a]-r8 [long s]8 s-x8 y4 A-T8 V6.
There is only one minor variation: our leaf n2 is incorrectly signed as n4. Perhaps the cataloger of the OCLC record simply overlooked this, or perhaps our example represents a variant printing.
So far, very promising, but we need further verification of identity to proceed with maximum certainty.
Thankfully, the existing OCLC record includes a detailed—and highly identity-specific note: “Text of prima pars, leaf a2, begins with printed historiated reversed S initial; secunda pars, leaf A1, has larger printed floriated initial E.”
As you can see from the images above, these detailed notes match perfectly with our book.
The existing record also notes in the physical description field that leaves a1 and y4 are blank. Again, we have a perfect match.
Finally, the 245 title field of the OCLC record perfectly matches the text contained on our first leaf. This strongly suggests an actual title page does not exist in any copy. Instead, the title has been cataloged from the incipit (Latin: “it begins”), or the opening words of the book.
Summary
In summary, we have identified the following exact matches:
- Author
- Title
- Printer
- Place of publication
- Publication date
- Signature formula
- Three highly specific signature-related notes pertaining to identity
This is an overwhelmingly positive result, and we can feel sufficiently confident to catalog our mystery book on a new master record. During this cataloging work, a digitized copy with online access was located, which further confirms our identification process, the lack of a title page, and therefore the need to catalog the title from the incipit.
The Autry’s bibliographic record for this item can be found here.
