Turrecremata 1474

TURRECREMATA (Torquemada), Johannes de (1388–1468).
Expositio super toto psalterio.
Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 11 September 1474. (06684)

This book represents a new phase in Schoeffer’s printing career, one in which he began to use purely typographical solutions instead of special colored initials or hand-rubrication for the articulation of the text page. Composed directly from a copy of Ulrich Han’s first edition (Rome, 1470), Schoeffer’s fourth edition sets off the words of each psalm dramatically in the small Psalter types of 1457, while the texts of the expositions are in the smaller typeface of the 1462 Bible. Schoeffer also copied Han’s versal initials, here printed in black.

A popular exposition on the Christian significance of the Psalter, this work was composed by the Spanish theologian Johannes de Turrecremata, the uncle of the Spanish Grand Inquisitor, Tomás de Torquemada. Turrecremata entered the Dominican Order in 1403 and became prior of the Dominican houses at Valladolid and Toledo. He attended the Councils of Constance in 1417 and Basel in 1433 and was made a Cardinal in 1439.