One of the finest early books printed in Rome is unquestionably the Psalterium David et cantica aliqua in lingua Chaldea issued in 1513: the first book ever printed in Ge’ez, the classical language of Ethiopia and one of the earliest languages of East Africa, dead as a spoken language as of about 1000 CE, but used in liturgy until the nineteenth century.

This book is highly appreciated not only for its beauty – it is printed in red and black throughout – illustration, and great rarity, but also for being a significant ‘publishing first’: “Like the Bay Psalm Book and John Eliot’s Algonquin Bible, it was a publishing first: the first book ever to be printed in Ge’ez, the first book to be printed in the West in an oriental language other than Hebrew, and the first psalter ever to be printed in a language other than Hebrew, Greek, or Latin” (Introduction to Psalms in the Early Modern World, London-New York 2011, p. 6).

This landmark edition was the initiative of the German Johann Potken (ca- 1470 – ca. 1525), provost of the Collegiate Church of Saint George in Cologne, and, as of 1496, appointee as a papal protonotary at the Roman Curia. Interesting circumstances about the publishing are revealed by Potken himself in his Latin preface to the book, in which he offers insight into Renaissance Rome, a cosmopolitan city which was the most important destination for pilgrims in terms of Western Christianity. Potken recalls his participation in the religious services at Santo Stefano Maggiore, the church assigned during the pontificate of Sixtus IV (1471-1484) to monks and pilgrims coming to Rome from Ethiopia, the land that medieval legends believed to have been ruled by the controversial figure of Prester John. The church also included a monastery, a hospice and a cemetery, and was located near Old Saint Peter. Variously designated as the Church of the Mores, Abyssinians, or Indians, another term frequently used during the Renaissance in referring to Ethiopians. Saint Stephen is no longer preserved in its original form, but sources testify to the presence – possibly on the iconostasis separating the central nave from the sanctuary – of a fresco featuring the Trinity, supplemented with an inscription in Ge’ez, now lost.

The sacred hymns recited by the Ethiopian community – from which Potken had only been able to recognize a few words, such as the names of the Virgin Mary or the Apostles – aroused his curiosity. He became fascinated with Ethiopian culture and determined to learn Ethiopic, which he misleadingly calls here ‘lingua Chaldea’, Chaldean being another denomination within the Aramaic language family. This erroneous identification of the ancient Ethiopic language Ge’ez was however a frequent occurrence at this time, with the terms ‘Ethiopic’ and ‘Chaldean’ appearing to have been used interchangeably until the seventeenth century.

As stated in the preface, Potken began to study the language two years before the publication of the Psalterium David et cantica aliqua in lingua Chaldea, i.e., in 1511, probably under the guidance of the Ethiopian Tomas Wäldä Samu’el, who was, at the time, one of the thirty monks living at the monastery of Saint Stephen.

As an entry in the Vatican Register of loaned books for 1486-1547 (MS Vat.Lat. 3966) attests, on 29 October 1511 Potken borrowed, from the Vatican Library, a “psalterium in lingua chaldea” (“a psalter in the Chaldean language”). The entry corresponds to the manuscript now signed Vat. Et. 20, a fifteenth-century Psalter on parchment which, in 1511, was the only Ethiopic manuscript in the possession of the Vatican Library: this manuscript served as Potken’s main source for his edition of the Psalterium in Ethiopic. The manuscript is described in early Vatican inventories as a Chaldean codex.

Potken published the book at his own expense, and the printing was executed by Marcellus Silber, a printer from Regensburg engaged by the Roman Curia whose press at Campo de’ Fiori was active until 1527. In his Annali tipografici di Eucario e Marcello Silber (1968), Alberto Tinto suggests that Potken himself could have designed the types, in two different sizes, and had them cut in the press run by Marcellus.

When Potken left Rome to return to Germany in 1515-1516, he took the punches and matrices with him, and the font was later employed for printing the Psalterium in quatuor linguis Hebraea, Chaldaea, Graeca, Latina in Cologne in 1518, this work being edited by Potken himself and issued from the press of Johannes Soter.

The Psalterium David et cantica aliqua in lingua Chaldea contains the psalter used in the Ethiopic liturgy, which differs from the Latin owing to the fact that it includes not only the sequence of psalms, but also biblical hymns and the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs. The edition is divided into two parts, the first of which consists of the psalms and biblical canticle, and ends with a Latin colophon set – like Potken’s preface – in gothic type and dated to 30 June 1513 (‘Jmpressum est opusculum hoc ingenio et impensis Joannis Potken Prepositi Ecclesie sancti Georgij Coloniensis. Rome per Marcellum Silber alias franck: et finitum Die vltima Junij Anno salutis. M.D.xiij’).

The verso of this leaf bears a further, and shorter colophon set in Ethiopic type, from which we learn the name of Potken’s collaborator and teacher, the above-mentioned Ethiopian monk Tomas Wäldä Samu’el, who translated the Latin colophon into Ge’ez, adding this precious information, omitted by Potken: ‘I, Tomas Wäldä Samu’el, Pilgrim of Jerusalem, made it with him [Potken]’, thus denoting himself as a pilgrim from the Ethiopian monastery in Jerusalem.

Two leaves follow, which feature the first ever printed basic instruments for the learning of the Ethiopic language, including a Latin-Ethiopic syllabary (‘Alphabetum: seu potius Syllabarium literarum Chaldearum’), brief Latin notes on grammar and pronunciation, and a key to Ethiopic numbers (‘Numerus Chaldaeorum’). Notably, the Latin words occurring in these pages are set in Roman type.

Among the recorded copies of the Psalterium, these leaves are found to have been variously bound either after Potken’s preface, at the end of the volume, or – as in the case of the copy we present here (for the complete description click here) – following the aforementioned Latin colophon. Copies lacking these two leaves are also known, a feature that may suggest these instructions had been inserted only in those copies reserved for a Western audience.

The second part of the edition contains the Song of Solomon, the text of which is taken – as Potken states – from a different manuscript which came into his hands later, perhaps one preserved in the library of Saint Stephen of the Abissinians. A second Latin colophon is printed at the end of this section, set now in Roman type and dated to 10 September 1513 (‘Finitum Romae Die. X. Septembris. Anno Christianae Salutis. M.D.XIII.’).

The 1513 Ethiopic Psalter is also highly esteemed for its design and illustration. Both the opening pages of the Psalms and the Song of Solomon feature a fine interlaced headpiece stamped in red, which faithfully reproduces the same decorative elements present in the aforementioned Vatican manuscript that Potken had used as a template for the printed edition.

Meanwhile, the handsome full-page woodcut stamped in red on the recto of the first leaf was originally designed and cut for the 1513 edition.

The woodcut depicts a crowned King David, sitting with his back to the woods and playing the 10-string begena, the form taken by the Divine Lyre in the Ethiopic tradition. David and his lyre forms one of the most frequently depicted subjects in medieval manuscripts, books of psalms and books of hours. In the biblical narrative, David – “the sweet psalmist of Israel” – uses the lyre to exorcise the “spirit of evil” from the soul of Saul, whom he ultimately replaces as King. Here David is portrayed looking up toward the clouds, which in turn respond with emanations of light, a symbolic reference to the presence of God.

The artist has rendered the scene in fine naturalistic style, with great attention to detail throughout, from the varied intricacies of the landscape to the furrowed brow of the musical King. This careful attention to detail and composition has, at the same time, allowed the artist to imbue the naturalistic elements with a touch of mysticism befitting the theme: in harmonious accord with David’s music, nature, here, turns ever so slightly toward the Holy emanations through the branches of the trees, the peak of the mount, even the tall blades of grass by David’s right knee—the apices of each of these seem to stretch and reach toward the divine presence extending through the clouds.

The interaction extends to the divine instrument itself: the curvature of the lyre’s top edge bends around the light, as though responding back to God, while the strings continue the emanations into the hands of David. The interaction recalls an Ethiopian legend reported by Ashenafi Kebede that includes God giving the harp to David and enabling him to play to His greatness and for all of nature:

“God Himself made the begena and gave it to Dawit [the biblical King David]. ‘Use this instrument to adorn and praise My name,’ God said. God tuned the ten strings to the ten forces of goodness and virtue (awatar) that governed the universe. The inspired Dawit composed his psalms, sang to the greatness and glory of God, and accompanied himself with the begena.” (Ashenafi Kebede “The Bowl-Lyre of Northeast Africa. Krar: The Devil’s Instrument.” Ethnomusicology 21 (1977): 381).

The remarkable portrait is framed with a rich ornamental border combining classical decorative themes with foliate and floral elements, two panels of which are signed with the monogram ‘S C’, unfortunately still unidentified.

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In the early decades of the twentieth century, two major exhibitions paid tribute to the importance and prestige of the Italian book. In 1914, the Mostra Storica dell’Arte della Stampa in Italia was held as part of the International Exhibition of Graphic Arts in Leipzig. An equally spectacular Exposition du Livre Italien followed in 1926 at the Bibliothèque Nationale and the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. Both exhibitions included, among the masterpieces selected to represent the quality of Italian book production, the Psalterium David et cantica aliqua in lingua Chaldea published in Rome in 1513.

At the 1914 exhibition, a copy of this fine edition was shown by the bookseller Leo S. Olschki, who described it in his catalogue Le livre en Italie à travers les siècles:

L. Olschki, Le livre en Italie à travers les siècles (1914), figs. 91 and 92. — L. Olschki, *Le livre en Italie à travers les siècles* (1914), figs. 91 and 92.

The copy chosen for the Paris exhibition of 1926 belonged to an institutional library: it was the copy once owned by the seventeenth-century librarian and orientalist Louis Picques and now preserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale:

In 2020, a new exhibition devoted to the heritage of the Italian book will take place at the National Library of Rome. This exciting and challenging initiative will follow in the footsteps of the Leipzig and Paris exhibitions, with a display of rare and precious volumes coming from libraries, antiquarian booksellers, and private collectors alike. Once again, a copy of the 1513 Ge’ez Psalter will count among the masterpieces on display, thus significantly contributing – with its remarkable, full-page woodcut of King David and his lyre, knotwork-pattern headpieces, and continuous visual play of letters and decorative elements in red and black – to narrating the fascinating story of the book in Italy.

For the complete description of the PrPh copy that will be exhibited in Rome, click here.

A Publishing First: The Psalterium David et cantica aliqua of 1513, the first book printed in the Ge’Ez language

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