The rare first missal for the Roman rite to be printed or published by the great Paris printing and publishing family Kerver, best known for their luxurious liturgical and devotional printing, especially their books of hours. There appears to be no copy in any French library. Kervers first missal, in 1501, was made for the Paris rite. Kervers early missals, including the present one, are extremely rare, the USTC recording no more than five copies of any edition printed before 1520.
Caerr, p. 73, notes that Kervers present first publishers device is "universally recognised as a master-piece". It has been suggested that Kervers criblée blocks were metal cuts rather than woodcuts. The crucifixion scene facing the opening of the Canon is a more traditional woodcut. Caerr, p. 51, suggests Kerver reached the pinnacle of his success in his stylistic evolution in or around 1506, fully incorporating Renaissance tastes in the period 1505-1514 and perfecting the criblée technique used for his present publishers device and initials. The present missal shows all four sizes of his criblée initials including a nearly complete alphabet of the smallest series. Most of these criblée initials show flower and vine decoration, but the 39 mm T opening the Canon (and facing the crucifixion woodcut) shows a crucifixion scene, using the letter T as the cross; and the 28 mm R opening the Easter celebrations immediately after the Canon shows a heron standing on one leg with an eel or snake in its mouth. This is the earliest example we know of the iconography now known from the coat of arms of The Hague, which shows a stork rather than a heron, but the present image predates the earliest known examples of the coat of arms, from 1541 and 1553, and is closer to the modern version. The Antwerp printer and publisher Jean Baptiste III Verdussen (see below) may have acquired the present copy of the book because of this initial, for Antwerp printers since Martinus Nutius in 1520 had used an image of a stork feeding an eel or snake to its mate and Verdussens family had used that image as their publishers device since his grandfather acquired the house "De Twee Ooievaars" (the two storks) in 1657. The present edition is also a very early example of the use of abstract typographic ornaments. The preliminaries include a calendar of feast days and most of its less common Saints days printed in red suggest a Franciscan connection.
The beautiful large textura type used for the Canon is Vervliet T12: Shaw identifies it as Vervliet T12b (Shaw T16), though it shows some variants. The present edition appears to be Kervers first use of this version of the type, which is freshly cast and well printed. It may have been commissioned by Wolfgang Hopyl, the first printer to use it, about a year earlier. Both Hopyl and Kerver used the earlier version, Vervliet T12a, first recored in 1495.
Thielman Kerver (Koblenz? ca. 1460/70?-Paris 1522) appears in Paris imprints as a bookseller and publisher working with various printers and co-publishers from 1497, beginning with books of hours, which always remained his greatest speciality. He added his own printing office in 1498, though he continued to work with others, and expanded into a wide variety of genres. He also added other kinds of liturgical books, including breviaries from 1499, a psalter in 1500/01 and missals from 1501, apparently publishing about 16 missals to his death in 1522, first using the present form of the title in the present edition. He was sworn in as official bookseller to the University in Paris in 1501 and soon after also printer, hence the "In alma Parisiorum Academia" in the present title and colophon. Kervers widow continued the firm from 1522 to her death in 1557, their son Jacques continued it to his death in 1583 and its materials were sold in 1586.
The fact that both the wording of the title and the exact date differ between the title-page and the colophon (the latter is 40 days later) has led nearly every reference work from Weale in 1886 to the present USTC to turn one 1506 edition into two, most describing a folio edition by Kerver (a ghost) and an anonymous 8vo edition (supposedly with no copy known). David Shaw provided an accurate description on-line, based on the British Library copy.
With an inscription in the head margin of the title-page, partly shaved and difficult to read; the engraved publishers device of the Antwerp printer and publisher Jean Baptiste III Verdussen (1698-1773) on the front and back paste-down, serving as his bookplate (see above). Also with an 1831 owners inscription of S.[?] De Ram on a free endleaf facing the title-page. The rubricator or an early owner has added several notes in red in the calendar. Further with an occasional early marginal manuscript note, some shaved.
Four words in the Canon have been deliberately erased as an editorial revision. With an 8 cm tear into one leaf , the running heads of a few others shaved, the title-page slightly soiled, a 3 mm hole in leaf 232 (E4) affecting 2 or 3 words, some tiny marginal wormholes in a few leaves and some water stains in the endpapers, otherwise in very good condition. The binding shows a few small defects, one slightly affecting the gold lettering on the front board, but is also generally very good. A rare and beautifully produced missal, and the second major display of Kervers stunning criblée initials, all coloured by a contemporary hand, as are the woodcut and Kerver's device. Thierry Caerr, Imprimerie et réussite sociale à Paris ...: Thielman Kerver ..., 2000, 2 vols. (www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque-numerique), 117 (4 copies, erroneously described as a folio); Catalogue ... bibliothèque de feu ... Jean de Meyer (Ghent, 2-5 November 1869), lot 33 (8vo, 23 March 1506, not mentioning Kerver, but with "alma Parisiorum Academia"); Pettegree, French books 68270 (not noting Kervers name) & 68271 (erroneously described as a folio) (1 of the same 4 copies); Frank Isaac reworked by David Shaw, frenchpostincunables.djshaw.co.uk, IS000343; USTC 68270 (not noting Kervers name) & 180236 (erroneously described as a folio) (same copy as Pettegree); Catalogue ... de la bibliothèque de M. Jean François van de Velde (Ghent, 1831), lot 1360 (with an extra woodcut inserted facing leaf 58); Catalogus librorum Joannis Baptistae Verdussen (Antwerp, widow of Hieronymous Verdussen, 15 July 1776), liturgy lot 45 (the present copy); Weale & Bohatta, Bibliographia liturgica (1928), 982 (23 March 1506, 2 copies) & 985 ([11] February 1506, not noting Kervers name, no copy located), both on p. 147 in the 1886 ed.; WorldCat 152428895, 315474570, 843131050, 843131052, 906577964, 1063178422 (5 copies plus 2 ghosts); not in Adams (no Kerver missal before 1515); Davis, Fairfax Murray (French), (no Kerver missal); Mortimer, Harvard (French), (no Kerver missal before 1574); SUDOC; catalogue.bnf.fr.