The international database of 15th-century European printing
The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue is the international database of 15th-century European printing created by the British Library with contributions from institutions worldwide.
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The database records nearly every item printed from movable type before 1501, but not material printed entirely from woodblocks or engraved plates. 30,596 editions are listed as of October 2024, including some 16th-century items previously assigned incorrectly to the 15th century.
The Holding Institutions Database contains records for a majority of holding institutions listed in ISTC.
Information on each item includes authors, short titles, the language of the text, printer, place and date of printing, and format. Locations for copies have been confirmed by libraries all over the world. Many links are provided to online digital facsimiles, and also to major online catalogues of incunabula such as the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Inkunabelkatalog and Bod-Inc online.
A number of copies recorded in ISTC are now described in detail in the Material Evidence in Incunabula (MEI) database. Links to MEI records are displayed on the right-hand side of the respective ISTC record.
If you require help searching the ISTC using the field codes/names, you can find a brief guide here.
Additions and amendments to ISTC are made frequently, and new information, and comments and suggestions are always welcome by e-mail at incunabula@bl.uk.
The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue was initiated in early 1980. Initially, it used as its basis Frederick R. Goff’s Incunabula in North American Libraries: A Third Census, which contains almost 13,000 short titles. Soon thereafter, editions listed in the Catalogue of books printed in the 15th century now at the British Museum (BMC) and Indice Generale degli Incunaboli delle Biblioteche d’Italia (IGI) amongst other major bibliographical works were added. Since then, thousands more records have been created either through libraries notifying ISTC directly or on the basis of published catalogues. In 1984, ISTC became publicly available on BLAISE, the British Library’s online system. Then, in 2003, ISTC was transferred to a website hosted by Liverpool University and for the first time, the database became freely accessible. Following ISTC’s most recent move in 2016, ISTC has been hosted by CERL, where it sits alongside other databases relating to handpress printing.
Further resources
BJORK, Robert E.: ‘Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC): The International Database of 15th-century European Printing. Database’, in: Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme 42/2 (2019), pp. 165–167. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1065129ar
DAVIES, Martin: ‘Encoding incunabula: the progress of ISTC’, in: Gazette du livre médiéval 22 (1993), pp. 20-26.
DE MAREZ OYENS, Felix B.: ‘ISTC and provenance’, in: Bibliography and the Study of 15th-Century Civilisation, British Library Occasional Papers 5, London: The British Library 1987, pp.
DOYLE, A. I.: ‘How could ISTC help to integrate the study of medieval manuscript and printed books’, in: Bibliography and the Study of 15th-Century Civilisation, British Library Occasional Papers 5, London: The British Library 1987, pp. 35-38.
EDWARDS, A. S. G.: ‘ISTC, the literary historian and the editor’, in: Bibliography and the Study of 15th-Century Civilisation, British Library Occasional Papers 5, London: The British Library 1987, pp. 228-237.
GOLDFINCH, John, and Karen LIMPER-HERZ. ‘The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC)’. Studi Di Storia (24 February 2020), pp. 899-909. DOI: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-332-8/033
GOLDFINCH, John: ‘Incunabula cataloguing at the end of the twentieth century : the uses of new technology’, in: Bibliothek und Wissenschaft (1996).
GOLDFINCH, John: ‘Searching the ISTC on BLAISE-LINE', in: Bibliography and the Study of 15th-Century Civilisation, British Library Occasional Papers 5, London: The British Library 1987, pp. 12-34.
HELLINGA, Lotte and John GOLDFINCH: ‘Ten years of the Incunabula Short-Title Catalogue (ISTC)’, in: Bulletin du Bibliophile (1990), pp. 125-132.
NEEDHAM, Paul: ‘ISTC as a tool for analytical bibliography’, in: Bibliography and the Study of 15th-Century Civilisation, British Library Occasional Papers 5, London: The British Library 1987, pp. 40-54.
PRICKMANN, Gregory: ‘Visual Interpretation of the ISTC. The Atlas of Early Printing and the Material History of Data’. Studi Di Storia (24 February 2020). DOI: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-332-8/032.