Montana State Parks recently installed a new educational exhibit interpreting the life-ways and material culture of the Bitteroot Salish when Lewis and Clark encountered them in 1805. An image of “Indians Hunting the Bison,” a Karl Bodmer aquatint held in the rare book collections, was used as part of an interpretive banner for the exhibit. Vernon Carroll, interpretive specialist, Travelers Rest State Park, Lolo, Montana writes, “[The] image enhances the visitor’s experience.” Road trip!
Martyrs
Ken Campbell (b. 1939)
Oxford, England: K. Campbell, 1989
N7433.4 C35 M38 1989
From the artist’s statement: “One day in Edinburgh I happened to pass the School of Scottish Studies. Remembering some music that I had heard twenty years before and wished to trace, I went in. An extremely patient lady told me it was on a record of polyphonic singing called ‘Gaelic Psalms from Lewis…which was first published in 1615. This stunning music gets right to your soul; it’s very upsetting. It is a style of singing that arose because Gaelic populations of the Western Isles had no psalm books in their native tongue. Consequently a form developed whereby the Precentor (or priest) would sing a line, and then the congregation would follow with great passion and devotion but, being Scots, often at their own speed. This action produces great waves of sound that sometimes start before the Precentor has finished ‘singing the line.’ I got a friend of mine, Stuart Elliot Rae, to transcribe the music for me, and translate the Gaelic to match the text with the music that was being sung. Then I put the note being sung at the top of a stave composed of brass rules. Underneath, I put the syllable that was being sung in Gaelic in woodletter, then below that the Pictish Ogham script equivalent, again in brass rule (Ogham is a Celtic script consisting of grouped lines). This looked faintly martial and certainly not Roman. I thought I would show Gaelic as a thing of beauty. The colour in the book was celebratory: it goes from cool to hot, with royal purple and gold and silver. Each new stanza starts with a representation of the saltire, the St Andrew’s cross, printed from a cut zinc solid that just kisses the small wavetops of the Zerkall paper to appear like granite. The notes are represented by Bembo italic capital Os set on their side. These are strung together at the end of the book, to make the chain that went from the tongue of the Celtic god Ogma as language binding all men…I tried to make this book as simple as I could, allowing such typographic skills as I may possess to carry its elements as a chant for the eye and the heart. The English, in progressively diminishing sizes, is at the back. Copy no. 1 of this edition now rests at the Stornoway Congregation on the Isle of Lewis, whose recorded singing inspired its making. The book is dedicated to those Scots who, circa 1800, when they were but 3% of the population of this nation state, nonetheless supplied 38% of its infantry. Text is Psalm 79, verses 3 & 4: “Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem…’ rendered into Gaelic, (sung to the tune ‘Martyrs’). Printed on double leaves in traditional Oriental format. Edition of 40 copies.
Congratulations to Alesia, who, on Friday, received her official invitation to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana from February 2014 to April 2016. She will be working as a Health Educator in Ghana’s Health Program. Some of her primary duties will include: facilitating the process to bring clean water and sanitation facilities to communities, as well as promoting and improving existing facilities; increasing food security in Ghana through improving nutrition and food utilization in rural communities; teaching on topics such as hygiene, sexual reproductive health and family planning, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and diarrhea disease in schools, communities, or other settings; serving as an advocate for her adopted Ghanaian community for needed resources; and participating in a variety of other projects. Alesia graduated this past spring with a BS in Anthropology and a minor in International Studies; and an Honors BS in Biology with an emphasis in Cell and Molecular Biology and a minor in Chemistry. She has worked in the Rare Books Division since September 2009, the longest, by far, she says, that she has ever stayed with one job. Which means, of course, that she will miss us as much as we will miss her. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Dialogo Di Galileo Galilei Linceo Matematico Sopraordinario Dello Stvdio de Pisa
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
Fiorenza: Per Gio Batista Landini, 1632
First edition
Born in Pisa in 1564, Galileo studied medicine, mathematics, and philosophy. In 1592 he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics in Padua. His early research was mainly on motion, particularly of falling bodies, but he became interested in astronomy. He developed a new type of telescope.
Much of Galileo’s early work proved the theories of Copernicus, of which the Roman Catholic Church disapproved, placing an injunction not to hold or defend Copernican doctrine. Galileo ignored the injunction with the publication of Dialogo.
Galileo’s Dialogo is a scientific and philosophical affirmation of the Copernican heliocentric theory over the earth-centered Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. Written in a literary style, Galileo deliberately chose to write this work in vernacular Italian rather than scholarly Latin in order to reach a mass audience. The topic made Galileo a threat to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
It was this book that brought Galileo before the Inquisition in 1633, where he was forced to recant his views. He was put under permanent house arrest. Dialogo was placed on the Index of prohibited book where it remained until 1835. Publication took place between June 1631 and February 1632. The first printing numbered 1000 copies of 500 pages. This printing sold out before the end of September when it was banned by the Pope. Illustrated. University of Utah copy edges untrimmed.
Translation by Rev. George Fyler Townsend. From the colophon: “Samantha Hamady created the whimsical line art for the text. Joel Tabachnick coaxed the likes of an ancient copper box from an old etching plate in my closet. And I, Mary Laird, teamed up an ounce of my letterpress with a pound of alligator computer, to laser print this book on Mohawk 100 # text and Grafix drafting film. Susi Schneider gave me the goat vellum from Pergamom tanners which I used for the binding…” Edition of six copies. University of Utah copy is no. 4.
Exhibition of Relics of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 1930
Exhibition of Relics of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 1930
Exhibition of Relics of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 1930
Exhibition of Relics of the Prophet Joseph Smith During the L.D.S. Centennial. April 5 to 12th, 1930 at the Auerbach co., Broadway at State, Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, UT: Auerbach Co., 1930
From the title page: “The Auerbach Company, one of the pioneer institutions of Utah, is exhibiting this unique collection on the occasion of the Centenary Anniversary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
THIS MEDIUM SPECIFIC APPROACH to creative writing introduces
emerging writers to the techniques and craft of inventive
writing as well as book arts. Students will consider the
generative process as a performance within a medium
and how the interplay of form and content operate within
the physics of that medium. The course includes six visits
to the Book Arts Studio at the Marriott Library, during
which students will view artists’ books from Rare Books,
get hands-on experience with bookbinding and letterpress
printing from moveable type, and collaborate to produce
a limited-edition book, of which every participant will
receive a copy. As a variation on the final portfolio, students
will be encouraged to produce chapbooks for their final
projects. In both the studio and classroom, we will ask:
What is a book? How might a book’s shape transfigure its
meaning? How do typographic decisions affect creative
texts? What is a creative text? No prior experience in the
book arts or imaginative writing is required.
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