A beautiful incunable by Guillaume Caoursin: Stabilimenta Rhodiorum militum, printed on 23 August 1496 in Ulm by Johann Reger. This is the first illustrated edition, third in total; Caoursin edited the revised statutes of the Knights Hospitallers by order of their Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson (1423-1503). The edition includes d’Aubusson’s preface and introduction and the papal bull Dum preclara religionis by Innocent VIII. The first dated edition of the Stabilimenta appeared in 1495 in Venice, followed by a French translation in Paris. The present printing is the first illustrated edition.
The full-page woodcuts are the work of an anonymous artist, thus called ‘Master of the Caoursin’. The illustrations are unique to this edition. The text is adorned with white- on-black initials (c. 18 x 15 mm) and with large floral and figurated initials from a series of eleven blocks in Venetian style. It is Reger’s finest set, which he only used here and in his Obsidionis.
Guillaume Caoursin (c. 1430-1501) was vice-chancellor of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (Knights Hospitallers). The main seat of this order was in Rhodes from 1310 until 1523.
It is likely that the printings were commissioned by the Knights Hospitallers or by Caoursin himself; the decoration and arrangement of both text and illustration in this and the Obsidionis Rhodiae show that the volumes are closely connected: printing space and type match, and they include the same set of initials and woodcuts of the same size, designed by the same artist.
Considering the rather uninspiring subject –statutes of an order– the illustration of the Stabilimenta is quite varied; the woodcuts are powerful and well composed as in the other volume. Of special interest is the depiction of the construction of the hospital at Jerusalem regarding aspects of both art and cultural history.
Provenance: Uberlingen, Ulrich Vögeler, contemporary ownership inscription below the preface of the Stabilimenta (fol. 1v). D. Morgand, Bulletin IX (1900/1901), no. 39200 (with the Obsidionis Rhodiae). From this catalogue the latest, the two books were offered and kept together. M. Bridel, Catalogue 12 (1952), no. 33 (both volumes). Geneva, Edmée Maus (1905-1971), a collector of fine early printing, (see Arthur Rau, ‘Edmée Maus,’ in The Book Collector 7, 1958, pp. 38-50).
