Catechismus, oder Fragstucken, Der Christelichen Jugend vast nützlich.
Basle, J. Derbilley at the press of J. Kündig 1556.
8vo (144 x 93 mm.). [176]p. Letterpress table..
18th-century half-sheep and speckled pastepaper over thin wooden boards (rear board wormed), initials P.S. gilt-lettered on the front panel.
ONLY EDITION, EARLY ISSUE, OF THE FIRST CALVINIST CATECHISM IN GERMAN AND THE ONLY LITERAL GERMAN TRANSLATION OF CALVIN’S TEXT. No American library holds a copy.
First published in 1537, Calvin’s first attempt at rudimentary religious instruction was a complex reduction of his Institutes. Five years later, he simplified his approach, couched his ideas in catechistic format and created the standard Calvinist manual — the so-called Second Geneva Catechism. Its first printing, in French, is lost. In 1545, Calvin published his own Latin translation, the basis of our anonymous word-for-word German rendering.
This is Derbilley’s first book. Vagaries and errors in the opening quire suggest he had yet to perfect his new trade (many of these idiosyncrasies are reset in digitized copies I examined). In good condition (outer margins trimmed with some loss to the shoulder notes, repair to the final leaf’s outer blank margin from a removed thumb tab). Inexplicably absent from Peter and Gilmont, Bibliotheca Calviniana.
¶Neuser, “Die Übersetzung des Genfer Katechismus (1542/1545) ins Deutsche durch Zacharias Ursinus im Jahr 1563” in Koers 74 (2009) 683-700; Erichson, Bibliographia Calviniana 16; Bietenholz, Basle and France in the Sixteenth Century 226; Brüggemann & Brunken, Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur 69 & illus. Sp. 268; VD 16 C 311.
Price: $16,500.00