Nam digiti scripto laetantur, lumina visu  Mens volvet sensu mystica verba Dei  

The fingers rejoice in writing, the eyes in seeing, and the mind at examining the meaning of God’s mystical words.”     

 351J* . Hrabanus Maurus.   784-856?

Magnencij Rabani Mauri De Laudib[us] sancte Crucis opus. erudicione versu prosaq[ue] mirificum.

Phorçheim. [Pforzheim : In ædibus Thom[ae] Anshelmi., 1503.             $5,700

Folio 30 x 21 cm.  Aa⁶, Bb⁴, a-k⁶. ( wanting A-B⁶, C⁴ (last leaf blank).  This COPY IS LACKING the two woodcuts of Alcuin interceding on behalf of Rabanus before Pope Gregory iv, and of Rabanus presenting his poems to the Pope. A⁵ & A⁶,  Bb¹ and a¹ The Leaf of a figured dedicatory poem to Louis the Pious. Bound in full modern velum.   First Edition

Types 3:109R, 4:180G; 40 lines of transcribed verse + headline, 40 lines of commentary + headline, red and black printing throughout, calligraphic woodcut initial (Proctor, fig. 24) M on title page, woodcut initials printed in red, and a figured prefatory poem, 28 carmina figurata, the first entirely xylographic, the remaining poems combining printed and xylographic letters with the versus intexti printed in red (except fig. xvi), enclosed by either woodcut figures (of the emperor, Christ, the Evangelists, Cherubim, etc.) printed in black or by Christian symbols and characters, most defined by metal rules in red.

This is a remarkable typographical achievement, probably the earliest attempt to reproduce a medieval manuscript. The greater portion of the work comprises a preface in verse and twenty-eight poems.  “Hrabanus Maurus, the abbot of Fulda, wrote in the midst of the ‘new monasticism,’ a period associated with a revival of literacy and learning. In religious and secular spheres. This ‘script culture,’ as Rosamond McKitterick has it, used the written word not only as a mode of communication but as ‘a resource, a guide, a key, and an inspiration,’ especially in the devotional practice of Christianity.

Each of the twenty-eight picture poems that form In honorem sanctae crucis explores a different theme relating to the Cross through a complex interplay of word and image. The poems each have an equal number of letters per line, written continuously like a grid. By following the letters in the usual direction for a Latin text—from left to right, top to bottom—each grid reads as one long poem. But within each grid, certain letters are also marked out with colour and drawings to form pictures. The letters that make up these pictures read as separate short poems embedded within the larger poem. As such, each page of   In honorem sanctae crucis presents a puzzle of words and pictures, full of hidden and interrelated messages for the reader to  decode. 

Proctor, R. Index to the early printed books in the British Museum,; 11747; Adams, H.M. Catalogue of books printed on the continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Cambridge libraries,; R3; Catalogue of a collection of early German books in the library of C. Fairfax Murray,; 350; Panzer, G.W.F. Annales typographici,; VIII 227, 2; Pollard, A.W. Catalogue of books mostly from the presses of the first printers … collected by Rush C. Hawkins,; 189 Panzer, VIII, 227, no. 2. Proctor 11747. Fairfax Murray 350./ Last leaf blank./ Edited by Jakob Wimpheling.–cf. title page verso./   Lacking Illustrations: 2 woodcuts of the author presenting his book to the pope, But the rest of the text is complete with  and many woodcut figures (Christ, cherubs, crosses, symbols, etc.) printed on 28 pages of text. 

Some of the text within and near the outline figures is xylographic, the rest printed. The letters within the outlines are printed in red and may be read separately in a different sense. Printed in red and black, initials (except on t.p.) in red./ With label of Sinclair Hamilton. Peter Godman, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 249. G. Rigg and G. R. Wieland, ‘A Canterbury Classbook of the Mid-eleventh CenturyAnglo-Saxon England 4 (1974), 113-30. William Schipper, ‘Hrabanus Maurus in Anglo-Saxon England: In Honorem Sanctae Crucis’, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of   Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, Catherine Karkov, Janet L. Nelson, David Pelteret (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate)