- A Rare Book in a Romanian Library
This important edition of Terence’s[1] plays -Terentius Comoediae[2] – issued by Johann Grüninger in 1499 is generally referred to as rare. As it is an incunable (in other words, a book published in the first years of the printing press, before 1500), the print run was not huge, so, extant copies are bound to be scarce. Despite this however, the latest census conducted by the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue[3] for this heavily illustrated ‘Terennce’ lists as many as 110 copies in public institutions all over the world. By far most of them are in German libraries. In Romania, there appears to be only one copy of the 1499 edition. This is preserved at Biblioteca Centrală Universitară Carol I in Bucharest.
Compared to other libraries, where incunables are counted by the hundreds, Biblioteca Centrală Universitară Carol I holds just seven currently,[4] and they are relatively recent acquisitions, bought after 22 December 1989. The eight incunables held by the library before the above-mentioned date, all disappeared in the flames that engulfed the building and its priceless contents during the Romanian Revolution. Of the seven newly acquired incunables, six were bought in 1992 from a bookshop in Holland. The lot includes Saliceto’s Lectura super quarto codicis, a volume published in 1483, of which only six copies are known to have survived. The seventh incunable in the Romanian collection was purchased in 1991 in a Bucharest bookshop. The book – Franchis’ Lectura super titulo de appelationibus – is another unique copy. Similar to the 1499 ‘Terence’, the 1496 ‘Franchis’ is also the only copy kept in a Romanian library.
Returning to the 1499 ‘Terence’… like so many incunables, it is a spectacular, intensely visual and carefully thought-through volume. It must have been expected to become a bestseller at the time, as a German version quickly got to be printed[5] (the first edition was published only three years before, in 1496).[6] Although there are significant differences between editions, it is immediately noticeable that both feature some of the finest early representations of Renaissance theatre in action.
But focusing on the volume published in 1499 first – this opens with a ‘Directorium vocabulorum’ (listing a surprising number of words and expressions relevant for theatrical use). The preliminary material spreads over no less than ten pages. Terence’s text follows. It is set up to include an interlinear gloss by Guido Juvenalis (Guy Jouenneaux). All this is surrounded by a detailed commentary by Aelius Donatus and end-notes by Jodocus Badius Ascensius. As a rule, the three commentators appear together in various other early ‘Terence’ editions.
A French Benedictine monk, grammarian, translator and theologian, Guido Juvenalis (c.1450-1507) was the first scholar to publish his own complete Latin commentary on the six plays by Terence. Badius (1462-1535) knew about this study and adopted it for his landmark illustrated ‘Terence’ printed at Lyon in 1493, which, in turn, served as a model for the Grüninger editions. As to Aelius Donatus (fl. mid-fourth century), he was a Late-antique Roman grammarian whose analyses were foundational for medieval and Renaissance education. His work on Terence circulated widely after humanists uncovered key manuscripts at Mainz in 1433 and Chartres in the late 1440s. The preliminary material also includes an editor, Jakob Locher (1471-1528), a humanist crowned as ‘poeta Laureatus’ by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1497.
Incidentally, the 1499 Grüninger ‘Terence’ at Biblioteca Centrală Universitară Carol I in Bucharest is unique due also to the manuscript commentary filling every page of the volume. The name of the commentator is not known, but the calligraphy suggests a sixteenth century hand. This means that, whoever wrote the marginal notes must have been one of the first owners of this particular copy.
One of the later owners inscribed the book ‘Ex Libris Valeriani Svinski.’ No further details are available about who the man was, but we can safely identify a Polish-Lithuanian surname in ‘Świński’. Dating the hand is a little easier. The tall looped ‘E’, the simple ‘r’, and the short final ‘s’ are all typical of mid-18th-century writing (Figure 1).
This lines up with another inscription – on page [iii] – that mentions a 1757 donation note: ‘Anno Dni 1727, die 23 […] Hic liber dono oblatus a M[agni]fico D[omi]no Maximiliano Zborouski Procurator Dist. Vilicensis Benefactore Conventus nostri […] oretur pro eo’[7] (Figure 2). So, for a while, this copy of the 1499 ‘Terence’, offered as a gift by another Polish nobleman, was among the books of a convent. Which convent? Given the information in the note, this could have been a Bernardine convent in the Wiślica district – most probably Pińczów or Stopnica. These are likely candidates because they were active at the time the book was gifted, and kept scholarly libraries. At some point the volume left the shelves of the convent, but the trail goes cold until it reaches the Romanian library.
2. Terence in the Age of the Incunable: Layers of Textual and Visual Commentary
Tellingly the name of Johannes Curtus von Ebersbach, the craftsman responsible for the layout, is mentioned in the 1499 edition as well. This bears on the acknowledgement that the way the book looked was of paramount importance. For, indeed, the varied layers of commentary continue on a visual level.
The first edition of Grüninger’s ‘Terence’, issued in 1496, was also the printer’s first ‘illustrated book’. Well-received, it quickly consolidated his reputation. While we don’t know the print run, the fact that we can still find copies in 160 holding institutions,[8] suggests that a significant number of volumes were printed. Overall, Grüninger knew what he was doing. He was a productive publisher, bringing out an impressive 389 editions between the years 1483 and 1531. He had already published 71 editions prior to the ‘Terence’, but only one had been of a classical text, his Maralissimus cum commento Roberti de Euromodio, vulgo disticha Catonis in 1488.[9]
Examining the 1499 and the 1496 ‘Terence’ carefully, and comparing the two editions in detail, one immediately notices that most of the wording on the page is the same, and several blocks are reused. However, scrutinizing the text with an attentive eye, it becomes obvious that it has been fully re-formatted for the 1499 edition. Also, the woodcuts look distinctly different, due to Grüninger‘s original technique, where each illustration is formed by mounting small blocks next to each other. The beginning of scene 2 (act I) of Andria, the first play in the sequence, is a good example of re-formatting. In terms of content, the editions are virtually the same, but looking closely, nothing matches (Figure 3 and 4). The printer’s effort to freshen up his publication is obvious. The various layers of core text and commentaries invite re-arranging. And the flexibility incurred by moving small blocks around allows organic increasing and revitalizing the already large picture pool of this rather extraordinary ‘illustrated book’.
Speaking of the illustrations designed for the Grüninger ‘Terence’, there are two types of images. On the one hand, there is the series of small woodcuts that occupy about a third of the page. Because this arrangement is similar to the illuminations in manuscripts, they have received more scholarly attention.[10] In contrast, there are the somewhat enigmatic full page woodcuts, which, in the case of the 1499 edition, are placed at the beginning of each play. Their complexity and sophistication is extraordinary, but they have received surprisingly little notice.
Both series of woodcuts are attributed to a local artist referred to as the Master of the Grüninger ‘Terence’ (although some scholars have argued that the printer more likely employed a team of engravers). They are visually inspired by the earlier editions printed in Ulm (1486)[11] and in Lyon (1493).[12] We can see their impact if we compare woodcuts and the general style of decoration. Let us, for instance, look at those illustrating scene 2 (act I) in Eunuchus. This is an important scene, setting the plot in motion. It introduces three main characters. The young man Phaedria, his slave Parmeno and the courtesan, Thais. She comes out of her house to greet the two, then tells a wild, convoluted story of a girl, Pamphila, who was kidnapped and
Having said this, despite the obvious borrowings, the Grüninger editions remain original in that they were produced using the ingenious technique mentioned above. The ‘composite’ blocks, depicting characters, identifiable thanks to speech bubbles, and background images (both elements pioneered in the Ulm and Lyon ‘Terence’), are rearranged in different ways throughout the work.[13] Thus, looking at the same scene in the 1496 and 1499 editions, respectively, it is not difficult to see the resemblance, but also to spot the difference defining this type of layout popularized by Grüninger (Figure 7 and 8).
3. Dürer and the Impact of a Failed Project
All this shows a degree of continuity and the fact that early printers borrowed heavily from each other. On the topic of sourcing elements that might have had an impact on his work, many stipulate that the woodcut artist of the Grüninger editions must have been familiar with an unfinished ‘Terence’ series of drawings by Albrecht Dürer.
It is commonly argued that at some stage around 1492, there were plans to create an illustrated edition of Terence’s plays using woodcuts based on sketches attributed to Dürer. Over a hundred and forty spectacular pen and ink drawings on woodblocks survive at the Kunstmuseum in Basel.[14] The beauty and complexity of his work would have created a truly breathtaking book. But the project was unexpectedly abandoned. There is no explanation as to why, or, indeed, any solid documentation about the particulars of this exploit. All we know is that the book was probably to be printed in Basel by either Bergmann von Ople or – more likely – by Johann Amerbach. The leading figure in this enterprise appears to have been the editor and publisher Sebastian Brant. The plan – it seems – was to produce a new illustrated Latin edition of Terence’s comedies by 1493. However, 1493 was also the year that the Badius and Treschel illustrated edition of Terence’s plays was printed in Lyon, and the general speculation was that Brandt and Amerbach dropped their project because the Lyon edition had already cornered the market.[15] Add to this the possibility, according to Thomas Wilhelmi, that this project was abandoned due to a severe outbreak of plague in 1492, which led the printers in Basel drastically restricting their output. [16]
So, returning to Johannes Grüninger’s illustrated ‘Terence’ series – the question arose whether it would have been at all possible to find in it traces of Dürer’s early, unfinished work for a volume which never got to be printed. To put the matter in the right context, let us remember the subtle but visible impact that the 1486 Ulm and 1493 Lyon editions had on the above mentioned Grüninger series.
Now, if we take the illustration Dürer came up with for the same scene,[17] all will become much clearer (Figure 9). As it was published before the presumed year he was working on the ‘Terence’ project, Dürer must have been familiar with the Ulm edition, and this could have prompted him to adopt the presentation of characters in late fifteenth-century clothing. Apart from this, the Ulm edition and Dürer’s illustrations don’t appear to have much in common. This is perhaps most obvious in the way the architectural space is used to surround the characters. Houses in the 1486 ‘Terence’ look more like a stage set, a well-designed visual environment for the performance of the said play. In contrast, what transpires from Dürer’s composition appears like a real city, a living, breathing corner of a world where three figures are engaged in a conversation. Not three actors on a small stage, but rather three people in the street! The overall feel of Dürer’s ‘Terence’ series is essentially cinematographic. One illustration follows the next in an organic frenzy, creating a fascinating story. Nothing of this translates into the pictures of any of the ‘Terence’ editions mentioned above. But Dürer’s extraordinary drawings, which remained uncut, could not start a life of their own. Despite this, however, they did not appear to go unnoticed. And nowhere is this clearer than in Grüninger’s 1499 ‘Terence’.
Although stylistically the illustration of the volume could not be more different, there are odd elements in the Grüninger edition, such as the introduction of details from the natural world which might remind one of the imaginary landscape of stony paths, hilly terrain and rich vegetation as a foreground for far-off city, buildings and bridges in Dürer’s compositions. In the case of Grüninger’s publication, these are composite elements – originating from interchangeable small woodblocks. As a consequence, the image created using this technique is disjointed and looks frozen and artificial.
A closer semblance with Dürer’s vision comes from the depiction of an unlikely figure: that of Calliopius. He appears at the beginning of Andria, just before ‘Figurae declaratio’ (explaining who the characters are), and ‘Argumentum’ (summing up the plot, ahead of the text). In the woodcut he is depicted as the quintessential poet, scroll in hand and wearing a laurel crown. In the 1496 Grüninger edition, the banner associated to the image gives away his name (Figure 10). Interestingly, Calliopius has no role in the play. He usually appears in the formula: ‘Plaudite – Calliopius recensui’ (Applaud – I, Calliopius, revised this.) linked to title-pages or final colophons of some manuscripts of Terence’s comedies. The wording is consistent with late-antique and medieval practices of copyists or scholarly correctors, but early modern commentators sometimes imagined Calliopius as an actor or reciter associated with Terence’s performances.
This is exactly how the figure is represented in the 1493 Lyon edition, recognized to have had a profound impact on all illustrated ‘Terence’ published from then on (Figure 11). Comparing the woodcuts representing Calliopius in the Lyon and the Grüninger editions, it is evident that there is no resemblance. In contrast, the link with Dürer’s drawing on the woodblock kept at Kunstmuseum in Basel[18] is obvious, despite the fact that the two woodcuts are different stylistically (Figure 12). They represent the same character: Calliopius. Not (as all sources discussing Dürer’s work state) ‘Terence Writing in a Landscape’. It is true, given the way he looks, and as the drawing does not incorporate a banner with his name, the figure could be easily mistaken for the author of the play. But not if one was aware of a long manuscript tradition in so far as Terence’s comedies were concerned. Dürer might have been young and inexperienced at the time he was involved in this project, but he also was an avid reader, and was determined to work and learn from the best in any field of expertise.
4. Iconographic Theatre and Symbolic Representations
Back again to the Grüninger ‘Terence’, and the works it seems it was indebted to, these are always spoken of today as ‘illustrated editions’. However, it is not clear whether these works might have been considered ‘illustrated’ in their own day. Humanist scholars had a special fondness for the word. Pictures were seen as rather vulgar and were reserved for the religious literature, for romances, and for anything written in the vernacular. As Athanasia L. J. Dollmetsh Worley notes,[19] Renaissance scholars wrote and owned manuscripts and printed editions with ornamentation, borders and fancy capitals, but no pictures. Classics remained pure – until Trechsel, in 1493, published the very first Latin text with illustrations, the complete Ulm ‘Terence’, with commentaries.
So, how did the illustrated ‘Terence’ issued from Grüninger’s press fare under the pressure to find new modes of expression so as not to be considered vulgar? First, let us take the large number of small woodcuts, which, instead of being carved as a whole, consist of up to five interchangeable blocks depicting a variety of houses, trees and all sorts of plants, plus the characters appearing in a scene or another. Tellingly, the names of these characters appear on scrolls above their heads. They are typeset separately, so that each carving can be used for more than one character. The spelling of names often differs from the text and not infrequently the banderols are entirely empty. At first glance, they don’t look exceptionally beautiful. They appear somewhat awkward and flat. But (unlike Dürer’s drawings for the unpublished ‘Terence’), the role of these specific woodcuts is not as much decorative, but functional. They provide visual separation of scenes, illustrate, and give specific information about the actors, costumes and set design. They also have an indexing function. In other words, if readers wish to find a particular scene, they can use the full-page illustration to find the play and then, using the smaller pictures, they can get to the beginning of the act, and count woodcuts to reach the right scene. All of this is done in such a way as to focus the mind on the Terentian text, rather than distract or detract from it. Looking carefully at the volume as a whole, although fully and strikingly illustrated, it is not difficult to see that a commitment has been made to the primacy of text over image.
As to the frontispieces placed at the beginning of each comedy, these are extraordinary. They contain all of the speaking and mute characters in a play or another. They are not presented as static but are actively engaged in talking, running, riding, hauling cargo, and all sorts of other activities. For the most part, they are not shown alone, but in groups outside various houses. The names of the characters are printed on banderols and artfully arranged all over the place on the surface of the woodcut. Like with the smaller pictures, the frontispieces cannot be thought of as typical illustrations of the plays. They are puzzling visual compositions, especially with their curious web of lines linking characters in strange, unexpected ways.
To have an idea how this works – compositionally, spatially and iconographically – let us have a quick look at the full page woodcut opening Eunuchus, in the 1499 Grüninger ‘Terence’ (Figure 13). Casting an attentive eye reveals the fact that the picture is not of a single scene from the play. It is, in effect, a map of the cast arranged in a spatialized theatrical world – it is visual a prologue that locates each figure in relation to the others and to urban space. The composition divides vertically roughly into three zones. The scene ‘reads’ upward and inward like an urban amphitheatre: the viewer’s eye travels from the lower street to the rising buildings and nested figures. The woodcut can also be interpreted as a symbolic diagram of social circulation and hierarchy, with slaves, courtesans, soldiers, lovers, parasites, each in their proper environment. The composition abounds in doorways, stairs, balconies, all symbols of transition, voyeurism, sometimes intrusion – key motifs in Eunuchus, where the idea of crossing thresholds drives the plot. Important to note are also the name labels, operating like stage captions, merging text and image. These can be read as a kind of semiotic scaffolding. Overall, the image translates the play’s psychological comedy into something we might call social cartography. Looked at from this perspective, the picture signals a very coherent directorial view for a production in which Grüninger’s audience could actually ‘see’ a Roman comedy within their own bourgeois topography of fifteenth-century Strasbourg. There is a clear and open invitation to ‘read’ the images at least as carefully as the text, thus aiming to decode its many often puzzling layers of meaning.
Speaking of puzzling and comparing the Grüninger ‘Terence’ with the Lyon edition published in 1493, doubtlessly the most intriguing full-page woodcut is the one depicting a theatre (Figure 14 and 15). Particularly striking are – as Andrew J. Turner and Giulia Torello-Hill remarked – the similarities in the depiction of the theatre building with multiple tiers that open into arches, and the presence of three couples in front of the structure.[20]
Examining the two distinct, but closely related early editions of Terence’s comedies, it is not hard to acknowledge how heavily Grüninger borrowed from the Lyon edition. It is also easy to acknowledge that a theatre like the one the woodcuts propose seems utterly impossible to ever being built. There is a serious problem regarding a vantage point affording a good view of the performance. In other words, the position of the audience, who are overlooking from the upper circles and the orientation of the actors who give their backs to the audience, all this does not work in an actual performance. So, the image, in both cases, does not illustrate a real theatre. Instead, it does something very new and original. It offers itself as a silent meditation on the condition of performing arts.
Regarded from this perspective, we get to understand the need and role of sophisticated books such as the various ‘Terence’ incunabula. They should not be seen as simple illustrated volumes, but fabulous examples of a new type of book, commending layers upon layers of commentary, both visual and textual, to a much respected and valuable work. … So many eyes and minds focused on a priceless core narrative! This is what a volume like the 1499 Grüninger ‘Terence’ can reveal if looked at carefully. A real gem among the many treasures of Biblioteca Centrală Universitară Carol I in Bucharest.
[1] Publius Terentius Afer (195/185-159), a playwright during the Roman Republic, the author of six comedies based on Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. These six plays survive complete and were originally produced between 166–160 BC.
[2] Terentius cum directorio vocabulorum, sententiarum, artis comice, glossa interlineali, et commentariis Donato, Guidone, Ascensio (Strasbourg: Johann Grüninger, 1499). Full digital reproduction: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg. See https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/it00101000 (accessed 25 September 2025).
[3] Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC): The International Database of 15th-century European Printing. Database. See https://data.cerl.org/istc (accessed 24 September 2025). The most recent update of the record was recorded on 19 December 2024.
[4] Apart from Terentius’ Comoediae published in 1499 by Johann Grüninger, Biblioteca Centrală Universitară Carol I, also holds the following incunabula: Anselmus Cantuariensis (Sanctus), Opera ([Basel]: [Johannes Amerbach], [non post 1497]); Boethius [Pseudo-] [=Thomas Cantipratensis], De disciplina scholarium: cum commento anonymo (Deventer: Jacobus de Breda,1496); Franchis, Philippus de, Lectura super titulo de appellationibus (Venezia: Philippus Pincius, 1496); Gaguinus, Robertus, Opera varia (Paris: André Bocard pro Durand Gerlier, 1498). Georgius Bruxellensis, Interpretatio in summulas Petri Hispani. Bricot, Thomas, Quaestiones (Lyon: Jean de Vingle, 1496) and Saliceto, Bartholomaeus de, Lectura super quarto codicis ([Lyon]: [Johann Siber], 1483).
[5] In 1499, Grüninger also published a German edition of Terence’s plays, Terentius der Hochgelert vnd aller brüchlichest Poet übers. aus dem Lat. Mit dt. Übers. des Epitaphium Terentii […] (Strasbourg: Johann Grüninger, 1499). Full digital reproduction Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München. See https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00032086?page=,1 (accessed 25 September 2025).
[6] Comoediae, cum directorio vocabulorum, glossa interlineari et commentis Aelii Donati, Guidonis Iuvenalis et Iodoci Badii Ascensii. Vita Terentii (Strasbourg: Johann Grüninger, 1496). Full digital reproduction: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg. See https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/it00094000/0001/image,info,thumbs (accessed 25 September 2025).
[7] The text in translation: ‘In the year of Our Lord 1727, on the 23rd of […], this book was presented as a gift by the Most Illustrious Lord Maximilian Zborouski, Trustee of the Diocese of Wiślica, a benefactor of our convent. […] prayers are offered for him.’
[8] In Romania there are 2 copies of the 1496 Grüninger ‘Terence’, one at Biblioteca Batthyaneum in Alba Iulia, and the other at Biblioteca Muzeului Brukenthal in Sibiu.
[9] Only one Cato had been printed in Strasbourg prior to this, by Martin Flach in 1487. For further details, see Athanasia L. J. Dollmetsh Worley, The Renaissance Reception of Terence: Grüninger’s Editions of Terence, Strasbourg, 1496/1499 (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ProQuest Dissertations & Theses, 1997), p.3 (accessed 22 September 2025).
[10] The most detailed study of the manuscript miniatures is Leslie Webber Jones and C. R. Morey, The
Miniatures o f Terence Prior to the Thirteenth Century (Princeton University, 1931).
[11] [Terentius Afer, Publius], [Eunuchus <dt.>] Hernach volget ain Maisterliche und wolgesetzte Comedia … (Ulm: Konrad Dinckmuth, 1486). Full digital reproduction: Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt. See https://tudigit.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/trefferliste/detailseite?tx_dlf%5Bid%5D=14926&cHash=46ed24bc75e0dcde58a3ef2439ac2e6a
(accessed 25 September 2025).
[12] Guidonis Iuuenalis natione Cenomani in Terentium familiarissima interp[re]tatio cu[m] figuris unicuiq[ue] scænæ præpositis (Lyon : Johannes Trechsel, 1493). Full digital reproduction: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München.. See https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb11303143?page=,1 (accessed 25 September 2025).
[13] See A Heavenly Craft: The Woodcut in Early Printed Books, ed. by Daniel de Simone (New York: George Braziller / Library of Congress, 2004), p. 59.
[14] Thanks to the collecting activities of Basilius Amerbach in the second half of the sixteenth century, these drawings always remained together; and with the acquisition of the Amerbach collection in the seventeenth century, they became part of the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung in the Basel art museum.
[15] See Andrew J. Turner and Giulia Torello-Hill, Terence between Late Antiquity and the Age of Printing: Illustration, Commentary and Performance (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015), pp. 97-8.
[16] See Thomas Wilhelmi, “Zur Entstehung des «Narrenschiffs» und der illustrierten Terenz-Ausgabe: Beschreibung der Rückseiten der Terenz-Druckstöcke,” in Sebastian Brant: Forschungsbeiträge zu seinem
Leben, zum «Narrenschiff», und zum übrigen Werk, ed. By Thomas Wilhelmi (Basel: Schwabe
& Co., 2002), pp. 104-7.
[17] Kunstmuseum Basel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Kupferstichkabinett. Inv. Z.451
[18] Kunstmuseum Basel, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Kupferstichkabinett. Inv. Z.425.
[19]Athanasia L. J. Dollmetsh Worley, The Renaissance Reception of Terence, pp. 3-7.
[20] Andrew J. Turner and Giulia Torello-Hill, The Lyon Terence: Its Tradition and Legacy (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2020), pp.10-12.
