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HRABANUS (or RABANUS) MAURUS. De laudibus sancte crucis opus. [7] (of [10]), 2-59, [1], 14, [2]) leaves, including final blank; lacks 2A5-6, 2B1, and a1. Printed in red and black. Folio, 302x208 mm, modern vellum boards; few small wormholes throughout causing occasional slight text loss, marginal dampstaining on preliminaries, title soiled and stained, rehinged with blank upper margin excised. From the Sackner Collection of Visual and Concrete Poetry. (Pforzheim: Thomas Anshelm, 1503)
first edition of a cycle of complex pattern poems on the Holy Cross originally composed in the early 9th century, consisting of texts with multiple readings integrated with images, "a tour de force of art and artificiality" (DLB). The author was a Benedictine monk (780-856) who later became Abbot of Fulda and Archbishop of Mainz. While different forms of pattern poetry can be traced to antiquity, this was the first work of its kind to appear in print. The leaves missing from this copy include 2 woodcuts of the author before the Pope, and poems incorporating full-length figures of the dedicatee, King Louis the Pious, and the crucified Christ. Fairfax Murray German 350; Philip Mills Arnold Semeiology Collection 57.
