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Procopius Waldvogel

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Procopius Waldvogel (alternate spellings: Prokop Waldvogel or Procopius Waldfogel) was a medieval printer from Avignon. It is believed that he might have invented printing before Johannes Gutenberg. He flourished in the fifteenth century.

Life

He was a German living in Avignon. He was a silversmith by trade.[1] He fled from Prague during the Hussite troubles and stayed in Lucerne, Switzerland . [2] He arrived in Avignon in 1444.[3] At Avignon he had two students: Manaud Vitalis and Arnaud de Coselhac.[4][5] His name appears in several contracts of that time, most notably the one in which he agrees to provide Davin de Caderousse with movable metal type of Hebrew letters.[6] He disappeared from the historical record after 1446.[7]

Career

It has been claimed that he owned molds for printing before Johannes Gutenberg in 1444. However, unlike Gutenberg, he did not print any books.[8]

He had two alphabets and various metal forms and he offered to teach the art of artificial writing to a schoolteacher.[9]

In 1890, the French historian M. Requin claimed that Waldvogel had invented the art of moveable-type printing before Johannes Gutenberg. Unfortunately, Requin never showed any evidence that Waldvogel printed anything, and his allegations are long forgotten.[10][11]

He was a contemporary of other printers of the time, which included Laurens Janszoon Coster, Jean Brito and Panfilo Castaldi.[12][13]

Controversial printed quires possibly assigned to Procopius Waldvogel

One of the two controversial quires
Yudlow's findings report 1 - at the National Library of Israel
Yudlow's findings report 2 - at the National Library of Israel

In 2015 two Hebrew-letter quires with a total of 32 pages were found to be reused in the cover of a book from the 16th century. They were sent by their owner to the Institute of Hebrew Manuscript Research at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. The study of their watermarks, paper, ink, typeset typography, made upon request of their owner, concluded that it may be possible that they could have been printed in the area of Avignon around 1444, suggesting that they might be Waldfogel and Davin de Caderousse's work. This finding has received some media coverage, although in the absence of a counter-expertise by independent scholars, the putative link between these printed quires and Waldfogel's entreprise remains purely speculative.

Since 2019, the Institute for Computerized Bibliography of the Hebrew Book published three comprehensive studies on the sheets, which were brought in 2015 before Yitzhak Yudlov, who was the Head of the Institute for Hebrew Bibliography in Jerusalem for many years, and Dr. Benjamin Richler, former Director of the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the National Library in Jerusalem.

Regarding the identification of those sheets, they wrote: "In our opinion, these are the sheets from the printing experiments of Prokop Waldvogel and Davin from Caderousse ".

The publications of the Institute for Computerized Bibliography of the Hebrew Book dealt with three components of the sheets, namely paper, watermark and typography.

The first publication, co-authored with the Historical City Archive of Fabriano, Italy, where the paper and the watermark were created, is titled “Watermark identification of early Hebrew printed paper from Avignon in 1446”.

 A second publication is a comprehensive research lecture given at the 2022 conference of the International Association of Paper Historians in Krems, Austria.

The published version appeared as a chapter in the book “Artists’ paper – a case in paper history”, Verlag Berger 2023.

In this chapter, for the first time, the Institute for Computerized Bibliography of the Hebrew Book presents an innovative study method on the typography of Hebrew books in the 15th century.

The third publication was a lecture given at the 2023 conference of the Technical Association of the Graphic Arts, TAGA, in Oklahoma City.

There a comprehensive and in-depth study on the beginning of print in the 15th century was presented.

References

  1. ^ "The mystery of Procopius Waldvogel". europeanhistory.about.com. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  2. ^ Der Geschichtsfreund: Mitteilungen des Historischen Vereins Zentralschweiz, Vol. 84 Buchdruckerlexikon,Teil Iand. Luzern: Fritz Blaser. 1929. p. 167.
  3. ^ Man, J. (2010). The Gutenberg Revolution. Transworld. p. 118. ISBN 9781409045526. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  4. ^ "Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/880 - Wikisource, the free online library". en.wikisource.org. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
  5. ^ "p.182-3. The American Journal of Archæology: And of the History of the Fine Arts; 1891". forgottenbooks.com. Archived from the original on 2015-11-17. Retrieved 2015-11-16.
  6. ^ Febvre, L.; Martin, H.J. (1976). The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800. Verso. p. 52. ISBN 9781859841082. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  7. ^ Childress, D. (2008). Johannes Gutenberg and the Printing Press. Ebsco Publishing. p. 147. ISBN 9780761340249. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  8. ^ "Printing and Publishing - Renaissance: An Encyclopedia for Students | Encyclopedia.com". encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  9. ^ Fellow, A. (2009). American Media History. Cengage Learning. p. 3. ISBN 9781111781552. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  10. ^ "Sacramento Daily Union 27 September 1890 — California Digital Newspaper Collection". cdnc.ucr.edu. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  11. ^ (In French) ספרו של האב The Origins of Printing in France - P. Requin, Origines de l'imprimerie en France, 1891. (Google Books). Requin's discovery was known to researchers through Cecil Roth's book 1957 Jews in the Renaissance pages 167-8 (Online book at the Jerusalem National Library of Israel)
  12. ^ School of Library and Information Sciences University of North Carolina Frederick G. Kilgour Distinguished Research Professor, C.H. (1998). The Evolution of the Book. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 85. ISBN 9780195353365. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  13. ^ McGrath, Alister E. (12 April 2012). In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible. ISBN 9781444745269.
  • "Waldvogel, Prokop". ADB:Waldvogel, Prokop – Wikisource. Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. de.wikisource.org. 1896. p. 725. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
  • "Prokop <Waldvogel>". thesaurus.cerl.org. Retrieved 2014-10-05.
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