Venice: Johannes Hamman, for Nicholaus de Franchfordia, 1 July 1493

The Crucifixion woodcut of this Roman Missal, the hand-colouring, and the initial on the facing leaf are all attributable to Venetian artists, suggesting that the book was illuminated prior to sale. The book appears to have been traded in sheets, however, as it was bound in Switzerland, with a fragment of a Swiss manuscript used in the binding. An ownership inscription dated 1520 shows the book was then in the possession of Gualterus Pfyffer, a canon at Beromünster, a collegiate church near Lucerne, the stronghold of Swiss Catholicism. Pfyffer’s successors continued to use it well into the seventeenth century.

Inc.5.B.3.97[1706], fols. o6 verso–o7 recto, with Crucifixion woodcut and illuminated initial