medieval concrete poetry in print
MERBITZ, Joannes Valentinus.
De Varietate Faciei Humanae, Discursus physicus appendicis loco accedunt carmina figurata Rabani Mauri.
Dresden: Widow and Heirs of Melchior Bergen for Martin Gabriel Hubner, 1676.
4to (200 × 152 mm.), pp. [xvii], 69, VIII, [4], plus engraved physiognomical frontispiece and one folding engraved plate. Title printed in red and black, various letterpress tables, some printed in red and black, one line of typographical music. Quite heavily browned due to poor-quality paper stock, some old waterstains. Contemporary blindstamped panelled vellum. Covers very slightly bowed, upper hinge cracked but secure, wants front endpaper. A good, unsophisticated copy.
First edition. "Merbitz's book takes features of the human face and describes them by mathematical and alphabetical schemes, constructs cipher systems, and reproduces figured poems by the medieval encyclopedist Hrabanus Maurus (780-856)." Norman, Cyberspace. [Norman notes that Charles Babbage owned a copy, see Norman Cat 28 (1994) 431.] Hrabanus Maurus, the Benedictine archbishop of Mainz was a celebrated encyclopaedist, but his most remarkable legacy is his series of 28 figured poems De laudibus sanctae crucis, a collection of twenty-eight encrypted religious poems, composed before 814 AD. Using a 36 by 36 grid he composed sacred poems (each line in Latin contains precisely 36 letters) which incorporated simple spiritual images formed from contrasting coloured letters (red, in our versions) within the grid, each making brief, succinct verses in their own right. The intention was that the grid provided both texts and images for contemplation, prayer and visual memorization. Merbitz includes 8 of Maurus' "concrete prayers."
Wellcome IV 115; Krivatsy 7758.
£1200.00
US$2382.96*
* Given as a guide only. Based on an exchange rate of £1 = US$1.985799 for the day 25 July 2008 but liable to fluctuate.
25 July 2008