Monday, April 15, 2013

Recently Acquired Rare and Antiquarian Materials

Our most recent additions to the collection feature all things French, with a special emphasis on instruction.  Whether it is training in rhetoric for conscientious 17th-century French school boys or the teaching of literature to 19th-century women, the works on offer stress improvement or, in the words of one title, 'perfectionner'.  Hygiene is the concern of the Réglemens à l'usage de l'intendance sanitaire de Marseille, while a different sort of perfectionism is at work in the anonymous attack on Louis-Philippe and the shallow 19th-century Parisian morals in Les Dangers du nouveau débarqué dans Paris

Annales patriotiques du Comté-Venaissin. Carpentras: Proget, 1790.

"The Annales patriotique were favorable to the return of Avignon to France, in June 1790, while the Nouvelle annales profited from a short break, of eight days, from the publication of the Annales, in order to appear and take a new stand; their position was more traditional, attached to papal sovereignty and reflecting the state of mind of the rural populations of the Comtat."

Dampmartin, Anne-Henri Cabet, Essai de littérature: a l'usage des dames. A Amsterdam: Chez Gaspard Heintzen ..., 1794

"Rare first edition, and the author's own copy, of this most attractive summary of literature, written for the education of women, by the French nobleman, philosopher, and historian Anne-Henri Cabet, vicomte de Dampmartin (1755-1825) and published in the Netherlands where Dampmartin had taken refuge.  The author assumes very little knowledge . . . .  In addition to a comprehensive study of French literature, Dampmartin discusses writers from across Europe, both ancient and modern, citing German, Swiss, Italian and English authors and their works, and including such luminaries as Hume, Locke, Gibbon and Pope."

Institutiones oratoriae : Isagoge ad geographiam. [France. 16--?].

The first part of the text, Institutiones Oratorie, is a rhetorical textbook, with citations from Virgil, Horace, Cicero, and Aeschylus, and a section on the cultivation of memory (De Memoria artificiali' pages 190-9).  The title echoes Quintilian's first-century Institution Oratoria, translated as The Orator's Education in the latest Loeb edition, whose editor (Donald A. Russell) notes that 17th and early 18th century 'French schools, not only Port Royal, where Racine was taught, but all the Jesuit colléges (such as that where Voltaire went to school) taught a thoroughly Quintilianic form of the subject' (vol. 1. p. 26).  The second part of the text, Isagoge ad Geographiam ('Introduction to Geography'), is in the same hand as the Insitutiones Oratoriae.  It covers the globe, the poles, the tropics, zones, latitude and longitude, winds, seas, and mountains. . . .  It has not been possible to assign an author to these two apparently unpublished works, but to judge from the binding and from citations of the vernacular in the text, he was undoubtedly a Frenchman.

Les Dangers du nouveau débarqué dans Paris, en face des demoiselles et dames aux doux regards de la basse et haute volée, et des malins, filous et escrocs répandus dans les bals.. Paris: B. Renault, 1847.

"Two popular publications embellished with woodcuts, the first is a depiction of the superficial values of the capital with a short chapter on the Parisian cafes, the second a 'scandalous' leaflet that is quite brutal in its consideration of Louis-Philippe and his entourage."

Millot, Jacques-André . L'art d'améliorer et perfectionner les générations humaines. 2è édition, augmentée. Paris: Impr. Migneret.(n180).

"Second expanded edition (first 1801) of this work on the care and well-being of children, effectively a companion volume to Millot's successful self-help manual on procreation of 1800, L'Art de procréer les sexes."[Special Collections of the Stanford University Libraries also has this volume.] "Once again addressed to a female readership, having previously outlined his sysem for how best to determine the sex of one's child, Millot here turns his attention to the all important matter of how to care for the child, through a system of moral and physical education.  Though believing that one could determine the sex of a child, Millot nevertheless felt that it was not possible to improve the moral fibre of a child at the point of conception.  it was therefore necessary to provide a suitable upbringing to rehabilitate the moral dimensions of man:  indeed it was a matter of national importance."

Nouvelle serie des vignettes de la fonderie Laurent et Deberny. Paris: Rue des Marais Saint-Germain, 17, 1844.

"An extremely rare example of engraved vignettes from the Laurent et Deberny foundry, the successor to the foundry established by Balzac in 1827 with the financial support of his mistress, Laure de Berny."

Réglemens à l'usage de l'intendance sanitaire de Marseille : suivis des loi, ordonnances, instructions ministérielles et autres documens concernant la police sanitaire. --. Marseille: De l'Imprimerie de Marius Olive, 1836.

"Uncommon legal companion setting out 'des loi, ordonnance, instructions ministérielles et autres documens' relating to the provision of public health and sanitary legislation and regulation in the port of Marseilles.  The first section lists the main duties, responsibilities and regulations relating to the principal public health officials, with subsequent sections outlining the measures to be taken when introducing a quarantine, and the rules relating to 'purification'.  A number of extracts are included of laws and ordonnances relating to sanitary policing, together with a number of tables setting out areas of responsibility for officials, as well as a 'tarif des droits sanitaires'.  Further instructions are given, notably guidelines on how to recognize contagious diseases such as plague, yellow fever and typhus, and health questions to ask all incoming vessels."

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brought to you by...
Sarah Sussman, curator of French and Italian Collections