One of Two Known Copies of the Saragossa Processionarium of 1526
Processionarium secundum consuetudinem ordinis sancti Hieronymi. [Saragossa, Jorge Coci], 1526.
One of the rarest surviving Iberian liturgical books of the early sixteenth century: the Saragossa Processionarium printed by Jorge Coci in 1526 for the Hieronymite Order, preserved here in one of only two known copies and printed on vellum.
The volume was produced for the great Hieronymite monastery of Belém, founded by King Manuel I near Lisbon at the height of Portugal’s imperial expansion. Few liturgical books are more closely connected to the political and spiritual ambitions of the Portuguese Renaissance.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
A–P8 Π1 = 119 numbered leaves and 2 leaves. Printed in black and red on vellum. Quarto (approximately 190 × 122 mm).
Illustrated with a full-page woodcut of Saint Jerome as a hermit, numerous woodcut initials in black, red lombards, and musical notation printed in black on red five-line staves.
Contemporary blind-stamped calf binding over wooden boards, with broad intersecting fillets forming compartments filled with floral and rosette tools. Remnants of the original clasps survive. Preserved in a modern half-morocco case.
Bumped binding restored and supplied in several places; clasps missing; bottom edge spotted.
Thanks to the strong vellum and robust wooden-board binding, it has remained very well preserved to this day.
The Hieronymites and Manueline Portugal
The Processionarium was printed for use within the Hieronymite Order, whose monastery at Belém occupied a central position within the religious and dynastic culture of sixteenth-century Portugal.
King Manuel I founded the monastery beside the Tagus shortly after Vasco da Gama’s return from India. The site became inseparable from the age of Portuguese maritime expansion, imperial wealth, and royal piety. Vasco da Gama himself later received burial there, as did Luís de Camões and Fernando Pessoa in subsequent centuries.
The present Processionarium belongs fully to that historical moment. Though modest in scale compared to monumental choirbooks, it formed part of the daily ceremonial life of one of the most symbolically charged monasteries in Renaissance Europe.
Jorge Coci and Saragossa Printing
The catalogue attributes this 1526 Processionarium to Jorge Coci in Saragossa.
The present Processionarium reflects the restrained elegance characteristic of Iberian liturgical printing in this period. The alternating red and black typography, the carefully structured musical notation, and the strong woodcut initials preserve the visual language of late medieval devotional books while already moving toward a more stable Renaissance typographic order.
A Rare Survival on Vellum
The rarity of the edition is extreme.
Only two copies appear to survive, both printed on vellum. Unlike large choirbooks chained within ecclesiastical spaces, processional books were handled constantly outdoors during ceremonies and feast days, making survival rates exceptionally low.
The present copy therefore preserves not only a rare Iberian liturgical imprint, but a fragile liturgical form that was especially vulnerable to loss through use.
Provenance
From the Hieronymite monastery of Belém near Lisbon. Later in a Portuguese private collection.
Literature
Wunderkammer, Catalogue 90, vol. I, entry 23, p. 202.
Not in Adams; Anselmo 502; Bohatta; Brunet; Graesse; USTC; not in the British Library.
