Item Summary

This unique broadside blood-letting calendar was discovered in the nineteenth century as binding waste in some unidentified manuscript in the Donauschingen Court Library. It states that it presents the times of new moons and full moons according to the true meridian of Vienna ("nach warn lauff auff wienn"). The printer left spaces for these times, and for the names of the months, to be entered by hand: they are supplied in red ink. Small woodcuts were used to represent the new moon and full moon. The lunar times are very accurate, and may have been calculated by the famous astronomer Regiomontanus, who was in Vienna in 1461. The printing type of the calendar is a later version of a type used also to print two unique prayer pamphlets at the Staatsbibliothek Munich, illustrated with metalcuts. Konrad Haebler argued that the likeliest candidate as printer was Ulrich Han, a citizen of Vienna, who by about 1464 had migrated to Rome, where he operated one of the two earliest printing shops of that city.

Descriptive Information

Title
[Blood-letting calendar for Vienna, 1462. German].
Call Number
114.9
Identifier
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/w3763685g
Publisher
[Vienna : Ulrich Han?, 1461].
Language
German
Date Created
1461
Extent
Broadside : 40 x 28.5 cm (Chancery sheet).
References
GW 1287.
VE 15 A-145
Einblattdrucke 115.
Schreiber 3146.
Rights Statement
No Known Copyright
Notes
Text in German.

Discovery Information

Subject
Phlebotomy—Calendars—Early works to 1800
Calendars

Physical Characteristics

File Count
2

Institutional Information

Collection
In Principio: Europe's First Printers, 1450-1470
IIIF Manifest URL

https://figgy.princeton.edu/concern/scanned_resources/ba0a33fc-5108-47ac-b5d1-e51a01f17cb4/manifest