Notes: [1] From an inscription on the recto of the first folio. Welden Monastery (Kloster Welden) in the diocese of Augsburg was the home of the sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis (Terziarinnen in German, Tertjariarum in the Latin inscription). It was founded in 1571, re-founded in 1636 after its sacking in the 30 Years’ War, and secularized in 1782 by Emperor Joseph II of Austria; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kloster_Welden. [2] From an inscription on the recto of the first folio. He is likely the same person as Gratianus Raittmayr, a Franciscan theologian. He was a lector at the Franciscan monastery in Passau-Guardianus. He was born in 1725 and was still alive in 1798, but had relocated to Lechfeld bei Augsburg according to Georg Christoph Hamberger and Johann Georg Meusel, Das Gelehrte Teutschland oder Lexikon der jetzt lebenden Teutschen Schriftsteller, v. 6 (Verlag der Meyerschen Buchhandlung: Lemgo, Germany, 1798), 205–206; accessed at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hxj39x&view=1up&seq=211&skin=2021. His date of death is unknown. [3] His signature on the recto of the first folio. For information about his life, see https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/sfz79621.html. [4] Red and gold book plate of Hans Furstenberg on the inside cover. Hans Furstenberg was a banker and bibliophile whose Jewish heritage caused him to flee from Germany with his collection of rare books and prints in 1936. He settled in Normandy, became a French citizen, and changed his name from Hans to Jean. After the German occupation of France in 1940, he fled again to Switzerland, leaving his collection behind. See https://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2019/06/findings-from-the-bindings-nazi-era-spoliation-research-at-the-british-library-ii-the-collection-of-.html. [5] See Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, Reconstructing The Record of Nazi Cultural Plunder: A Guide To the Dispersed Archives of The Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) and the Postwar Retrieval of ERR Loot, Chapter 2: France (June 2017), Published online by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), in association with the International Institute of Social History (IISH), Amsterdam, and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam: at http://www.errproject.org/guide.php. Chapter 2 accessed at https://www.errproject.org/guide/ERR_Guide_France.pdf. Furstenberg’s loss of incunables is mentioned on page FR-97. The exact date when the Germans confiscated his collection of books is uncertain. [6] After the war, part of his collection was found in Austria. The Plenarium appears in List of Property Removed from France During the War 1939–1945 (Volume VII) — Archives, Manuscripts, and Rare Books (1 of 4) (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/34817301), p. 74, image 85. See also Dr. Walther Grothe, Wiegendrucke in der Zeitenwende: Versuch der geistes- und bildungsgeschichtlichen Einordnung von Inkunabeln einer Interim-Sammlung (Verlag Ferd. Kleinmayr: Klagenfurt, Austria, 1950), 118. Furstenberg’s Plenarium is number 56 in Grothe’s list of incunables found at Tanzenberg by British Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives officers at the end of World War II. It is unclear if it was part of the exhibition they staged in Klagenfurt, both to expose the extent of the ERR’s systematic looting and to highlight incunables and rare books with extraordinary bindings. John Forrest Hayward does not specifically mention the Plenarium in his description of the exhibition, but he does call Furstenberg’s collection “the most interesting looted library at Tanzenberg,” in “The Exhibition of Rare Books from the Library of Tanzenberg,” Apollo: The Magazine of the Arts for Connoisseurs and Collectors, 43 (Apollo Magazine Ltd.: London, 1946), 56. [7] See https://www.chateaubeaumesnil.com/fondation-furstenberg-beaumesnil/ and https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG26745. [8] Ader Picard Tajan, Hôtel Drouot, Incunables et livres anciens provenant de la Fondation Fürstenberg-Beaumesnil, Paris, November 16, 1983, Lot 7.

Published References:

Sem C. Sutter, “Looting of Jewish Collections in France by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg,” in Jüdischer Buchbesitz als Raubgut: Zeitschrift für Bibliothekswesen und Bibliographie, Sonderhefte 88, ed. Regine Dehnel (Vittorio Klostermann GmbH: Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2006), 120–134.

Ader Picard Tajan, Incunables et livres anciens provenant de la Fondation Fürstenberg-Beaumesnil (Hôtel Drouot, Paris 1983).

Dr. Walther Grothe, Wiegendrucke in der Zeitenwende: Versuch der geistes- und bildungsgeschichtlichen Einordnung von Inkunabeln einer Interim-Sammlung (Verlag Ferd. Kleinmayr: Klagenfurt, Austria, 1950).

John Forrest Hayward, “The Exhibition of Rare Books from the Library of Tanzenberg,” Apollo: The Magazine of the Arts for Connoisseurs and Collectors 43, March 1946, 53–57, 70.