World History & Culture

French Political Pamphlets Project Complete!

Maggie Kopp — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 16:19:52 +0000

The Lee Library’s multi-year project to digitize our collection of French Political Pamphlets from the 16th and 17th centuries is now complete: a total of 2,156 pamphlets are available at the library’s Digital Collections site. You can link directly to the French Political Pamphlets project at http://lib.byu.edu/digital/fpp/.

Victorian Women Travelers

Maggie Kopp — Wed, 22 May 2013 23:01:34 +0000

Maybe you’ve always wondered what it would have been like to be a 19th-century woman crossing the plains in a pioneer bonnet, skirt, petticoat, and maybe even a corset. But have you ever wondered what it would have been like to be a 19th-century woman traversing the Alps, Palestine, India, West Africa, or even the South Seas? The Victorian Collection has a number of memoirs and travel narratives by “lady travelers” of the period. Some women wrote about places closer to their home in England, say Paris or Italy, but others ventured to the far corners of the globe, such as:

Julia Pardoe, The Beauties of the Bosphorus (1838). Pardoe (shown above) was a best-selling author of travel narratives of her sojourn in Turkey and Eastern Europe. She also wrote novels featuring these exotic locales.
Marianna Postans, Western India in 1838 (1839). Postans, wife of a British infantry officer, wrote both fiction and travel narratives about the areas of India in which she and her husband were posted.
Lady Isabel Burton, The Inner Life of Syria, Palestine, and the Holy Land (1875). Isabel Burton was the wife of famous Victorian explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton. She wrote two travel accounts and contributed to many of her husband’s books.
Amelia B. Edwards, A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1877). Edwards, a minor novelist, took a voyage to Egypt which changed her whole life. She became a leading Egyptologist and served as the secretary of England’s premier society for scholarship and exploration of ancient Egypt.
Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed LeBlond, High Life and Towers of Silence (1886). Le Blond was one of the first female mountaineers and an accomplished figure in winter sports. She wrote several accounts of climbing the Alps — in knee-length skirts!
Mary H. Kinsgley, Travels in West Africa (1897). Kingsley spent much of her adult life traveling through West Africa and as an advocate of preserving tribal culture and society.

German Bibles

Maggie Kopp — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:00:57 +0000

The Tower of Babel, from the 1507 German Bible

German translations of the Bible have been around since the Middle Ages. After Gutenberg printed a Latin Bible in Germany around 1465, vernacular Bibles in German quickly followed. A Bible in High German was issued by Johannes Mentelin in Strasbourg in 1466. Low German vernacular Bibles were issued in Cologne in 1478 and 1479. In all, before Martin Luther issued his famous translation of the New Testament in 1522 (Luther’s full translation of the Bible was published in 1534), there were at least 18 editions printed of the complete Bible in German and several dozen editions of portions of the Bible, such as Gospel books and Psalters.

At Special Collections, we have recently acquired a vernacular German Bible from 1507 (the 13th known Bible edition printed before Luther’s). It was printed in Augsburg and features hand-colored woodcuts, some of which are shown here. Here are some other important German Bibles in our collections:

a 1524 Luther New Testament printed in Zurich.
Facsimiles of the 1534 Luther Bible and the Wenzel Bible manuscript of 1389.
Johann Dietenberger’s 1534 Bible, which was issued as a Catholic response to Luther’s translation.

You can find all these Bibles and many more by searching the library catalog for the title phrase “Bible German.”

Manna from Heaven. From the 1507 German Bible.

Aldines on exhibit

Maggie Kopp — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:52:07 +0000

This month Special Collections is featuring a small exhibit, “Bindings from the Aldine Collection.” On display are several types of bindings representative of those in BYU’s Aldine Collection, including an interesting binding using a scraped leaf from a parchment manuscript. The exhibit was curated by Kylie Ladd, a student employee in Special Collections.

Early medicine

Maggie Kopp — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 23:26:36 +0000

L. Tom Perry Special Collections doesn’t actively acquire books on medicine, but the History of Science Collection does have several hundred books published before 1800 about medicine, surgery, and human anatomy. Many are in Latin, but you’ll find a good number of titles in English or other European languages.While the information in these books is of course outdated, their images of the human body and bygone procedures and remedies can be incredibly fascinating. The book pictured here is a French translation of an anatomy book by Charles Estienne, printed in 1546. It is bound with several texts by ancient Greek physicians Galen and Hippocrates, which were used by doctors and medical students in Early Modern Europe.

To find these sorts of books, search the library catalog using these subject terms:

Medicine – early works to 1800
Human anatomy – early works to 1800
Surgery – early works to 1800

Love your library, but not your neighbor

Maggie Kopp — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:16:56 +0000

Check out today’s edition of The Universe for a story on Victorian Valentines from Special Collections, and stop by the HBLL on Thursday to see reproductions of the featured valentines during Love Your Library Week!

Finding famous printers

Maggie Kopp — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 21:25:28 +0000

Looking for the work of famous printers of the 15th and 16th centuries? Have no fear, here is a handy list of call numbers for some of the rare books in L. Tom Perry Special Collections. All of these call numbers refer to the Vault Collections. You can use these numbers to browse the library catalog through the call number search feature.

Incunable (15^th c.) Printers
Johann Amerbach:   093 Am35
Peter Drach: 093 D78
Johann Froben: 093 F92
Johann Fust: 093 F987
Johann Gutenberg:   093 G982
Johann Herbort: 093 H416
Nicolas Jenson:    093 J453
Anton Koberger: 093 K796
Johann Pruss:    093 P952
Jacobus de Ragazonibus:   093 R126
Erhart Ratdolt:     093 R186
Adolph Rusch:     093 R893
Peter Schoffer:    093 Sc62
Konrad Sweynheim:    093 Sw48
Gunther Zainer:      093 Z13
Ulrich Zell:     093 Z38

16^th-century Printers
Aldus Manutius: ALDINE
Josse Badius Ascensius: 094.2 B142
Simon de Colines: 094.2 C682
Elzevier family:   094.2 EL98
Estienne family: 094.2 Es86
Johann Froben:    094.2 F92
Giunta family:   094.2 G44
Griffio family:    094.2 G92
Charlotte Guillard: 094.2 G94
Christopher Plantin:    094.2 P69
Wynken de Worde:    094.2 W867

Christmas Customs

kab6 — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:54:58 +0000

Christmas customs vary from family to family, country to country, and make the holiday something bright.

The Wilson Folklore Archives has a plethora of ideas for the Christmas season. These ideas can be found in FA14 8–Christmas customs. Trees are a good place to start. Many families have a tree and how they are chosen guides some of the traditions. For some families an artifical tree is the only way to go. Others traipse around a Christmas tree lot or farm looking for that perfect tree. Some brave souls take their sled and head to the hills or the forest to chop down the tree that will set the right tone for there Christmas celebration.

Under the tree may go an array of gifts. Some are given traditionally from each member of the family to the other. Sometimes the members of the family have picked one name which they will buy or make a gift for that year. Other gifts are Secret Santa acts of service or kind acts of charity that the Christ child would choose to do.

At Christmas there are a wide variety of activities enjoyed by families. Baking is very common. Cookies, cakes, candies and other treats abound. Some families reach back into their heritage and have ethnic foods that they might sun at other times of the year. Stories are read and told that might be reserved for December. New pajamas are worn on Christmas Eve. Stockings are hung, shoes are put out, bells ring and Santa Claus comes. It is a magical time of a year.

Look through our summaries of Christmas customs, http://lib.byu.edu/sites/muw/files/2008/07/customs.pdf, in the custom index and look for your traditions or ideas for some new ones that you might like to start.

Simon de Colines

Maggie Kopp — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 16:36:47 +0000

Simon de Colines (d. 1546) is another famous Parisian printer and typographer of the 1500’s. He was actually related to the Estienne family through marriage (he married Henri I Estienne’s widow, thus becoming the stepfather to Robert I, Charles, and François I). Simon ran Henri Estienne’s presses and took over the shop upon Estienne’s death. He managed the family business for six years, ceding it to his stepson Robert in 1526. Colines established a new print shop, where he began printing Latin classics, anti-Lutheran theological writings, and other works by the faculty of the University of Paris. In the course of his career, Colines issued over 750 publications. Special Collections owns over 275 examples of books and pamphlets produced by Colines.

The example shown here is one of Colines’ most lavishly-illustrated books, Jean Milles De Souvigny’s Praxis criminis persequendi (Call number: Vault Collection 094.2 C682 1541 no.10). The book is a treatise on criminal law and describes the various stages of an imaginary murder trial.

The Estiennes

Maggie Kopp — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 19:36:28 +0000

One of the most distinguished families of printers in 16^th century Europe was the Estiennes. Henri Estienne I was a printer and bookseller who was active in Paris from 1502-20. His sons Robert and François carried on the family legacy, printing in Paris and Geneva, as did his grandsons. In fact, there were Estiennes printing books well into the mid-seventeenth century.

What makes the Estienne family stand out from other printers of the same period? Nicolas Barker notes that they united “qualities of scholarship and good printing with a determined and individual approach that did mark them out from their contemporaries in a way clearly visible” both in their own time and to modern observers (in Schreiber, The Estiennes: An annotated catalogue of 300 highlights of their various presses. New York, 1982, p. 2).

Special Collections owns over 500 books published by various generations of the Estienne family. This image is from a copy of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History printed by Robert Estienne I (1503-1559) in 1544. Robert I was a prominent classical and biblical scholar and also served as the royal Printer in Greek. The font of Greek type used in this book was cut by Claude Garamond.