Recently acquired rare and antiquarian materials – Roman de la Rose, early French atlas, anarchist journal

Some items of interest that are arriving soon in Special Collections.

LORRIS, Guillaume de, MEUNG, Jean de. Le Rommant de la Rose nouvellement revues et corrigé selon les precedentes impressions. [à la fin] ... et imprimé nouvellement à Paris l'an Mille cinq cent xxx viii. On les vends à Paris, Arnould et Charles les Angeliers freres ...

The first published volume of the Roman de la Rose appeared in Paris in 1481, and there were 21 editions between then and 1538. Of these, ten were published in 1537 and 1538, among them the edition offered here. After 1538 there was a break in the publication history until the eighteenth century (1735). Previously, SULAIR’s earliest copy was from 1799; the acquisition of this 1538 copy allows faculty and students to see how the work appeared to Renaissance readers. There are 49 woodcuts in this edition, and one can see some marks in the text made by a previous owner.

TASSIN, Christophe. Les plans et profils de toutes les principales villes et lieux considérables de France Ensemble les Cartes de chacune Province & les particulières de chaque Gouvernement d’icelles. Paris, Melchior Tavernier & N. Bercy (tome II), 1638-1644.

17 parties en 2 volumes in-4 oblong relié plein vélin souple de l’époque, titre manuscrit au dos. Edition originale du tome I et nouvelle édition du tome II.

This is one of the earliest French atlases, and bears the name of Christophe Tassin (sometimes mistakenly called Nicolas Tassin), who was a royal engineer, geographer, and print seller. This example is a mixed set, with the first volume from the first edition, and the second from a later edition. Tassin initally held the privilege on his work, rather than the publisher as was common, but he soon delegated it to certain booksellers and so the work appeared under several publishers, including Berey (this copy). This atlas contains topographic maps either made on site, composed from firsthand sketches by military engineers, or sometimes taken directly from other mapmakers, such as Chastillon. This work contains over 400 engravings of views, city plans, chateaux and monuments.

Sottovia, Ettore, ed. Il Conferenziere Libertario: Rivista Mensile. Roma: 1922-1925, bound in two parts, as follows: Nos. 1-24 (January 1922-December 1923) and Nos. 25-42, 45, 47-48 (January 1924-December, 1925); quarto, illustrated.
Very rare anti-fascist/anarchist periodical – we may be the only US library with a collection. Issues #43, 44, 46 may have been suppressed according to an internal note. This periodical complements other holdings of early European anti-fascist and anarchist materials, including Quaderni di "Giustizia e Libertà (1932), printed in Paris and hidden under a paper cover marking it as La filosofia di Giambattista Vico, Seconda edizione!

Sabin Americana, 1500-1926

With a name like Sabin Americana, one might not think that this resource would have much to offer historians of France. However, this new online full-text database, based on the important bibliography by Sabin,  Bibliotheca Americana – A Dictionary of Books Relating to America From its Discovery to the Present Time, includes quite a few rare materials in French.

Researchers working on French impressions of the Americas, French exploration in North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, Atlantic studies will find the full text of primary source works. This is a Gale database, so anyone familiar with Making of the Modern World or Eighteenth Century Collections Online will be familiar with the interface. Overall, over 36,000 titles are represented, all of them fully searchable and, most importantly all with individual title records in SearchWorks and Socrates.

Access Sabin Americana either by individual title in the catalog, or by searching for the database in SearchWorks and limiting to online access.

New Books - Summer 2011

A very select list of new books which have recently arrived in the library...

Italian

Berselli, Edmondo. Quel gran pezzo dell'Italia: tutte le opere, 1995-2010. Milano: Mondadori, 2011.

Calchi Novati, Giampaolo. L'Africa d'Italia: una storia coloniale e postcoloniale. Roma: Carocci, 2011.

Campanella, Tommaso, and Sherry Roush. Selected philosophical poems of Tommaso Campanella. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Cavalcanti, Guido, Roberto Rea, and Giorgio Inglese. Rime. Roma: Carocci, 2011.

Eco, Umberto. Il Medioevo: Castelli, mercanti, poeti. Milano: Encyclomedia, 2011.

Fo, Dario. Il Boccaccio riveduto e scorretto. Parma: U. Guanda, 2011.

Giola, Marco. La tradizione dei volgarizzamenti toscani del Tresor di Brunetto Latini: con un'edizione critica della redazione alfa (I.1-129). Verona: QuiEdit, 2010.

Giuman, Marco, and Ciro Parodo. Nigra subucula induti: immagine, classicità e questione della razza nella propaganda dell'Italia fascista. Padova: CLEUP, 2011.

Gramsci, Antonio. Epistolario. [Roma]: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 2009.

Mattioda, Enrico. Levi. Roma: Salerno, 2011.

Miguel y Canuto, Juan Carlos de. Scrittura civile: studi dell'opera di Dacia Maraini. Roma: G. Perrone, 2010.

Stoppelli, Pasquale. Dante e la paternità del Fiore. Roma: Salerno, 2011.’’

Verdenelli, Marcello, and Giampaolo Vincenzi. La sua critica mi ha ridato il senso della realtà: bibliografia campaniana ragionata dal 1912 etc. Roma: EdiLet, 2011.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

 

 Wittman, Laura. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Modern Mourning, and the Reinvention of the Mystical Body. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

French

Berenson, Edward, Vincent Duclert, and Christophe Prochasson. The French Republic: history, values, debates. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Drazin, Charles. French Cinema. New York: Faber and Faber, 2011.

Fowler, J. E., ed. New Essays on Diderot. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Lanoë, Catherine. Cultures de cour, cultures du corps en Europe: XIVe-XVIIIe siècle. Paris: Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2011.

Meltzer, Françoise. Seeing Double: Baudelaire's Modernity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

Miller, Mary Ashburn. A Natural History of Revolution: Violence and Nature in the French Revolutionary Imagination, 1789-1794. Ithaca [N.Y.]: Cornell University Press, 2011.

Réau, Bertrand. Les Français et les vacances: sociologie des pratiques et offres de loisirs. Paris: CNRS, 2011.

Tarquini, Alessandra. Storia della cultura fascista. Milano: Il mulino, 2011.

Teulat, Roger. Anthologie des troubadours du Puy-de-Dôme. Aurillac: Ostal del libre, 2011.

Topographies romanesques. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2011.

Database of Early Italian Books

During the spring, we purchased a database called "Early European Books." Like the well-known Early English Books Online (EEBO), which it complements, EEB contains high resolution digital images of books printed in continental Europe from the advent of printing until 1700. We acquired Collection 2, which contains early Italian books and will be a valuable resource to anyone doing research on early modern Italy.

This database contains books scanned from the BNC-Firenze, and focuses on four collections of particular interest:

• books published by the Aldine Press 
• books with notable marginalia, including works owned and marked by Galileo
• incunabula (works printed before 1501)
• Sacred representations - early dramatic representations of religious scenes seen as foundational works in the history of Italian theater. 

For more details, see the publisher's description.

The collection is found on the databases page, and in SearchWorks under the title "Early European Books."

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.