De re diplomatica libri VI, in quibus quidquid ad veterum instrumentorum antiquitatem, materiam, scripturam, & stilum; quidquid ad sigilla, monogrammata, subscriptiones, ac notas chronologicas; quidquid inde ad antiquariam, historicam, forensemque disciplinam pertinet, explicatur & illustratur; accedunt commentarius de antiquis regum Francorum palatiis; veterum scripturarum varia specimina, tabulis LX comprehensa; nova ducentorum, & amplius, monumentorum collectio

by Jean Mabillon (Book 4 largely by Michel Germain)

Paris: Louis Billaine, 1681

[16], 460, 457-634, [30] p. + [2] plates (1 folded) | ā^4 ē^4 A-2V^4 2X-4C^2 4C*^2 4D-5B^4 5C-5I^2 | 443 x 280 mm

First edition of the Benedictine monk's path-breaking work on early manuscripts—the very foundation of modern paleography and manuscript studies—lavishly illustrated with full-page facsimiles of medieval documents. Like many things in early modern Europe, the book's genesis stems from a religious squabble. In 1675, the Jesuit Daniel Papebroch published a methodology for identifying old manuscripts as genuine or doubtful. In so doing, he questioned the authenticity of certain Merovingian documents at the Abbey of Saint-Denis, north of Paris. This hit close to home for Mabillon, who spent some time at Saint-Denis in 1663-1664. "It was to this perceived hyper-critcism of some of the earliest documentary evidence for the history of medieval France that Mabillon responded," namely with the present work. "Although Papebroch's work was challenged inter alia, De re diplomatica was much more than a simple refutation. Instead, it was a comprehensive handbook for the study of ancient manuscripts" (Williams). ¶ Whatever its origins, Mabillon's book revolutionized the study of early manuscripts. It "crystallized paleography as a scholarly endeavour...His masterwork was revolutionary not only for its ex nihilo breadth in the description of medieval charters, but for its fundamental methodological promise: that collecting representations of the physical and visual details of medieval documents would allow the modern scholar to arrive at a secure judgement about their authenticity and status. Simply see enough manuscript examples, Mabillon's manual seemed to promise, and secure knowledge about them would follow. This approach was transformational" (Adair). True to his approach, the book itself is a staggering virtual collection of early manuscripts, its 58 folio-sized facsimiles—15 of them of two-page spreads, and one a large folding plate—like nothing else then available. The same approach remains fundamental to acquiring manuscript expertise today. ¶ But you needn't take our word for the book's importance. This is a case where countless scholars have already done the sales work for us. From Yann Sordet's recent Histoire du livre: the work "established the foundations of diplomatics (the science of documents) and of paleography." From Randolph Head's Making Archives in Early Modern Europe: “a seminal work on how to authenticate old documents.” From three different books by Anthony Grafton: “the first systematic effort to provide criteria for authenticating charters and manuscripts,” “the book that transformed the study of documents and manuscripts," and “the first great handbook of the history of scripts and documents." And from Printing and the Mind of Man: "The stately folio volume...created at one stroke the historical disciplines" called the "auxiliary sciences," which included the study of paleography, seals, and dating. "With the help of these sciences it has been possible to erect a firm scaffold of indisputable principles for historical research." But the book's influence is hardly limited to the study of manuscripts' materiality: "archivists (including Americans) should also recognize their debt to Mabillon and this method to the extent that it legitimized scholarly and administrative use of original records and has provided useful techniques for European archivists since the seventeenth century" (Skemer). ¶ The work was not universally embraced, however. George Hickes, for example, thought Mabillon's methods for indentifying forgeries lacked rigor. He even suggested a religious bias, Mabillon not wanting to expose potential forgeries that might undermine his own order. Mabillon's 1704 supplement, and the second edition of 1709, marshaled additional examples and generally sought to bolster his arguments. Certainly history has come down on the side of commendation. ¶ Not since 1947 do we find in auction records a copy in such strong contemporary condition, the joints of other early bindings predictably suffering under the weight of their text blocks.

PROVENANCE: With at least eight early marginalia (p. 47, 58-59, 74, 131, 95, 172, 204)—not a tremendous number, but they betray a reader very familiar with early manuscripts. In two cases (p. 58 and 74), our annotator refers to codex noster, "our codex," suggesting someone with responsibility for a collection. His note on p. 58 cites a manuscript written in 840 by Reginbert of Reichenau, the great Carolingian librarian. That on p. 74 refers to a codex he calls Victor (Codex noster Victor, the last word underlined). If he is indeed referring to the Codex Fuldensis (aka the Victor Codex), then perhaps our annotator worked at Fulda (which also happens to have a Reginbert manuscript: Hessische Landesbibliothek, Aa 17). ¶ Ownership signature on title dated 1844, and perhaps an older monogram stamp on title verso (JT).

CONDITION: Contemporary pigskin over thick wooden boards; edges stained red. With an added engraved title designed by Pierre Monier and engraved by Pierre Giffart. ¶ A few scattered marginal tears, nothing affecting text; edges of the folding plate a bit ragged and torn, but again nothing affecting the image; very small marginal dampstain in the first two leaves, and some occasional mild foxing; text block pulling away at head of spine (this thing is heavy). Binding soiled; straps perished; upper compartment of spine torn, with some loss (part of headband loosely laid in); extremities a little worn.

REFERENCES: USTC 6106759; Printing and the Mind of Man, #158 ¶ Kelsey Jackson Williams, The First Scottish Enlightenment (Oxford Univ, 2020), p. 166 ("The first book introduced the Papebrochian controversy as well as the materials used for writing, sizes of charters, and ancient scripts. The second book was the core of the volume, containing an exhaustive study of the style and vocabulary of charters, their seals, witness lists, and chronology. Subsequent books addressed the work of other scholars and provided hundreds of pages of engravings showing specimens of scripts and examples of documents illustrating the points made elsewhere in the volume."); Anya Adair, "Pocket change: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, 383 and the value of the virtual object," Medieval Manuscripts in the Digital Age (Routledge, 2021), unpaginated ebook ("a commanding account of the scripts and material features of medieval charters"); Randolph C. Head, Marking Archives in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge Univ, 2019), p. 290; Yann Sordet, Histoire du livre et de l'édition (2021), p. 421; Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics (1990), p. 29; Anthony Grafton, Bring out Your Dead: The Past as Revelation (2001), p. 182; Anthony Grafton, Ink Fingers: The Making of Books in Early Modern Europe (2020), p. 79 (cited above), 80 (“In the De re diplomatica Mabillon assembled virtually everything known in his time about the history of books and documents in the Latin world since antiquity"), 133 (“that great summa of premodern archival science"); Bernhard Bischoff (tr. Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and David Ganz), Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge Univ, 1990), p. 1 (“The decisive move towards the systematic study of the handwriting of Latin manuscripts had been made” with this book); Jakub Zouhar, "'De Re Diplomatica Libri Sex' by Jean Mabillon in Outline," Folio Philologica 133.3/4 (2010), p. 360 (for Michel Germain's contribution); Don C. Skemer, "Diplomatics and Archives," The American Archivist 52.3 (Summer 1989), p. 377; Alfred Hiatt, "A New Approach to Studying Old Documents: Jean Mabillon (1632-1707), De Re Diplomatica, Extracts," An Anthology of European Neo-Latin Literature (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020), p. 251 (for George Hickes's response; on the work's contents: "The first three [books] consider the age, material, script, style and authenticating devices of historical documents. Book 4 comprises an excursus on the French royal palaces and estates where kings had promulgated documents, while books 5 and 6 provide a conspectus of annotated 'specimens' of old documents, consisting of facsimile engravings designed to illustrate their scripts, and to enable scholars to compare and evaluate records.")

Item #740