The ''Summa grammaticalis quae vocatur Catholicon'', or ''Catholicon'' (from the Greek Καθολικόν, universal), is a 13th-century

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

dictionary which found wide use throughout Latin Christendom. Some of the entries contain encyclopedic information, and a Latin grammar is also included. The work was created by John Balbi (Johannes Januensis de Balbis or Johannes Balbus), of

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

, a Dominican, who finished it on March 7, 1286. The work served in the

late Middle Ages The late Middle Ages or late medieval period was the Periodization, period of History of Europe, European history lasting from 1300 to 1500 AD. The late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period ( ...

to interpret the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. The ''Catholicon'' was one of the first books to be printed, using the new printing technology of

Johannes Gutenberg Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg ( – 3 February 1468) was a German inventor and Artisan, craftsman who invented the movable type, movable-type printing press. Though movable type was already in use in East Asia, Gutenberg's inven ...

in 1460. It should be distinguished from Lagadeuc's ''Catholicon'', a Latin-Breton-French dictionary compiled in 1464 by a priest of Tréguier called Jehan Lagadeuc which was published 5 November 1499 (the first printed French dictionary and the first ever trilingual dictionary).

Editio princeps

The ''Catholicon'' was one of the first books to be printed, using the new printing technology of

, with the date 1460; it is unclear who did the printing though Gutenberg himself was once regarded as the printer responsible. It was printed with a newly cut bastarda, a small but easily readable, still gothically influenced, printing type, using sixty-six lines of forty letters in each column. The ''Catholicon'' was printed in three impressions, which, on the basis of the papers used, can be assigned to the years aroun
1460
1469 and 1472. The typesetting of these three impressions is almost identical. For the explanation of this phenomenon the historian of printing Lotte Hellinga puts forward the thesis that the Catholicon was printed in the same year (around 1469), but on three different presses by three different printers, who cooperated in a joint venture. Mosley suggests that the book may have been printed using metal types wired together in two-line units. Paul Needham has presented the revolutionary theory that the Catholicon was printed by means of two-line stereotypes or "slugs", a technology not documented in any form until after 1700. The correct attribution of the Catholicon to its printers is one of the knotty problems of incunabula research. The colophon of the book (in Latin) refers to the technology used: "With the help of the Most High ... this noble book ''Catholicon'' has been printed and accomplished without the help of reed, stylus or pen but by the wondrous agreement, proportion and harmony of punches and types, in the year of our Lord's incarnation 1460 in the noble city of Mainz of the renowned German nation ...". S. H. Steinberg in his book ''Five Hundred Years of Printing'' (1955) makes these observations "the type is about a third smaller than that of the 42-line Bible; it is considerably more economical and thus marks an important step towards varying as well as cheapening book-production by the careful choice of type"; "the book contains a colophon which it is difficult to believe to have been written by anybody but the inventor of printing himself".Quotations from Steinberg, S. H. (1961) ''Five Hundred Years of Printing''; 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin; pp. 18-19 A summary of the problem is to be found in (only in German): Andreas Venzke: ''Johannes Gutenberg – Der Erfinder des Buchdrucks und seine Zeit''. Piper-Verlag, Munich, 2000.

References

External links

Balbi, Giovanni, d. 1298. ''Catholicon''.
73leaves. 40.4 cm. (fol.) From th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

''Liber qui dicitur Catholicon, editus...''.
14th century manuscript, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal. Ms-978.
''Catholicon. Vol. I''.
14th century manuscript, Wroclaw University Library. Ms IV F 70 wol. 1.
''Catholicon. Vol. II''.
14th century manuscript (1325), Wroclaw University Library. Ms IV F 70 wol. 2. Latin dictionaries 1286 books 1460 books Incunabula 13th-century books in Latin 15th-century books in Latin

Editio princeps

References

Further reading

External links