My name is Matt Heintzelman and I am the
curator for the Austria - Germany Study
Center and the curator for rare books
and manuscripts at the Hill Museum &
Manuscript Library. What you have in
front of you are three copies of what is
supposedly the same book. These are all
books that were printed so these are
printed items. They were made in Ingolstadt, Germany in 1588 and they all came
off the printing press at the same time.
What's odd about them as you look is of
course they don't look anything at all
like each other and that's because at
that time when people bought books they
would be unbound and they would take
them out and and get the binding that
they wanted on the book and so you have
here a book that is in brown leather
with a clasp but originally had two
clasps with blue edging. This would be
considered a very nice copy of the book
it's something that would look very
pretty and would probably look very nice
on your shelf. You can see it's also been
marked by libraries where it's been kept
over the centuries. This is another copy
of the same book made to look much much
fancier so this is on vellum it's a limp
vellum binding and as you see it has
decoration pressed into the cover but it
also has decoration all around the edge
of the book and so this is a very
elaborate copy that probably would have
been owned by someone more important. The
text inside of all of them is a
devotional work, two devotions to the
Virgin Mary.The final copy which is
smaller than the other two is smaller
for two reasons. One is, when they
took the paper to bind it they cut it
smaller so the pages are not the same
size but also each of these books
is actually two volumes and the
smallest one is only one of the two
volumes so here you see the second
volume and the first volume of
the book. This one only has the first
volume but the title page is missing this is in a pigskin
binding. It also has decoration but it's
very durable. This is the kind of book
that would be probably in the library
for the common members of the community
to use whereas these might be for
special members of the community
