incunabulum

An incunabulum (plural incunabula) is a book printed in Europe before the year 1501. The term, derived from Latin incunabulum meaning a cradle or beginning, marks the infancy of movable-type printing, which began in the mid-15th century and gradually supplanted manuscript production. In bibliographic usage, the common cutoff is 1501, though some scholars extend the limit to 1500.

Incunabula were produced in several major centers, including Mainz, Venice, Paris, Basel, Nuremberg, and Cologne, among others. The most famous early example is Gutenberg’s Bible (Latin Vulgate, printed around 1455–1456). Incunabula encompass Latin and vernacular texts and cover religious, scholarly, scientific, literary, and civic works. They often feature woodcut illustrations, rubrication, and varied page formats such as folio and quarto. Imprints typically note the printer, city, and sometimes the date, though accuracy varied.

As objects of material culture, incunabula reveal contemporary techniques in typesetting, typography, paper or parchment usage, and printing practices. Surviving copies are distributed in libraries and private collections worldwide, and many are studied for features such as type styles, watermarks, marginalia, and provenance.

The study of incunabula illuminates the transition from manuscript culture to printed books, the spread of literacy, and the distribution of knowledge in late medieval and early modern Europe. It remains a foundational category in bibliography and book history, guiding both cataloging and scholarly inquiry.