the Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain archive - the papers of a female Haitian anthropologist come to Stanford

Over the summer Stanford Libraries acquired the papers of Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain, a pioneering Haitian woman anthropologist. Fatoumata Seck, a grad student in the department of French and Italian, was responsible for bringing the collection to our attention. Thanks to support from the department, she has already processed it, making its contents available to researchers. Her engaging story about the collection and its journey to Stanford are recounted in her own words in ReMix, the SULAIR Newsletter.

"Discovering Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain: une grande intellectuelle Haitienne" by Fatoumata Seck

Pietro Bembo: Humanist, Linguist, Literary Theorist, Poet...

Pietro Bembo,  (born May 20, 1470, Venice—died Jan. 18, 1547, Rome), was a Renaissance cardinal who wrote one of the earliest Italian grammars and assisted in establishing the Italian literary language.

In 1513, Bembo became secretary to Pope Leo X in Rome. On Leo’s death (1521), he retired to Padua. He accepted the office of historiographer of Venice in 1529, and was shortly thereafter appointed librarian of St. Mark’s Cathedral. Created a cardinal in 1539, Bembo returned to Rome, where he devoted himself to theology and classical history.

Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Pietro Bembo," accessed December 05, 2011, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/60259/Pietro-Bembo.

Primary Sources:

Bembo, Pietro. Gli Asolani di messer Pietro Bembo.Impressi in Venetia: nelle case d'Aldo Romano, 1505.  call number: Special Collections - Gunst Collection Z239.9 .A36 B45 CB 

Bembo, Pietro. Gli asolani. In Vinegia: Nella case d'Aldo Romano & d'Andrea Asolano suo suocero, 1515.  call number: Special Collections - Gunst Collection Z239.9 .A36 B45 1515 CB 

Bembo, Pietro. Prose di m. Pietro Bembo, nelle qvali si ragiona della volgar lingva scritte al cardinale De Medici ... divisein tre libri. Vinegia: G. Tacuino, 1525.  call number: Special Collections - Rare Books Collection KB1525 .B4 F 

Bembo, Pietro, J. Ang. dei Angeli, and Comin da Trino. Prose. In Venetia: [Comin da Trino], 1540. call number: Special Collections - Rare Books Collection PC1073 .B3 1540 T 

Bembo, Pietro. Rime. In Vinetia: [Giovanni Andrea Valvassori], 1544.  call number: Special Collections - Rare Books Collection PQ4608 .A15 1544 

Bembo, Pietro, Francesco Sansovino, and Gualtiero Scoto. Delle lettere di M. Pietro Bembo: a sommi pontefici, a cardinali etad altri signori et persone ecclesiastice scritte : primo[-quarto] volume : con la giunta della vitta del Bembo. In Vinegia: [Gualtiero Scoto], 1575.  call number: Special Collections - Rare Books Collection PQ4608 .A7 1575 

Leo. Papal brief signed by Pietro Bembo, the secretary to Leo X. 1516.  call number: Special Collections - Manuscript Collection  M1788

Bon Anniversaire, Gustave Flaubert!

French novelist Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, was born on December 12, 1821 in Rouen, France.

Primary Sources:

Flaubert, Gustave. Lettre de M. Gustave Flaubert à la municipalité de Rouen au sujet d'un vote concernant Louis Bouilhet. Paris: Michel Lévyfrères, 1872.

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Moeurs De Province. Paris: M. Lévyfrères, 1857. 

French Autograph Collection. (Consists of samples of the writing of French notables, including Flaubert.)

Hobson, Charles, Gustave Flaubert, and Julian Barnes. Flaubert &Louise: Letters and Impressions. San Francisco: Limestone Press, 1988.  (Flaubert had an affair with poet Louise Colet from 1846 to1855.)

Sand, George, and Gustave Flaubert. Correspondance Entre George Sand Et Gustave Flaubert. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1904. 

Madame Bovary on film:

Chabrol, Claude, et al. Madame Bovary.[S.l.]: MK2 Productions S.A., 2002. (Starring Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Francois Balmer)






Minnelli, Vincente, et al. Madame Bovary. Burbank, CA: Distributed byWarner Home Video, 2007. (Starring Jennifer Jones and Van Heflin)

Renoir, Jean, et al. Madame Bovary. Las Cruces, NM: Hen's Tooth Video, 1989. (Starring Valentine Tessier and Pierre Renoir)

Anniversary of Révolte des Canuts

November 21^st is the 170^th anniversary of the Révolte des Canuts in Lyon, France.  The silk weavers of Lyon (called canuts) rose up against the tarif, or fixed minimum rate for finished cloth. Following salary decreases, the tarif was negotiated between manufacturers of silk, foremen, and silk weavers in October of 1831.  However, most of the manufacturers refused to apply it.  

On November 21, 1831, over a thousand silk workers and their supporters revolted against the manufacturers in all districts of Lyon.  The insurgents held Lyon for three days and captured the arsenal of the National Guard.  The battle turned violent, with over 200 civilians and 75 soldiers killed.  The workers’ victory was short-lived as Louis Philippe sent his son, the Duke of Orleans, and the Minister of War, Marshal Soult, along with an army of 30,000 with orders to dissolve the collective of workers, cancel the tarif, and disarm the population.  While the workers did not immediately achieve their desired outcome, this was an important event which created worker solidarity and led to stronger organization and support in fighting for future labor laws.

Primary Sources:

Chevalier, Michel. Evénemens de Lyon. [Paris]: Everat, imprimeur, 1831. (Extracted from the Le Globe, the main Saint-Simonian newspaper, Oct. 31- Dec. 27, 1831.  Includes letters by Francois and Peiffer, chefs de l'eglise saint-simonienne de Lyon.) Special Collections D385 .C44 1831. 

Cours de theorie de la fabrication d'étoffes de soie deLyon dirigé par Messieurs Martin et Faure suivi par Rivoire Adrien. (manuscript treatise on the history and weaving of silk, with hundreds of silk samples attached, circa 1860.) Special Collections - Manuscript Collection. M1834 & M1834 FLAT BOX 1.

L'écho de la fabrique. Lyon: De l'imprimerie de Charvin, 1831. (A labor newspaper dedicated to silk manufacturing and related industries.  It was published from 1831-1835.)  Special Collections – Rare Book Collection. DC801 .L96 E3 1831-1832. *Also available full-text online.
See also Frobert, L., & Beecher, J. (2010). L'écho de la fabrique : naissance de la presse ouvrière à Lyon, 1831-1834. Lyon: ENS.

Monfalcon, Jean Baptiste. Histoire des insurrections de Lyon, en 1831 et en 1834: d'après des documents authentiques : précédéed'un essai sur les ouvriers en soie et sur l'organisation de la fabrique. Lyon: L. Perrin, 1834. Green - Stacks K .M782.

Recently acquired rare and antiquarian books - Summer 2011

These past few weeks, we have made several interesting acquisitions - all of these works will be housed in Special Collections.

Libro de Nobeli Veneti che vanno in Gran Conseglio con l'origine, et arme delle loro famiglie: Aggiustato fino li 4 Agosto 1631 per Andrea Beni. (Venice, dalla Preggion Giustiniana, 9 September 1631).

The Gran Conseglio or Maggior Consiglio of Venice was the main political institution of the Venetian Republic from the 12^th century until it declared the Republic’s end in 1797. Participation was a hereditary right, restricted to members of the old Venetian families inscribed in the Libro d’oro. The first official Libro d’oro was created in 1506. It recorded the genealogy of the families as a way of identifying imposters claiming membership in the Gran Conseglio. Never published, manuscript copies of the Libro d’oro were made for private use, mainly in formats smaller than the quarto proposed here. The copyist, Andrea Beni, composed this Libro d’oro from the Giustiniana, the ducal prison in Venice, possibly to repay the debts that landed him there.

Saluzzo-Roero, Diodata. Versi di Diodata Saluzzo, fra gli Arcadi, Glaucilla Eurotea. Torino: stamp. d'I. Soffietti, 1796.

Térence. L'Andria [-l'Eunuco, l'Affannatore, i Due fratelli, il Formione, la Ecira], commedia di Terenzio, tradotta in verso sciolto [col testo a fronte] da Luisa Bergalli. 1727.

Translation of Terence’s first play by Venetian female playright, Luisa Bergalli, director of the S. Angelo theater in Venice.

Bastille – Collection of 14 pieces concerning the Bastille, published between 1790-1793. On topics such as surveillance, funding for arms, clothing, etc., for those who participated in the storming of the Bastille (“les vainqueurs”), and the establishment of a monument to be erected on the site of the demolished prison.

Choppinus, Renatus. Hieromachia s. bellum sacrum gallicum. 1562.

First edition of this work by the lawyer Rene Choppin, a political-religious poem exalting the war against the heretics (Protestants) and showing Choppin’s loyalty to the Catholic cause.

Dunkirk – Manuscript signed on behalf of the “Bailly Bourgmestre et Eschvins de la ville et territoire de Dunkerque,” dated October 5, 1733. 8 pages.

A document proposing the establishment of a consul, and consular law, in this port town.

Mahalin, Paul. Les cocottes!!!!! Paris: Chez tous les libraires, 1864.

Contemporary observations about prostitutes in Paris – where they ate, drank, and slept in a nice little book covered in red silk.

Legende de Domp Claude de Guyse, abbé de Cluny: contenant ses faits et gestes depuis sa nativité jusques à la mort du cardinal de Lorraine : et des moyens tenus pour faire mourir le roy Charles IX emsemble plusieurs princes, grands Seigneurs et autres, durant le dit temps. 1581.

An early edition of this Protestant work, in which the author pretends to defend the Catholic Guise family as a way of enumerating their prosecutions of Protestants, with a special attention to actions in the Macon region. This copy was owned by Colbert, as a note “Bibliotheca Colbertina” on the title page attests.