Ep[isto]la D. Schewrli ad Charitatem Pirchameram. Carmen Conradi Celtis ad eandem. Epistola Pilati ad Tyberium Cesarem. Epistola Pilati ad Tyberium Cesarem. Epistola Abgari ad Jesum Salvatorem. Epistola responsiva ad Abgarum. Utilitates Misse [...]

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Full title : Ep[isto]la D. Schewrli ad Charitatem Pirchameram . Carmen Conradi Celtis ad eandem. Epistola Pilati ad Tyberium Cesarem. Epistola Pilati ad Tyberium Cesarem. Epistola Abgari ad Jesum Salvatorem. Epistola responsiva ad Abgarum. Utilitates Misse. Exemplum Enee Silvij de vendente missam. Utilitates orationis pro defunctis. Exemplum pulchrum quod contigit Bononie. Sequentia Dies ire. Carmen ad divum Christophorum Small 4to. pp. [16] (last blank). Signatures: A-B4. Disbound, in folding case. Imprint from colophon on leaf B4v, which reads: “Finit Libellus de vtilitate misse, que[m] Ioannes Weyssenburgius Sacerdos solita dilige[n]tia imprimebat Nurenberge quinto Nonas Mayas. Anno Tertiodecimo.” Woodcut printer's device on leaf B4v. First enlarged edition (with the first printing of the introductory verses by Conrad Celtes) of Scheurl’s highly important assembly of apocryphal texts relating to the life of Jesus Christ: the ‘Abgar’ correspondence first reported, but not transcribed, by Eusebius, and the letters of Pontius Pilate and the imaginary Roman official ‘Lentulus’ to Emperor Tiberius, the first attributing the crucifixion to Jewish mob violence, the latter incorporating a physical description of Jesus. With access to sources apparently beyond those available to near-contemporaries (e.g. Barthélemy Chasseneux (1529): see Irina Backus, ‘Christoph Scheurl and his Anthology of New Testament Apocrypha’, in Apocrypha, 9 (1998), pp. 133-56), Scheurl (1481-1512; the future jurist and humanist, friend of Luther and Eck, while still a student at Bologna) compiled his Epistola as an offering to Barbara (or Caritas) Pirckheimer, Abbess of St Clara’s, Nuremburg, and sister of Willibald. It begins with Scheurl’s letter to her (‘Christo optimo maximo’) dated 1506, preceded in all but the earliest edition by verses to her by Conrad Celtes, and continues with short texts of the apocryphal material. These are followed by a six-page list of ‘Utilitates Misse’ from Bernardus to Celestinus, and the work concludes with three poems addressed to Scheurl by academic friends. The printing history of Scheurl’s accidental classic (see Backus) begins with an abbreviated text (A) of 1507 by Martin Landsberg at Leipzig, recorded by USTC in copies at BSB and Wolffenbüttel only, which as such would be Scheurl’s first publication. That ten-leaf edition, however, omits the attractive preliminary poem by Celtes, which first appears in (B, the present edition, with Scheurl’s name misspelled ‘Schwrli;’ only 4 recorded copies in USTC, all in Germany), the first of five ensuing editions (B-F), all printed by Johann Weissenburger, an ordained priest, first at Nuremburg (1513, twice, perhaps the first authorized printings, given the home of the dedicatee), and subsequently at Landshut in Bavaria (1514 (Bib# 5547679/Fr# 69.1 in this collection), 1516 bis), where Weissenburger moved after opposition to his dual professional activity by the Nuremburg City Council, to become Landshut’s first printer. Along the way there was a rather oddly enlarged 11-leaf edition by Friedrich Peypus back at Nuremburg (1515). See also M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament. Oxford, 1924, pp. 476-77. Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.