20 SEPTEMBER 1930, Page 28

A generation ago the late Robert Proctor, single-handed, compiled an

index to the fifteenth-century books in the British Museum and Bodleian, classified under printers and founts of type. That work is now being partly superseded by the magnificent folio Catalogue of Books printed in the Fifteenth Century now in the British Museum, of which Part VI, com- piled by Mr. Victor Seholderer, has just appeared (British Museum, £5 3s.). The editor contributes a long introduction on the history of the early printers of Foligno, Ferrara, Florence, Milan, Bologna, Naples, Perugia and Treviso. The books are catalogued by towns and printers. The entries are informative and yet compact : wherever necessary, the initial words and the colophon are quoted. At the end are some forty pages of type facsimiles in collotype to aid the bibliographer still further. Students will find many instances in which Mr. Seholderer amends the details usually accepted as facts. The Catalogue is in every way worthy of the great library that issues it.

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