Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1985, Qupperneq 60
56
leaf, which contains the beginning of the printed subject-index to the
Fasciculus temporum with the heading: “Tabula breuis et vtilis super
li|bro illo qui dicitur Fasciculus temporum. |... |... |... |... incipit felici-
ter.” The verso of the title-page is filled by an illustration in typical late
fifteenth-century style. The subject-index is printed in triple columns
and occupies five leaves in all; these leaves, like that which bears the
title and the illustration, are without signatures. The text of the book
follows immediately and filis 90 leaves printed in single, wide columns.
Space has been left by the printer at the beginning of the text (sig.
Air) for an illuminated initial G, which has been supplied in this copy
in blue, red, green and gold. The collation is: jt5 6, A8, B-P6, the last two
leaves of sig. P having been left blank by the printer but undoubtedly
belonging to the same quire, as is evident from the watermark of the
second blank leaf. The latter is an ox-head mark, variants of which
recur elsewhere in the printed book but nowhere in the manuscript
with which it is bound. The watermark evidence is supported by the
physical condition of the second blank leaf (see below).
This edition of the Fasciculus temporum, consisting as has been
shown of [vi] + 90 printed leaves, is without indication of date, place
or printer’s name. David Laing identified it,5 correctly so far as I can
see, with no. 6916 in Hain’s Repertorium bibliographicum, a book
belonging to a family of editions all characterized by having six
unsigned leaves followed by 90 leaves bearing signatures.6 These edi-
tions are Hain nos. 6915-16 (s. /. a. et typ.) and 6936-38; the last three
were printed at Strasbourg by Johs. Pruss in 1487, 1488 and 1492
respectively. In view of the family relationship one might be inclined
to think that Hain nos. 6915-16 - and therefore also the Dalhousie
copy - were printed by Pruss at Strasbourg. It may be noted in this
connection that one of the Pruss editions of the Fasciculus was
acquired at Louvain in 1491 by a Scotsman called Gilbert Haldane,
who had been a student at St Andrews in 1478; this copy is now in the
library of Edinburgh University (shelfmark Inc. 16).7
5 Supplementary note to “Extracts from a Manuscript Volume of Chronicles,” BM
III, 180.
6 L. Hain, Repertorium bibliographicum I (Stuttgart/Tubingen, 1826), pp. 356-60,
containing a list of the numerous editions of the Latin text of the Fasciculus printed up
to and including the year 1492.
7 See John Durkan and Anthony Ross, Early Scottish Libraries (Glasgow, 1961), pp.
110-11 and plates VI-VII.