Johannis Gerson - [Post Incunable] Operum ... Prius non Impressa - 1502

Fourth part “Prius non impressa” - the first edition of the last part, the rarest
Splendid first edition: a copy perfectly preserved with its clean pages, in a contemporary tooled leather binding, on wooden boards. COLLECTOR'S COPY
A woodcut from the Strasbourg milieu, executed by a master of the circle of Albrecht Dürer, active between the late 15th and early 16th century, strongly influenced by Dürer's models.
Magnificent initials rubricated in red and blue, from an ancient hand.
A late incunable testimony that unites wisdom, esotericism and mysticism, the power of the image, and an interesting editorial history: the Fourth Part of the Works of Johannis Gerson, declared 'not previously printed', appears in Strasbourg in 1502 as an autonomous volume and late relative to the major blocks I–III already established in print.
It is precisely this off-serial birth that explains its scattered distribution and its rarity on the market.
Surviving within a splendid binding from the early sixteenth century, the book appears as a reliquary of restless and itinerant philosophy: a corpus that printing tries to order when the manuscript tradition had already shattered it into movable, predictable, adaptable texts. In this threshold passage between incunabula and full sixteenth century, the Quarta pars becomes the point where philology and iconography draw close: a necessary supplement, arrived late, and therefore easier to lose, harder to rediscover, more desirable when it reemerges intact.
Market value
The philosophical incunabula of Germanic provenance tied to incomplete or posthumous editions of Jean Gerson’s works are scarce on the market, and the Strasbourg fourth part from 1502, born as a separate volume rather than as an integral component of a continuous set, is structurally more prone to dispersion than parts I–III already in circulation. For this reason, appearances are sporadic and demand remains solid. In general, complete copies in contemporary bindings tend to be priced between €4,500 and €6,000; specimens with an intact iconographic apparatus, original rubrication, and bibliographically traceable provenances can exceed this range.

Physical description and condition - collector's copy
Splendid first edition: a copy perfectly preserved, its pages pristine, in a contemporaneous tooled leather binding on wooden boards.
A woodcut from the Strasbourg milieu, executed by a master of the circle of Albrecht Dürer, active between the late 15th and early 16th century, strongly influenced by Dürer's models.
Magnificent initials rubricated in red and blue, from an ancient hand.
Contemporary full leather binding on wooden boards, blind-embossed with lozenge motifs and ornamental bands; remnants of the original clasps, spine replaced in the 17th century with ornate leather. Defects and signs of wear. Interior with some stains, ancient handwritten annotations but overall solid and perfectly preserved. Present a full-page woodcut skillfully repaired. Ex libris. Pp. (2); 22 leaves; 590 leaves; (2). In old books, with a centuries-long history, there may be some imperfections, not always noted in the description.

Full title and author
Fourth part of the works of Jean Gerson, previously unpublished.
Strasbourg, Martin Flach the Younger by Matthias Schürer, 1502.
Jean Gerson.

Context and Significance
The heart of the rarity of this Fourth Part lies not only in its philosophical content, but in its unusual editorial position. The great printed editions of Gerson's works had already established, from the end of the fifteenth century and the years immediately following, a three-part canon, conceived and received as essentially complete. A first organic arrangement in three parts was carried out in Basel in 1489, with a unitary project that fixes the corpus in a stable and transmissible form. This architecture I–III was then reaffirmed and strengthened in Strasbourg in 1494, again in three parts, with an internal chronological division that confirms its circulation as a self-sufficient block.

In this context, the Fourth Part of 1502, explicitly declared Prius non Impressa, is not a simple typographic reuse but a late graft: an added volume that arises to recover material left out of the previous arrangement, when the series was already perceived as closed. This structural fracture explains the collecting dynamics: many historical collections preserve Parts I–III without IV; numerous composite bindings show dispersions; and when the fourth part survives as an autonomous volume in a contemporaneous binding, it takes on the character of an exclusive rarity.

The iconographic apparatus reinforces this perception. The opening woodcut, with strong symbolic impact and tied to Nordic figurative models, serves as a narrative and spiritual threshold, transforming the opening page into an interpretive device. The volume thus becomes a node between morality, conciliarism, and late-medieval mysticism, on the eve of the Reformation: not only Gerson, but the typographic attempt to harness a textual tradition born to circulate in movable forms.

Biography of the Author
Jean Gerson was born in 1363 in Gerson-lès-Barby and died in 1429 in Lyon. He was chancellor of the University of Paris, a theologian, mystic, and one of the most influential figures of late medieval Europe. His works address themes of inner spirituality, church reform, morality, pedagogy, and personal devotion. He played a central role in the Council of Constance and was among the main supporters of the supremacy of the conciliar assembly over the papacy. Much of his writings circulated in manuscript form, with complex and stratified traditions, making every printed edition between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a decisive piece in textual history.

Printing history and circulation
The editorial history of the Gersonian corpus exemplifies, in an exemplary way, the interrupted nature of the Fourth Part.
A first large edition of the works in three parts was produced in Basel in 1489 as a unified project, establishing a canon I–III destined for lasting fortune.
This canon was reaffirmed in Strasbourg in 1494 with a new edition, also structured in three parts, further consolidating the perception of the corpus’s completeness.
Only in 1502 does the Fourth Part appear as an autonomous volume, printed in Strasbourg and presented as material never before published.
Its late and separate birth favors dispersion, fragmentation, and discontinuities in collections, and is one of the main factors of its present rarity.
In 1514 the publishing world will attempt a normative reabsorption of the corpus, permanently integrating the fourth part into a four-volume set, but by that point the historical fracture had already occurred.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
The Complete Catalog of Incunabula (GW), entries concerning the editions of the Opera of Jean Gerson printed in Basel in 1489 (Nikolaus Kessler), in Strasbourg in 1494 (Martin Flach) and the Fourth part previously not printed, printed in Strasbourg in 1502 (Martin Flach the Younger for Matthias Schürer), with typographical descriptions, collations and census of known copies.
Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), records for the Gersonian late incunabula and early sixteenth-century editions, with particular reference to incomplete editions and editorial supplements.
Hain, Ludwig, Repertorium Bibliographicum, entries dedicated to Jean Gerson and to the first printed editions of his works, including the Strasbourg editions from the late fifteenth century and the early sixteenth century.
Copinger, Walter A., Supplement to Hain’s Repertorium Bibliographicum: additions and corrections relating to the Gersonian editions and their typographical attribution.
Polain, Marie-Louis, Catalogue of the fifteenth-century printed books in the libraries of Belgium, with collational comparisons and descriptions of copies preserved in contemporary bindings.
National Library of France, General Catalog, notices for the editions of the Opera of Jean Gerson, with references to the manuscript tradition and to the editorial history of the different parts of the corpus.
Bodleian Library, Oxford, catalogues of incunabula and theological Cinquecent editions, for the documentation of the editions in three parts (1489, 1494) and of the Fourth Part of 1502.
Kristeller, Paul Oskar, Iter Italicum, for the census of the Gersonian manuscript tradition and the relationship between circulating texts and the first printed editions.
McGuire, Brian P., Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, a foundational study of the theological and conciliar context and of the transmission of Gerson's works.
Oberman, Heiko A., The Harvest of Medieval Theology, for the doctrinal framing of Gerson and his reception between the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance.
Studies on Strasbourg typographic production between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with particular reference to the workshops of Martin Flach and Matthias Schürer and their role in the diffusion of complex philosophical texts.
Historical and modern auction catalogs specialized in incunabula and theological books (German-speaking area), to track market appearances of the various parts of Gerson's Opera and for the comparative assessment of the Quarta pars as an autonomous volume.