Thread by @HandMissals

Good morning, we're back with more #MissalMondays!

Today we have a fascinating item:

📖 The 1932 Missal-Vesperal with Commentary... featuring 'Symbolico-liturgical' illustrations

It's notable for a few things:

✅ Longest missal ever (!)
✅ Unique illustrations

Check it out⤵️

Unlike most missals, which focused on offering commentary, notes, and context for the various sundays and feasts of the ecclesiastical year...

The Missal-Vesperal offered the unique feature of "Symbolico-liturgical illustrations" by carmelite Fr. Fath. Berthold

These were black and white symbolic drawings relating to the liturgy

While the actual texts of Sunday or Feast would receive a brief two-sentence explanation, the drawings were each explained with several paragraphs of text

The Missal-Vesperal was also the longest missal ever published

It clocked in at a whopping 2,565 pages for the basic edition, and was boosted to nearly 2,800 pages when printed with country-specific supplements (e.g. England & Wales).

This handily beat the two other very large missals from the 20th century:

🔵 St. Andrews "large edition" (which topped out at 2,188 pages)

🔵 Cathedral Daily Missal (2,319 pages)

All in all, it seemed like Brepols was trying to make a splash in a crowded missal market with this very unique offering

It remained in print until the 1940s, but was not popular, sold poorly, and now survives in a very small number of copies