The Rare Books & MSS Library has put up an exhibit of stunning books from the Library’s almost complete collection of works from Granary Books, one of the leading and most innovative publishers of artist’s books. The exhibit is in the Library’s Gallery, open Monday-Wednesday 10-6, Thursday 10-8, Friday 10-6, and Saturday Sunday noon-5.
The opening on January 21, 2010, was well-attended, and featured a presentation by Steve Clay, the publisher of Granary Books, who talked about the press and some of the individual books on display.
The exhibit was curated by John M. Bennett, Avant Writing Collection.
Snapshots from the Event:
John M. Bennet and Steve Clay
Looking at the Books
Carol Diedrichs, Steve Clay, Ann Hamilton, Gay Jackson, John M. Bennett
January 26th, 2010
Unless you are an accountant, chances are you probably find taxes and all things pertaining to them to be mundane, depressing and completely uninteresting. However, the Rare Books and Manuscripts library has recently acquired a rather interesting tax record: a 14th century tax roll dated 4 January 1352 (658 years ago this past Monday).
The document is comprised of 53 lines written in brown ink on a roll of irregularly cut parchment measuring 417 mm x 142 mm (16.4 in x 5.6 in). The roll existed alongside the codex in this period and was used primarily for records keeping. Rolls were easy to add to as pieces of parchment could conveniently be sewn together as the records grew. This particular roll is a single piece of parchment and when rolled there is a shelf mark that would have identified where it was stored in a library or record office.
The text block measures 364 mm x 133 mm (14.3in x 5.2 in) and is written in a Secretary hand. Although a structured and formalized script like Gothic or any of the many other scriptural styles, Secretary is a more freehand or cursive style that allowed for faster writing. Secretary hand is seen mostly in legal documents such as this, as well as quitclaims, charters and other records of court and government business.
The roll was signed by a notary named Francesco who served Mastino II della Scala (1308-1351).
Notaries in the Middle Ages acted as scribes and authenticators. They were often members of the clergy, however by the 14th century a secular class of notaries had emerged as the Church took a less active role in lay affairs as demand for secular legal services increased. The document also sports a lovely notary symbol before the first line measuring 22 mm x 16 mm (0.86 in x 0.63 in). Notary symbols acted in a way very similar to the stamps and seals that appear on notarized documents today. They were distinct to a particular notary and served as an authenticating feature. Often these symbols would be recorded by a guild when the notary joined.
Although this roll is dated to 4 January 1352, sources indicate that Mastino II died in 1351. Mastino II della Scala was the lord of Verona and was a member of the Scaliger family. After amassing vast wealth and lands, a powerful league of surrounding states forced Mastino II to return nearly all the land he had acquired through conquest and purchase.
This tax roll adds diversity to OSU’s collection of manuscripts because it is neither a codex nor an individual leaf from one. It is only one piece of parchment and yet it is a complete and distinct document in its own right. It also serves as a unique example of 14th century Secretary script, a fact that makes this particular document a useful palaeographical teaching tool.
Isabelle Bateson-Brown, Library Associate
January 11th, 2010
Last summer OSU’s Rare Books & Manuscripts Library acquired a wonderful book to add to its growing collection of incunabula (books printed prior to 1501). Printed in Brescia by Angelus and Jacobus Britannicus in 1494 (the colophon states that the firm completed the job on 24 December, just in time for Christmas) , this rather unassuming, small-ish octavo volume in its non-descript stiff vellum 18th-century binding offers a good deal more than meets the eye. Between the book’s covers lies the Summa de virtutibus et vitiis (otherwise known as the Summa aurea, or Golden Summa), a thirteenth-century moral-theological encyclopedia written by the Dominican preacher, William Peraldus (ca. 1200-1271?). Peraldus’s summae originally appeared as two separate works, the Summa de vitiis (ca. 1236) which exhaustively treated the qualities and characteristics of the seven deadly sins, or vices, and their constituent parts, and the Summa de virtutibus (ca. 1248), which built upon the earlier work by providing an in-depth description of the seven cardinal virtues standing in direct opposition to the principal vices. But by 1250 the two texts were circulating together so often that they were frequently recognized as a single work. Together, Peraldus’s Summae became two of the most important preachers’ and confessors’ handbooks of the later Middle Ages: the Summa de virtutibus survives in over 300 manuscripts, while the Summa de vitiis has come down to us in approximately 500 manuscript copies. The two works are replete with hundreds of exempla, historical and fanciful anecdotes, and quotations from Classical, Patristic, and contemporary authorities, and through their influence on preaching and confessional practice, Peraldus’s Summae and the moral and pastoral theology they promote extended beyond the clerical realm to impact the everyday lives of late-medieval Christians across Europe.
Massively popular, the Summa aurea was a natural candidate for the efforts and attention of Europe’s first printers who frequently relied upon the literary products of the Middle Ages as sources for their own publishing efforts. Appearing in over thirty incunabular and early printed editions—a fact that along with the large number of surviving manuscripts testifies to the continued popularity and importance of the text during the three centuries after its initial appearance—Peraldus’s work influenced not just preachers, confessors, and theologians, but also famous literary authors such as Chaucer and Dante. In spite of its long-lived popularity and wide-ranging effect on the moral theology and vernacular literature of the later Middle Ages, the Summa aurea has yet to appear in an authoritative modern edition or translation, a fact that makes early printed editions of Peraldus’s work like the one we recently acquired indispensable resources for scholars.
Eric J. Johnson, Associate Curator
January 4th, 2010
We’ve all heard about Martin Luther, “father” of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. But how many of us know about Philip Melancthon, Luther’s ablest assistant and the man the arch-Reformer called the Lord’s “learned champion”?
Born in 1497 in Bretten, a small town located in Germany’s Kraichgau Valley, Melancthon (Greek for “black earth,” or Schwarzerd, his family name) enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1509, qualifying for his Master’s degree in Greek and Classical studies by the time he was fifteen. Heidelberg denied him the degree on the grounds of his extreme youth, but the University of Tübingen wasn’t so shortsighted and accepted him as an official Master’s candidate in philosophy and humanistic studies, conferring the degree upon him in 1516. Two years later, at the tender age of 21, Melancthon was appointed Professor of Greek at the University of Wittenberg. It was here that Philip’s life would change forever after meeting his colleague from the theological faculty, the fiery, reform-minded Augustinian monk, Martin Luther. Together, Philip and Martin would work together to lay the groundwork for the Reformation that would shake the religious, political, and cultural foundations of Christendom and forever change the face of Western society.
In contrast to Luther, Melancthon was soft-spoken and calm. Luther himself described their differences, noting how their opposing personalities worked together harmoniously: “I am rough, boisterous, stormy and altogether warlike. I am born to fight against innumerable monsters and devils. I must remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles, and thorns, and clear the wild forests; but Master Philip comes along softly and gently sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which God has abundantly bestowed upon him” (Luther’s Preface to his Commentary on the Colossians). Luther’s words blasted his opponents and hammered home his notions on reform; Melancthon’s—although no less forceful—were more calmly reasoned and discursive. And while Luther issued his revolutionary writings in rapid-fire succession, jumping from topic to topic as it suited him, Melancthon’s approach to spreading evangelical reform was more methodical. Nowhere is this measured approach more apparent than in his massively influential text, Loci communes theologici (or Theological Commonplaces).
First issued in 1521 and based on his school lectures on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, Melancthon’s Loci was the first systematic explanation of Protestant theology. Whereas authors of earlier medieval systematic theologies like Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus (to name only a few of hundreds) explicated faith by analyzing it through the lens of secular philosophy and rationality and a reliance on earlier traditional authoritative writings, Melancthon eschewed the notion that philosophy or the writings of man could reveal truth more fully or clearly than the words of the Bible itself. In his Loci he highlighted the pre-eminency of the Scriptures above all else, claiming that all there is to know about God and correct doctrine is to be found in the Bible alone. Although he published the Loci in 1521, he continued to work on it for years, issuing major revisions and expansions of the text over the next three decades. These subsequent editions witnessed a mellowing of Philip’s attitude toward the utility of philosophy in biblical study, but they maintained a strict adherence to the primacy of the Bible as the root of faith. The various versions of the Loci came to dominate the expression of Lutheran thought and belief, so much so that Luther himself praised the work in the highest possible terms, stating: “You cannot find anywhere a book which treats the whole of theology so adequately as the Loci communes do… Next to Holy Scripture, there is no better book” (from Luther’s Table Talk).
The Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Ohio State is overjoyed to announce that we have recently acquired two of the major revised editions of the Loci. While we’re still waiting for a copy of the 1521 first edition to enter the fold, we count ourselves lucky to have obtained copies of both the 1535 and 1555 revisions.
These editions were not simple reissues of the text with minor corrections. Rather, in each Melancthon substantially adjusted his earlier thinking, radically rewriting and expanding his own theology. The 1555 edition, for instance, includes a major redevelopment of Philip’s opinions on free will and nearly quadruples the length of the 1521 version. Additionally, Philip also supplied new introductory epistles to his readers in each version. Our 1535 copy was printed in Wittenberg by Joseph Klug; and the 1555 was printed in Basle by John Orporinus. Both copies have come to us in their original, elaborately tooled bindings and, as an added bonus, the 1555 copy includes contemporary marginalia added by an engaged reader.
These two books represent a significant addition to the Library’s wonderful assembly of Reformation materials, The Harold J. Grimm Reformation Collection (http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/finding/reformhome.php). While the Grimm holdings are particularly strong in German and Lutheran materials, until this year it had not included Melancthon’s Loci. Considering that this text represents the fundamental statement of Lutheran doctrine and the first work to attempt a systematic accounting of Protestant theology and dogmatic, we realized we simply had to acquire copies of its major editions. As well as supplementing our already strong Lutheran holdings, these volumes will also better contextualize and inform other aspects of our collection, such as our copy of John Eck’s Enchiridion locorum communium adversus Lutherum (Ingolstadt: Alexander Weissenhorn, 1543).
Originally published in 1525, Eck’s treatise offered a point-by-point response to the Loci from the Roman Catholic point of view. Over forty separate editions of Eck’s response were published between 1525 and 1576, making it perhaps the most popular Catholic handbook of the Counter-Reformation. Taken together, our copies of Melancthon’s Loci and Eck’s Enchiridion allow us to see Protestant and Catholic teachings (and polemic) in dialogue and help us gain a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the theological issues at stake and the rhetoric the different camps used to score their points. As we build our collections, we build our understanding of and appreciation for the past and all that it can tell us about the present and the future. So, let’s welcome Philip’s Loci to our collections!
Now all that remains is to track down that pesky 1521 edition…
Eric J. Johnson, Associate Curator
December 14th, 2009
The William Charvat Collection of American Literature is the principal repository for the literary archive of Raymond Carver and this year has been a particularly good year for Carver. The Library of America issued a Carver volume this past summer and James Carroll, in a review for the Times Literary Supplement (http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6731684.ece), noted that “the pleasure of reading Carver, who died in 1988 at the age of fifty, derives partly from his bizarre scenarios and from absurdist dialogue which yet retains the quality of overheard conversation; equally, it comes from pace and phrasing, even paragraphing and punctuation, which the author controls with what are practically musical skills.” In November, Scribner released the long awaited biography of Carver by Carol Sklenicka, Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life. In a front page review for the New York Times Book Review, Stephen King calls Carver “surely the most influential writer of American short stories in the second half of the 20th century.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/books/review/King-t.html) In appreciation of Carver’s achievement RBMS will be displaying the new biography, the Library of America volume and other items in its display case in the East Atrium of the Thompson Library. Please watch for it in January 2010.
Geoffrey D. Smith (Ph.D.), Professor and
Head, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library
December 8th, 2009
It’s not every day that I have the pleasure of announcing that the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at OSU has acquired an original medieval codex, and I’m pleased to say that today isn’t one of those days either. Pleased, you might ask? Yes, because today I happily announce that we have just added three medieval books to our collection! These acquisitions mark the first complete medieval manuscript additions to RBMS’s collection in over twenty years. All three manuscripts were acquired based on a range of criteria: content, scriptural style, codicological context, uniqueness and, most importantly, their ability to serve as valuable foundations for individualized and classroom teaching and ongoing research. Each manuscript is distinct and includes qualities that previously had not been available in OSU’s manuscript collections.
Our first new addition is Pseudo-Sextus Aurelius Victor’s De viris illustribus Romae, a historical work that includes seventy-six summaries of the lives of famous Romans. Although a sixteenth-century inscription in OSU’s copy attributes the work to Suetonius and one recent scholarly opinion credits Pliny the Elder as its original author, the true authorship of this text has been contested for centuries. Produced in Italy in the late-fifteenth century (ca. 1450-1475), OSU’s copy (one of an estimated five examples in North America) is written in a fine humanistic script. Adding further flavor to the item is its binding: a leaf from a late-twelfth century decorated Italian Lectionary. Taken together, the book’s text and the binding’s late Carolingian script offer students a wonderful opportunity to see side-by-side Italian humanistic script and the original scriptural style upon which it was modeled. The manuscript also provides interesting codicological fodder, giving readers a chance to see a fifteenth-century binding error and a number of later inscriptions and paratextual additions.
An early-fifteenth century noted Cistercian Processional in Latin (with some rubrics in Dutch) is our second new codex. The manuscript includes an array of text and music used during processions for important liturgical feasts and celebrations such as the Purification of the Virgin, Palm Sunday, Corpus Christi, and others. Also included are the antiphons sung to celebrate the washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday. The text is written in formal gothic bookhand in brown ink and red rubrications. The manuscript is particularly valuable from a codicological standpoint, surviving, as it does, in its original leather-covered pasteboard binding. Pasteboard bindings were not common prior to the early-sixteenth century, a fact that makes OSU’s volume extremely interesting not just because of its early date, but also because the pasteboard is made from sheets of parchment—rather than paper—that are glued together. Although OSU has several examples of medieval musical manuscripts in its collection of disjunct leaves, this volume is the first musical medieval codex to come to the University.
Original medieval vernacular manuscripts can be hard to come by, but occasionally a fine example appears on the market. Our third manuscript addition is a lovely little volume of prayers, masses, and a sermon likely produced in northern Italy between 1375 and 1425. The first twenty-three folios include an array of prayers and masses in both Latin and Italian, but the book’s final 128 folios feature a macaronic sermon written mostly in Italian, but with occasional Latin additions. Luke 14:16 (“Homo quidem fecit cenam magnam”) is the sermon’s main theme, but other subjects such as the two natures of Christ, the influence of the heavens and planets on everyday life, Purgatory, Hell’s punishments, and the glories of Paradise are also discussed. Unfortunately the text’s original binding doesn’t survive, so we’re deprived of any inscriptions or marks of ownership that may have helped us piece together its provenance. Given its small size (93 x 66 mm)–note the small scale by comparing the text to the elegant thumbs holding it open–and the fact that most of it is in the vernacular, this book may have been intended for personal rather than institutional use.
All three manuscripts are welcome additions to the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library’s growing collection of original medieval documents and will prove to be popular, highly useful teaching and research tools. One ambitious and gifted student has already begun historical and codicological research on the Cistercian Processional, and work toward producing an edition and translation of the Italian prayer and sermon manuscript is also underway. Students from the French department have also conducted in-depth, hands-on analysis of one of the manuscripts during a class session at the Library earlier this quarter. Although the manuscripts are amongst the Library’s oldest holdings, it’s clear that they are already finding ways to speak to today’s students and scholars.
Eric J. Johnson, Associate Curator
December 8th, 2009
The Rare Books and Manuscripts Library and the William Charvat Collection of American Fiction are proud to join their colleagues from the Hilandar Resaerch Library and the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute Library in becoming the new Special Collections department at the newly renovated William Oxley Thompson Main Library at the Ohio State University Libraries. Operating from the Jack and Jan Creighton Reading Room, the newly merged Special Collections will again offer full public service to our faculty and students in addition to international scholars and friends and supporters of Special Collections. Within our new department, each library will retain its own identity as both Rare Books and Manuscripts and Charvat American Fiction remain distinct administrative units with individual budgets and individually defined missions in terms of collecting and programming.
Special Collections is now located on the first floor of Thompson Library overlooking the grand oval and iconic Mirror Lake: perhaps the best location in this most splendid of new buildings. We welcome you to visit and experience this new facility.
Geoffrey D. Smith (Ph.D.), Professor and
Head, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library
October 13th, 2009
As OSU employees consider an annual contribution to the Campus Campaign we’d like to take this opportunity to point out that gifts may directed to funds that support the Charvat American Fiction Collection and/or several areas within the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. Fund code numbers are included below for your convenience. We’d be happy to your questions about any of these!
- Bennett Avant Writing Collection - 660398
- Charvat American Fiction Fund - 309347
- Keenan Library of Astronomy Fund - 604183
- Meek Thurber Endowment - 604829
- Rudolph Children’s Science Endowment - 606234
- Wing Rare Books Endowment - 667645
April 15th, 2009
The Rare Books & Manuscripts Library is pleased to announce the completion of an ambitious project to digitize the seventeenth-century manuscript commonplace book of Sir Henry Bellingham. The project is live at http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/bellingham/. This project was researched, designed, and created by Sarah Shippy, a graduate student in OSU’s Department of History. Essentially scrapbooks of useful knowledge, commonplace books were privately produced notebooks in which readers recorded valuable and practical extracts from books that they read. Bellingham’s commonplace book offers researchers a fascinating look into Sir Henry’s personal reading habits and sheds light on the wide variety of topics—including history, religion, law and government, literature, science, and domestic affairs—that were popular with readers during the mid-seventeenth century. In addition to including a full digital reproduction of the manuscript, the website also includes detailed background information on the manuscript itself, its historical context, and the life of Sir Henry Bellingham.
December 17th, 2008
The recently published catalog, Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing Collection has received very positive reviews in three key publications: Umbrella, June 2008, says the book is “beautifully printed and designed, [and] belongs to every art as well as literature collection…anywhere”. The book review journal Rain Taxi, Winter 2008-2009, calls it a “stunning catalog” and discusses several aspects of it at some length; and the Small Press Review/Small Magazine Review, Nov-Dec 2008, calls it “a key vispo publication”, discusses it at length and the reviewer concludes that he would “be shocked if any other poetry publication of 2008 is half as important for poetry”.
Edited by John M. Bennett, the catalog is available for $30 at the RBMS Library, or can be seen as a PDF on the RBMS webpage, http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/, click on “Visual Poetry in the Avant Writing Collection” in the column on the right.
December 16th, 2008
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