[Blood-letting calendar for Augsburg, 1472. Latin].

Günther Zainer's bloodletting calendar for the year 1472, of which this is one of three recorded copies, is the first example of German printing using Roman rather than Gothic type. Zainer's colophon includes the unusual phrase "ne italo cedere videamur" (lest we seem to give primacy to the Italian) which probably alludes to this use of a type based on Italian humanist bookhands. By this date dozens of Venetian editions printed in Roman type had been published, and copies imported into Germany. Bloodletting calendars listed days appropriate for bloodletting, and for administering medicines and laxatives, according to the age, parts of the body affected, and temperament (“humor”) of the patient. The days were chosen according to the phases of the moon, and so a table was added giving the dates and times of the New Moon (Conjunctio) and of the Full Moon (Oppositio) for each month. In Zainer's Calendar, the identification of the months, beginning Februarii rather than Januarii, has gone astray. The actual dates of the new and full moons consistently belong rather to the preceding month. The line “Embolismi” after Nouembris means “interpolated,” referring to the fact that in 1472 there were thirteen new moons, with two falling in November.