Incunabula

An incunabula is the term employed by a historian, or a librarian, or anybody involved in advanced book collecting to describe a book printed before 1501. The term is also used for single sheet prints of news or useful information such as a broadside or for prints of images before 1501.

The term comes from the Latin word incunabula, which means "swaddling clothes" or "cradle".

There are two types: The xylographic and the typographic. The xylographic is made from a single carved or sculpted block for each page. The typographic uses movable type on a printing press.

An incunabula is usually a very rare and fragile item whose nature can only be verified by experts. In those early days of printing there were no bibliographic traditions or rules telling the author and/or publisher and/or printer to correctly date each document and put a proper title. It is thus sometimes very tricky to find out exactly if a book or sheet of print was produced before 1501 or not.