Complete catalog of the incontinence prints

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The General Catalog of Wiegendrucke (GW) is a project led by the Berlin State Library to create a world catalog of incunabula (also: Wiegendrucke). His first volume was published in 1925 by Anton Hiersemann Verlag in Leipzig . The still incomplete list of incunabula is currently available in eleven volumes and extends to the entry Horem (status: 2009). The GW is now also available as an online database .

history

In the 1890s there was a growing need among incunabula researchers to replace Ludwig Hain's incunabula directory Repertorium bibliographicum ( Stuttgart , 1825–1838) with a general catalog that should include all titles that existed worldwide and meet all scientific requirements. The great merits of Ludwig Hain and the importance of his work were by no means disputed. After all, the Repertorium bibliographicum had been the fundamental work of incunabula research for almost a century. The importance of Hain's directory grew particularly out of its method and the groundbreaking innovation of reproducing the beginning ( Incipit ) and ending ( Explicit ) of every work to the letter and line. This made it possible to identify individual specimens with complete certainty according to their literary description. Hain's successful principle was therefore also adopted for the complete catalog of incumbents .

Since its author was not allowed to complete the work during his lifetime, the Repertorium bibliographicum also had some weaknesses. On the one hand, the indispensable registers for scientific users were missing and , on the other hand, there was no reliable information about the sites and the libraries that owned them . These deficiencies were also not able to completely remedy the commendable supplementary works by Walter Arthur Copinger ( Supplement to Hain's Repertorium bibliographicum . London 1895–1902) and by Walter Reichling ( Appendices ad Hainii-Coperingi Repertorium bibliographicum . Munich 1905–1911, Münster 1914). For this reason, the experts became convinced that the replacement for Hain's directory had to be based on a completely new inventory.

In 1904, at the suggestion of Friedrich Althoff , Ministerialdirektor in the Prussian Ministry of Education, a commission was founded for the complete catalog of the printed books . Its members were some of the most recognized German incunabula researchers. Konrad Haebler was appointed first chairman . The commission established a central office for the GW at what was then the Royal Library (today: Berlin State Library) and began its work initially with the recording of the cradle prints in German libraries. At the same time, international incunabula researchers were recruited for the inventory of the worldwide holdings. While the recording of the German incunabula was completed in 1911, cross-border cooperation turned out to be much more difficult, also due to global political conflicts. The First World War brought international exchange to an almost complete standstill.

So it took until October 8, 1925, before the first volume of the GW with 1256 descriptions (Abano - Alexius) could appear in the Leipzig Hiersemann Verlag. In the period that followed, six more volumes were published every two years. When the first delivery of the eighth volume came in 1940, the Second World War made it impossible to continue the project. Although the manuscript survived the turmoil of the time undamaged, the war meant a severe setback for the complete catalog of the cradle prints . The political tensions between the two post-war German states also had a negative impact on the continuation of the catalog project. The efforts to establish an all-German cooperation with regard to the GW were initially unsuccessful.

The Hiersemann Verlag, which moved from Leipzig to Stuttgart in 1949, published a second edition of the already published first seven volumes of the complete catalog of incandescent prints . It was not until 1972 that the publishing house, in cooperation with Hans Peter Kraus in New York City and the Berlin Academy Publishing House , succeeded in resuming the collaboration that had been interrupted by the war and its aftermath. As a result, a revised version of the first delivery of Volume 8 was issued. Another six years later, the complete eighth volume was finally available. To date (2009) eleven volumes have been published.

The catalog project, which is still in progress, is now also available as an online database.

construction

The aim of the complete catalog of incunabula is to record all incunabula existing worldwide on the basis of the surviving copies. The GW is alphabetically by authors or with anonymous works by property titles in order. Thus the literary historical aspect of the incunabula is brought to the center of interest. Each entry consists of

1. the bibliographic note ; Information about the author , property title , publisher , translator , commentator, publisher , printer , place of printing, date and format

2. the collation ; Information on scope, locations , signatures , page count, custodians , arrangement and equipment

3. the textual description ; Reproduction of the beginning (Incipit) and end (Explicit) of the text (depending on the original, printed in Antiqua or Schwabacher )

4. the source and copy reference .

Despite its incompleteness, the GW is an irreplaceable resource for the specialist scientist concerned with the earliest products of printing because of its precise and detailed descriptions .

literature

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