Altar card set (Canon table | Tabella secretarum | Canons d'autel | Carteglorie | Canontafel)

Lyon: Claude Savary, 1646

1 triptych (307 x 512 mm fully opened) and 1 side card (281 x 192 mm)

A captivating set of altar cards, a fleeting liturgical apparatus meant to assist the priest in reciting the major texts during Mass. Its heart is the canon table, typically found in triptych format, as here. This central element of the altar card set dates to the 13th century, and a few 15th-century printed examples survive. This was long the only requisite altar card, even upon revision of the Roman Missal in 1570. But the suite expanded with time. "During the seventeenth century another card with the Gospel of St. John which is recited at the end of Mass...was introduced, and then, probably for the sake of symmetry, a third card, containing the prayers said by the celebrant when blessing the water at the Offertory and when washing his hands" (Anson). The latter commonly contained Psalm XXV (Lavabo inter innocentes...) and was placed on the right side of the altar. We do have the St. John card. Rather than our set missing the third card, however—these are unrecorded, so it's impossible to know—we suspect our set was produced before it became common. It does appear standard by the 18th century. But a 1604 manuscript version at the Bridwell Library, a 1618 printed edition at the Morgan, and a ca. 1630 French example offered by Nina Musinsky survive as triptych canon tables only. ¶ The name of the central triptych comes from the Canon of the Mass, the most important elements of which these tables contained, including those required for the Eucharist. Underscoring its practical role, the most important words are set in large red type: “This is my body,” for example, and “This is the cup of my blood.” The printer has provided useful instructions in red, much as you might find in a Missal. At the top of the center panel, for example, as the priest prepares the Eucharist: "Taking the Host in hands, he should say" (Accipiendo in manibus hostiam, dicat). Or the top of the righthand panel: "Offering the Host, the priest says" (Offerens Hostiam, dicit Sacerdos). The side card, containing the Last Gospel (John 1:1-14), would be recited at the end of Mass.  ¶ Like the ornately bound missal, but far more ephemeral, altar cards offered a chance to add decorative form to function. Our gold-tooled leather boards might pale in comparison to the extravagant frames found on some examples. Even so, these cards are thoroughly hand-colored and heightened with gold. The Crucifixion engraving atop the center panel is painted with half a dozen different colors, plus gold accents. The engraving of John writing his gospel atop the side card is similarly colored. Eight engraved initials have been treated in red, blue, and gold, with decorative borders and line fillers to match. No less remarkable are the engraved, hand-painted decorative borders applied over the printer's letterpress borders. This embellishment calls to mind the late medieval practice of adding woodcut or engraved elements to devotional books, underscoring the recombinatory capacity of print.  ¶ The canon table could serve as a kind of portable altarpiece—a role to which our folding leather boards must have been well suited—and could be put to use in private chapels as well as public churches, suggesting they may sometimes have served a private devotional function. A variety of guides described how it should be positioned: “Atop the altar, the crucifix is placed in the middle,” and “at the foot of the crucifix is placed the Canon Table [Tabella Secretarum]” (Ritus). A 15th-century painting by Juan de Nalda, Misa de San Gregorio, depicts one in action, leaning against the back of the altar beneath the crucifix. Although postdating our example by more than two centuries, Carl Geiger’s Notizen über Stoff, Gestalt und Grösse der heiligen Geräthe und Gewande sheds a great deal of light on their construction: canon tables should not be made of walnut or oak, or any other dark wood, lest it show through the sheet glued to it; it should be wider than it is tall; the frame should be ornamental (Der Rand derselben sei zierlich); for the holiest days, it should be beautiful (prachtwoller) and gold-plated; and while only the central panel is required, it’s customary to include smaller panels featuring the Gospel of John and the Lavabo Psalm. ¶ An extraordinary relic of early modern print culture, especially so with their contemporary leather boards. While we wouldn't consider any altar card sets from the hand-press period at all common, examples this early, perhaps even predating the widespread introduction of the third card, are especially rare. Altar cards are not abundant in commerce, and we know of only two sales of sets earlier than ours: an illuminated manuscript of the late 1590s that fetched £43,000 at Sotheby’s in 1999, and the aforementioned ca. 1630 (grand and lavishly hand-painted) canon table offered by Nina Musinsky in 2022. Less certain is an undated French example available at time of cataloging—two side cards only, no canon table—issued by Paris publisher J. Baudemont (active 1635-1672).

CONDITION: The printed pieces mounted to contemporary boards covered in light brown leather, all panels simply framed in gold. The three panels of the canon table joined by leather hinges, and each panel with a Jesuit device in gold. The side card features an extra half board that folds out to hold the card upright—a simple solution, but something we've never seen. Canon table printed in red and black. ¶ Paper foxed; scattered worming, resulting in a little textual loss; 10 cm closed tear in the paper of the lefthand canon table panel, affecting text; 2 cm of the added decorative frame missing from the bottom of the center panel, exposing the printer's original border; scattered small chips to the added borders; the gold dulled in spots, and the leather soiled; the leather tearing at the hinge of the side card support, the worst side with a tear just over an inch in length. And, as captivating witness to its use under candles, wax drips several inches in length on the side card and the righthand panel of the canon table.

REFERENCES: Peter F. Anson, Churches: Their Plan and Furnishing (2012), "IV. Other Altar Furniture" (unpagined ebook; "During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it became the fashion to insert altar cards in very ornate frames—some of which in the Baroque style are magnificent pieces of craftsmanship"); Ritus Celebrandi Missam secundum rubricas Missalis Romani et Decreta Sacrae Rituum Congregationis (Munich, 1825), p. 1; Carl Geiger, Notizen über Stoff, Gestalt und Grösse der heiligen Geräthe und Gewande (Munich, 1863), p. 18-19; Peter Schmidt, Origins of European Printmaking: Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public (National Gallery of Art, 2005), p. 164 (“Only in the late sixteenth century did it become general practice for a priest celebrating the Mass to place such an object in full view on the altar”), 169-170 (at least in the 15th century, “the original liturgical function does not necessarily exclude a secondary, private use”); Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance (Brill, 2018), p. 68-78 (on a canon table in a truly sumptuous silver frame at Andechs Abbey, still in use); Musinsky Rare Books, E-Catalogue 23: Religion, Popular & Private, #3

Item #718