A Delft Liturgical Masterpiece in Its Original Dutch Renaissance Binding from the Collections of Thomas Brooke, Clarence Dillon, and Joost Ritman
Psalterium horas canonicas cantare in ecclesiis volentibus secundum laudabilem consuetudinem Ecclesie Traiectensis perutile. Delft, Cornelius Henricz. “Lettersnijder” for Bartholomeus Jacobsz in Leiden and Jan Seversz. die Croepel in Amsterdam, 1530.
The only known vellum copy of the Utrecht Psalterium printed in Delft in 1530 by Cornelius Henricz., known as “Lettersnijder,” one of the rarest and most accomplished liturgical printers active in the northern Netherlands during the early sixteenth century.
Preserved in its original Dutch Renaissance binding with all twenty brass fittings intact, the volume survives not merely as a rare liturgical book, but as a remarkably complete object of early Netherlandish devotional culture. Its provenance includes some of the most important collectors of illuminated books and early printing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among them Sir Thomas Brooke, Clarence Dillon, and Joost Ritman.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Folio (approximately 280 × 200 mm). Double-column liturgical printing on vellum in black and red, preserving the blank leaf v4.
Illustrated with a full-page architectural woodcut border on the title, one large historiated woodcut initial, eighteen four-line ornamental initials, 109 three-line initials, and numerous smaller initials printed in black or red. Printed musical staves in red are occasionally completed by contemporary manuscript notation.
Contemporary dark brown Dutch calf over bevelled oak boards on four raised bands, decorated with blind fillets and Renaissance roll stamps depicting animals and fantastic creatures within scrolling foliage. The binding retains all brass corner pieces, bosses, and clasp fittings together with leather page markers. Preserved in a modern half-morocco case.
Cornelius Henricz. “Lettersnijder”
Very few books survive from the press of Cornelius Henricz.
Only eleven editions printed between 1517 and 1534 are recorded, making him one of the rarest named printers of the Low Countries. His sobriquet “Lettersnijder,” literally “letter cutter,” was well earned. The present Psalter demonstrates an unusually refined command of large-format liturgical typography, balancing monumental clarity with decorative richness.
The spacious type, the alternating black and red printing, the carefully designed initials, and the elegant musical staves give the book a distinctly ceremonial presence. Even by the standards of early Netherlandish liturgical printing, the production is exceptionally handsome.
The Utrecht Diocese and Liturgical Use
Vellum liturgical books printed in the Low Countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are exceptionally rare.
Such productions were intended almost exclusively for ecclesiastical institutions, particularly within the wealthy diocese of Utrecht. Unlike presentation books or collector’s objects, books of this kind were made for active devotional use. The present copy preserves extensive evidence of that use.
Numerous sixteenth-century annotations appear on the endleaves, title page, margins, and final blank leaf. These include liturgical instructions, additions to the chants, and even what appears to be a ranking of the monastery’s finest singers. In one margin a small profile drawing of a hook-nosed and rather ill-tempered looking man was added beside an initial, a surprisingly vivid and informal survival within an otherwise solemn liturgical context.
According to a nineteenth-century note published in Le Bibliophile Belge, the book originally belonged to a monastery in Overijssel, likely in one of the old Hanseatic cities such as Deventer, Kampen, Oldenzaal, or Zwolle.
The Binding
The survival of the original Dutch Renaissance binding in this state is extraordinary.
Not only do the oak boards and blind tooling remain remarkably fresh, but all twenty brass fittings survive intact, including corner pieces, bosses, and clasp hardware. Bindings of this period were heavily exposed to wear, particularly on large liturgical books intended for regular handling. The present example therefore preserves an unusually complete impression of a sixteenth-century Dutch ecclesiastical binding as originally conceived.
The animal-and-foliage roll stamps closely resemble tools associated with Jan Boscaert and related Flemish workshops active in the 1520s.
Provenance
Originally owned by a monastery in Overijssel. Later in the celebrated collections of Sir Thomas Brooke, Clarence Dillon, and Joost Ritman’s Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam. Sold repeatedly through major twentieth-century sales and catalogues including Sotheby’s and H. P. Kraus.
Literature
Le Bibliophile Belge, 3rd series IV, pp. 123–124; Bohatta 464; Graesse VII, 451; Nijhoff; Nijhoff/Kronenberg I, no. 345. Not in Adams, Van Praet, or BM STC Dutch.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 25:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
