Postincunabula

Size: The collection comprises c. 3.500 books.
Accessibility: The postincunabula have been entered in the card catalogues, and also in the annotated copy of Nijhoff-Kronenbergs Nederlandsche Bibliographie at the Special Collections reading room. Moreover, those from the Northern Netherlands have been incorporated in the Short-title Catalogue Netherlands. Foreign postincunabula are listed in the Catalogus by Pennink. The KB owns photographs, microfilms or photocopies of many rare postincunabula of which there are no copies in the Netherlands or Belgium.
More information: Marieke van Delft - 070-3140329.

Collection description

At the KB, manuscripts and incunabula, as was customary early on in many libraries, were considered separate collections and they have been placed in the repositories accordingly. But there is a third category at the KB which had been placed separately and catalogued as early as Holtrop's first years as the KB's librarian: books printed between 1501 and 1540, the so-called postincunabula. When Holtrop compiled the catalogue of incunabula, he apparently wished to keep his grip on undated editions that could either date from the fifteenth or the sixteenth century. With a wide margin he also included dated sixteenth-century editions until 1540.

The KB owns copies of 1000 of the more than 4500 editions printed in the Low Countries, the present Netherlands and Belgium. This collection constituted the starting point for the Hague publisher, bookseller and antiquarian bookseller Wouter Nijhoff, who in the late nineteenth century put forward the plan for a supplement to Campbell's Annales: a Dutch bibliography for the period 1500-1540. Owing to the cooperation and, afterwards, continuation by M.E. Kronenberg this was to become a standard work. At the KB it was decided not to compile a separate catalogue of the Dutch postincunabula. These have been made accessible through card catalogues and a copy of Nijhoff-Kronenberg's Nederlandsche Bibliographie, annotated with KB shelf-marks, in the Special Collections reading room. Moreover, the editions from Northern Netherlands have been incorporated in the Short-title Catalogue Netherlands. The KB owns photographs, microfilms or photocopies of many rare postincunabula of which there are no copies in the Netherlands or Belgium. The acquisition and the provenance of the Dutch postincunabula have not yet been studied systematically. It is likely that in part they correspond with those of the incunabula.

The KB owns approximately 2500 postincunabula printed abroad. More than a century after librarian Holtrop had placed this category separately, ordered according to country and printer, curator R. Pennink, after her retirement, was given the opportunity to describe this collection on the basis of a handwritten card catalogue, for a catalogue that was published in 1955. Apart from titles she also gives bibliographical references, shelf-marks as well as provenances (insofar as they can be found in the books themselves, but no details about acquisition). The nearly 2400 titles from the printed catalogue can also be found in the card catalogue, which also includes later acquisitions.

Literature

W. Nijhoff & M.E. Kronenberg. Nederlandsche bibliographie van 1500 tot 1540. 's-Gravenhage 1923-1971.
W. Nijhoff. L'art typographique dans les Pays-Bas pendant les années 1500 à 1540. La Haye 1926-1935.
R. Pennink. Catalogus der niet-Nederlandse drukken 1500-1540 aanwezig in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek 's-Gravenhage. 's-Gravenhage 1955.