Rare Anonymous Woodcut Portraits of the Sibyls
OPVSCVLVM DE VATICINIIS SIBILLARVM
Oppenheim (J. Koebel), [1514]
Rare Anonymous Woodcut Portraits of the Sibyls.4to. (7 7/16 x 5 5/16) inches. 18 unnumbered leaves: [a]1-e4; [f-f2]; last blank. Nineteenth century calf by F. Bedford, with blind fillets, gilt central floral device and corner pieces; spine, reinforced, with five raised bands and gilt decoration; burgundy morocco label gives the full title in minuscule lettering.
A very handsome and very rare group of anonymous woodcut portraits of the Sibyls. The British Library (11408.c.78:1) ascribes this edition to J. Koebel, with a date of '1514?' - two years after the unveiling of Michelangelo's five sibyls on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.
This particular strand of the sibylline tradition derives from one of the opuscula of Philippus de Barberiis, Sybillarum de Christo vaticinia. One of the last books printed by De Lignamine in Rome, his 1481edition of De Barberiis Opuscula, had added some very 'primitive' outline woodcut portraits of the sibyls, copied not much later by Riessinger - but when Bernardinus Benalius in Venice came to print the Quattuor opuscula early in the sixteenth century, the Roman woodcuts were worn and he had them replaced by a series of 12 striking new cuts that preserve only the general layout (a large cut surrounded by a four-part border) of the earlier ones. It is this series of voluptuous Sibyls, which is here copied by an anonymous German artist, faithfully as far as the imagery goes. The names, however, have been shuffled somewhat, for instance: the Sibylla Delphica of the Venice set appears here as the Sibylla Libica.
The short texts derive directly from De Barberiis but hark back to a favorite convention of much earlier times, the fabrication of texts in imitation of the ancient sibylline prophecies somewhat retrospectively announcing the coming of the Messiah, by both Christian and Jewish writers. The cult seems to have taken hold in the later middle Ages; many of the texts found their way into the liturgy, especially in the lessons of the Christmas matins. A fourteenth century hymns sums it up thus:
Dies irae, dies illa,
solvet seaclum in favilla;
teste David cym Sibylla.
The key words of these prophecies appear on long banderoles, which each of the sibyls holds. For the Sibylla Cumana the usual invocation of Virgil is added, here without referring specifically to the Bucolica. (The Cumaean and the Erythraean sibyls were the most popular ones in the Christian canon; they appear side-by-side on a Ghent altarpiece of 1432, again complete with a ribbon panel referring to Virgil). Occasionally the first sentence, describing the appearance of the Sibyl, is altered to suit the altered picture, but from the dreaded phrase 'de Christo sic ait:' the texts remain unchanged.
