Incunabula and the Keio University Library Collection

This volume is a Sammelband (bound-set) of three works on logic. This entry deals with the volume as a whole; further information on each of the included works can be found under their respective entries.

The three works contained in this volume, all printed in the 15th century, were compiled/composed by Dominican friars, or are at least strongly associated with the Dominican tradition. For example, the author of the first work (IKUL 022a), Armand de Belvezer, was a 14th-century Dominican friar, and the author of the third work (IKUL 022c), Girolamo Savonarola, was a famous Dominican preacher in 15th-century Florence. Medieval manuscripts and incunabula attribute authorship of the second work (IKUL 022b) to Thomas Aquinas, even though it was not actually composed by him; of course, Aquinas was also a Dominican. Furthermore, all three works are concerned with logic, which was an integral part of the Dominican curriculum (although this was not an exclusively Dominican tradition).

Further evidence linking this volume to the Dominican tradition is that it was once owned by a Dominican friar, probably in the late 15th or early 16th century. A handwritten note on the flyleaf of the volume reads: 'Brother Johannes Naustadt of the Leipzig convent of the Order of the Preachers' (Frater Johannes Naustadi ordinis predicatorum conventus Lipsensis).

It is noteworthy that this individual belonged to a Leipzig convent, as the second and third works were printed in Leipzig. The title page of the second work makes it clear that it was not only printed in the city, but that it had been revised there prior to being printed. It is quite possible that the Dominicans in Leipzig were involved in this revision (see the further discussion under the entry for IKUL 022b).

The original printed version leaves blank spaces, with guide letters, for the initial letters in the first and second works, and rubricated capital letters have been added by a single hand. It is natural to assume that they were added – possibly by Johannes Naustadt – after the first and second works had been bound together. Two notes in a different hand can be found on the upper edge of the volume: Armandus referring to the first work, and Logica B. theo et Sauo[na]role, which refers to the third.

Although several questions remain unanswered, it is likely that this Sammelband was produced in the context of the study of logic by the Dominican friars of Leipzig.

(YA)