VIENNESE EARLY PRINTING

[Schwenckfeld, Caspar] Faber, Johann: Criste[n]liche ablainu[n]g des erschrockenliche[n] yrsal so Caspar Schwenckfelder in der Schlesy wider die warhait des hochwirdige[n] Sacraments leibs un[d] bluets Christi aufzerichten understanden hat. [Getruckt und vollenndet zu Wienn in Osterreich durch Hanns Singriener den XVIII Februarii: Anno Domini 1529.]

A rare piece of Viennese early printing, lightly annotated, this is a Catholic controversial work, written, by a friend of Erasmus, against the Protestant theologian Caspar Schwenckfeld (1489/90-1561), on the subject of the Lord’s Supper. Schwenckfeld’s views - which were a purely spiritual interpretation of the Sacrament - were not only anti-Catholic but had been the cause of a break with Martin Luther as well. A widely influential writer, adherents of Schwenckfeld in Pennsylvania in the twentieth century, who were heirs of an older German tradition of following him, established the Schwenkfelder Church, which still exists. Our author Faber (1478-1541), an important anti-Protestant writer, was at the time chaplain to Ferdinand I of Austria and became Archbishop of Vienna in 1530. He had been encouraged by Erasmus to take up the study of patristics, and over 11 pages towards end in the present work, makes citations to support the Catholic cause from 22 church fathers. Johannes Singriener the Elder (1480-1545) was originally from Bavaria but worked as a printer in Vienna, initially in a partnership, from 1510. A leading and prolific book-producer, and a bookseller, whose printing languages included Greek and Hebrew, he was, as the classical Roman features to title-page decoration might suggest, himself a friend of humanists. 

Details

Quarto (19.9 cms. x 15.7 cms. in binding), pp. [79] [1] (signed A-K⁴). Title-page with woodcut pictorial border decorations, featuring Singriener initials with putti, foliage, wings, grotesques, and medals of emperors. Occasional light staining, gutter to title-page strengthened, bound in contemporary or early vellum boards, double-filletted in blind, clasps intact, edges mottled blue, title and shelfmark to spine with later labels over, 19th-cent. shelflabel visible to front pastedown (probably a remboîtage, with pastedowns and endpapers also recently renewed). 26 pages with reader’s marks (including manicules), or sparely made annotations.

VD16 F 193 (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), OCLC only locating three further physical locations, all in Germany.

Sources for this note: Wikipedia articles on Faber, Schwenckfeld and Singriener (30 May 2020).