Li Miraculi de la Madonna

Li Miraculi de la Madonna

There are only in two surviving copies of this beautiful, strange, and odd book, an incunabulum (pre-1501 printed book) containing 62 Marian miracles, one in the Fundazione Cini in Venice and this specimen from the Biblioteca Nacional de España in Madrid. At the beginning of the 20th century, Leo S. Olschki (1861–1940), an Italian publisher of Prussian-Jewish origin, wrote in his Livres inconnus des bibliographes that this copy was in the collections of the Biblioteca Melzi, then owned by Louise di Soragna Melzi, in Milan. The Italian text by an anonymous author is adorned by one large and numerous small initials as well 25 woodcuts, some of which repeat such as the image from the title page which is reused at the beginning of the text, but is presented within an historiated architectural border. The codex is a truly fascinating example from the genesis of book printing.

Identifying the Publisher

The codex indicates that it was printed on March 2nd, 1496 but does not specify by whom. However, researchers have attributed Li Miraculi de la Madonna to the workshop of Simón de Gabis, also known as de Bevilaqua, a printer from Pavía who rarely used his real name in his prints. After being active in Vicenza from 1487 to 1491, during which time he undertook six printing projects, de Gabis moved his shop from the mainland of the Veneto to its island capital of Venice in 1492. There he worked through the end of the century creating fascinating works like the specimen at hand.