le patromoine numerique = the continuing saga

Sarkozy has just announced that the French state will contribute over $1.1 billion towards the digitization of France's cultural heritage, in its ongoing attempt to keep control over this heritage while also bringing it to the multitudes through new technologies and taking into account financial realities. For the NY Times article on the subject, see:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/world/europe/15france.html

MANIOC - digital library of Caribbean materials

MANIOC has recently been launched. This is a digital library focusing on the Caribbean, Amazon, and the Guianas which aims to preserve the cultural history of this region. It contains primary and secondary texts, audio and video files of conferences and interviews, and images which document the history, culture, politics, and economics of this area. There is also a catalog of scholarly journals, magazines, and newspapers about the region held in research libraries in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana, and a link to the digital version of Etudes caribéennes

While the content is currently limited, I hope that it will grow. In the future, materials in MANIOC will also be accessible through Gallica. This is a resource to know and follow about for those of you working on the francophone Caribbean.

http://www.manioc.org/

Another one

Following on the heels of the last post, yesterday I was amused to see that we had just received Valery Giscard-d'Estaing's new novel:

Giscard d'Estaing, Valéry. La princesse et le président: roman. Paris: Fallois, 2009.

The subject, a romance between the President of France and a British princess. Hopefully it won't win the Bad Sex prize. From the passage on the back cover, it looked a bit too demure for that. Find out for yourself, it should be in the stacks soon.

Commentaire and plot synopsis in Le Figaro...

New Prize for Les Bienveillantes

After winning the Prix Goncourt in 2006, Jonathan Littell's book has just been awarded the 17th annual "Bad Sex in Fiction Award" from the UK's Literary Review.

For more on this prize, and the passage that convinced the judges, see:
http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/badsex.html

Recently acquired rare and antiquarian books

In the past few months, among the rare and simply antiquarian books that Stanford has acquired you can find:

Ageorges, Joseph. Voyages sur la terre et dans la lune. [Paris]: Bloud & Gay, 1942.
A utopian novel.

Analecta Juris Pontifici: Recueil de Dissertations sur Differents Sujects de Droit Canonique, de Liturgie, de Theologie et d'Histoire. Vols. 1-12, 14-22 (1855-1883). Paris: Victor Palme, etc., 21 vols.

Des Roches, Catherine Fredonnoit, dame, 1542-1587. La puce de Mme Desroches. Paris, D. Jouaust, 1872.

Eseqvie fatte in Venetia dalla natione fiorentina al serenissimo D. Cosimo II qvarto gran dvca di Toscana il di 25 di maggio 1621. In Venetia : Appresso il Ciotti, 1621.
Beautiful engravings, and a postface by Giorgio Strozzi.

Gatti de Gamond, Zoé, and Victor Adam. Fièvres de l'ame. Paris: Delahaye, 1844. VIII-343 pp., 21 lithographies hors texte par Victor Adam, Ed. Frère, etc.
Charlotte Gatti (1806-1854), an early Belgian feminist, was a follower of Fourier and authored Fourier et son système.

La via femminile. Imprint: Roma : Via Femminile, 1968-1976.
Italian feminist journal

Maistre, J. de. Considérations sur la France. Londres, 1797. Woodcut royal arms on title, woodcut headpiece and some small woodcut tailpieces. (4), iv, 246 pp. 8vo.
Earliest edition held in the US!

Türr, István, 1825-1908. L'opera di Stefano Türr nel risorgimento italiano (1849-1870) Descritta dalla figlia ... Firenze, Tipografia fascista [1928]

Grimod de la Reynière

Some of you may have seen this article in this weekend's New York Times about exploring Paris using a 19th century guidebook. The work in question is the Almanach des gourmands by A. B. Laurent Grimod de la Reynière. If the article piqued your interest, you may like to know that we have an almost complete set of the Alamanchs (missing only vol. 5), which you can consult in Special Collections before your next trip to Paris.

Grimod de La Reynière, Alexandre Balthasar Laurent, and Jean-François Coste. Almanach Des Gourmands, Servant De Guide Dans Les Moyens De Faire Excellente Chère: Par Un Vieil Amateur. [1.]-8. Année.. Paris: Chez Maradan [etc.], 1803-12.
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/1482424

In addition, we have Grimod de la Reyniere's Manuel des amphitryons : contenant un traité de la dissection des viandes à table, la nomenclature des menus les plus nouveaux pour chaque saison, et des élémens de politesse gourmande.
Just in time for Thanksgiving.

Bon appétit!

Wednesday primary source #11 - Italian chancellery history

For those interested in early modern Italian diplomatic history...

Title: Memorie istoriche di diversi luoghi, ed altro. Other title: Memorie storiche di diversi luoghi, ed altro

Other title: History as seen from an Italian Chancellery : unpublished manuscript codex, 1565-1614.

Physical Description: 1 v. (529 ff. ; folio, 34.5 x 23 cm)

Note: Bound in contemporary quarter vellum and cartonato, title on spine, text in neat chancellery hands.

Summary: This unpublished manuscript is from the diplomatic archive of an Italian chancellery, probably compiled in the opening decades of the 17th century. It covers a geographically diverse area of interests from England to China, from Mecca to Poland. The 70-odd texts (letters, news reports, laws, travel narratives) are organized by geographical region, beginning with Poland, Russia and Eastern Europe, then Turkey and the Mediterranean battleground, Britain, and the Savoie. Taken together, the collection offers insight into Italian diplomatic interests at the beginning of the 17th century and the manner in which these were recorded in official circles. Summary: Within the text are oddities, such as an account of the Chinese city of Quinsai (Hangzhou) based on Marco Polo and later accounts by Jesuits and Christian merchants, a description of a Haj from Alexandria to Mecca, and, bound in the same section as various documents relating to the Princedom of Savoie, an etiquette manual for pages in the service of a prince. Summary: The collection of documents relating to England and Scotland numbers some 100-odd pages. It includes texts written by Filippo Pigafetta and Placido Ragazzoni. There is a copy of the Treaty of London (1604), a supplication of 1601 by England's Catholics to the King, and a public defense by Sir Robert Cecil against accusations of intrigue against the crown (1606)

MSS CODEX 0093 F 1 Manuscript Collection -- Request at Special Collections Desk

For the full record, click : http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6687427