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Tag Archives: poet

Book of the Week — Prayers Written at Vailima

03 Monday Dec 2018

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Allwyn O'Mara, Bembo, Bonnie Thompson Norman, California, Catherine Kanner, Fanny Stevenson, french-fold, Hiromi-Sansui, letterpress, linoleum cuts, Pacific Palisades, poet, prayer, Robert Louis Stevenson, Samoa, Scottish, The Melville Press, The Windowpane Press, Vailima

“Deliver us from fear and favor; from mean hopes and cheap pleasures. Have mercy on each in his deficiency; let him not be cast down; support the stumbling on the way, and give at last rest to the weary.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

Prayers Written at Vailima
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
Pacific Palisades, CA: The Melville Press, 1999
PR5488 P75 1999

In 1889, Robert Louis Stevenson moved his family to Vailima in the South Sea island of Samoa. The Scottish novelist and poet was in failing health. His doctors hoped that a change in climate would help. Stevenson believed in the power of prayer and composed many of his own. He held evening prayer services in his home, attended by his family members and his Samoan servants. The Samoans had a strong tradition of closing each day with prayer and hymns.

Stevenson lived for another four years, dying on December 3rd. In 1910, Fanny Stevenson had her husband’s prayers published as an ornate gift book, to which she added her own introduction. There is a morning prayer and two evening prayers, a prayer for time and a prayer for rain, a prayer for separation, a prayer for friends and a prayer for family, a prayer for Sunday, a prayer for self-blame and a prayer for self-forgetfulness, and a prayer for joy.

In this edition, both book and jacket have a delicate, handmade quality that reflects the subject matter of native prayers in a far corner of the world. Designed by Catherine Kanner, with her linoleum cuts used directly to print the many illustrations. The text was composed using handset Bembo types and printed letterpress by Bonnie Thompson Norman of The Windowpane Press. The paper used is natural white Hiromi-Sansui paper in the 24 gsm weight, in French-folded signatures. The binding design is a collaboration between the book’s designer and Allwyn O’Mara, the binder.

Edition of two hundred numbered copies. Rare Books copy is no. 95, signed by the designer.

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ДОКТОР ЖИВАГО: РОМАН

23 Tuesday Oct 2018

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Boris Pasternak, communist, declassified, Doctor Zhivago, documents, France, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Lyuba Basin, Milan, Nobel Prize for Literature, novel, novelist, Paris, poems, poet, Russia, Russian, Russian Revolition 1905, Société d'édition et d'ímpression mondiale, Soviet, tourists, United States Central Intelligence Agency, Western Europe, World War I, Борис Пастернаk, Борис Пастернак, ДОКТОР ЖИВАГО: РОМАН, Париж


“No single man makes history. History cannot be seen, just as one cannot see grass growing. Wars and revolutions, kings and Robespierres, are history’s organic agents, its yeast. But revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track mind, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field. They overturn the old order in a few hours or days, the whole upheaval takes a few weeks or at most years, but the fanatical spirit that inspired the upheavals is worshiped for decades thereafter, for centuries.” — Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

ДОКТОР ЖИВАГО: РОМАН
Борис Пастернаk
Париж, 1959

Doctor Zhivago
Boris Pasternak
Paris: Société d’édition et d’ímpression mondiale, 1959
PG3476 P27 D6 1959b

Just because its not a “first edition” and just because its “only a paperback” doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a great story. We present the following case in point:

Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) was a Soviet Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. In Russia, his first book of poems, My Sister, Life, is considered one of the most influential collections published in the Russian language. However, outside of Russia, Pasternak is best known for his 1957 novel, Doctor Zhivago. Critically depicting life between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and WWI, the manuscript was originally smuggled to Milan and published in 1957 by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. The novel quickly rose to fame and by 1958 Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Although Pasternak was forced to decline the prize by the Soviet government, Doctor Zhivago continued to be mass-produced outside the Soviet Union and throughout the non-Communist world.

In April 2014, the United States Central Intelligence Agency released dozens of declassified documents confirming that it had covertly distributed thousands copies of the original Russian-language edition of Doctor Zhivago to Soviet tourists in Western Europe and also funded the publication of a miniature, lightweight paperback edition that could be easily mailed or concealed in a jacket pocket. The front cover and the binding identify the book in Russian; the back of the book states that it was printed in France.

~~Contributed by Lyuba Basin and Luise Poulton

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We recommend — Appendices Pulled from a Study on Light

24 Tuesday Apr 2018

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acanthus, Anglo-Norman Litany of Saints, April, Boise, border, burnished gold, Cami Nelson, chrysalis, color, Connecticut College, Craig Dworkin, Elizabeth Peterson, eye, Finger Lakes, fragment, France, Geoffrey Babbitt, gilded, gold pavé, gutters, heliotropic, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Idaho, ink, ivy, Jerry Root, Julie Gonnering Lein, Karen Brennan, Kathryn Cowles, leaf, lift, light, littera gothica textualis, littera gothica textualis formata, Luise Poulton, Marriott Library, National Poetry Month, New York, New York City, Office of the Dead, Paisley Rekdal, Paris, pasture, poet, rare books, rinceaux, scribe, Shira Dentz, Special Collections, Spyten Duyvil, street lamp, tendrils, The University of Utah, thunder, Tom Stillinger, transport, vellum, Vespers, vines


“a trace unnameable — place
holding the child
to the first frost,
the street lamp, the pasture — ”

Appendices Pulled from a Study on Light
Geoffrey Babbitt
New York City: Spuyten Duyvil, 2018
PS3602 A224 A6 2018 (General Collection, Level 2)

“This is Geoffrey Babbitt’s first book. His poems and essays have appeared in North American Review, Pleiades, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Notre Dame Review, TYPO, Tarpaulin Sky, The Collagist, Interim, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. Raised in Boise, Idaho, he studied at Connecticut College and earned his Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Utah. Geoffrey currently coedits Seneca Review and teaches at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in the Finger Lakes region of New York, where he lives with poet Kathryn Cowles and their three daughters.”

Geoffrey acknowledges the help of many friends, colleagues and faculty from the University of Utah including Luise Poulton, Karen Brennan, Craig Dworkin, Julie Gonnering Lein, Cami Nelson, Paisley Rekdal, Jerry Root, Tom Stillinger, Shira Dentz, Elizabeth Peterson, and others.

Congratulations, Geoffrey!


MS Fragment: 4 — Date: ca. 1375 — Origin: France (possibly northeastern) — current location: Marriott Library, University of Utah, Special Collections, Rare Book Division — Materials: Ink, and burnished gold on vellum — Illustration: Detail — Size: 7 1/8 in. x 5 7/16 in. — Section: Anglo-Norman Litany of Saints — Script: littera gothica textualis formata

“vines scritched, chrysalis
onto vellum leaf–all
lost color, stolen thunder
–spiritual curl
of the vine tending
ultimately toward–tattered edge
curling from the gutters…”


MS Fragment: 8 — Date: ca. 1425-1450 — Origin: France (possibly Paris) — Current Location: Marriott Library, University of Utah, Special Collections, Rare Books Division — Materials: Ink, and burnished gold on vellum — Size: 7 1/4 in. x 5 3/16 in. — Illustration: Detail, border — section: Office of the Dead, Vespers — Script: littera gothica textualis

“lit border
buoys — acanthus
place setting
scribe sets — rinceaux
sprays, gilded ivy leaf,
bryony tendrils, gold pavé
fleur-de-lis — heliotropic
buoyancy — motor cells in
the pulvinus synthesize
bouncing light, con-
vert eye movement, displace
page’s gravitropic
polar auxin transport —
downwarding becomes lift”

April is National Poetry Month.

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Book of the Week — Wrenching Times: Poems from Drum-Taps

15 Sunday Apr 2018

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Abraham Lincoln, Alan Wood, assassination, Brooklyn, Capitol, David Esslemont, democratic, frontier, Gaylord Schanilec, Gwasg Gregynog, Hugh Willmer, lilacs, M. Wynn Thomas, memorial, Monotype Baskerville, New York, Newton, North Wales Arts Association, poet, Powys, President, rare books, Rhian Ticehurst, typeface, Union, Wales, Walt Whitman, Washington, Western, wood blocks, wood engravings, Zerkall mould-made paper

PS3211-A3-1991-Portrait

“When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d…and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”

Wrenching Times: Poems from Drum-Taps
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Newton, Powys, Wales: Gwasg Gregynog, 1991
PS3211 A3 1991

From notes by M. Wynn Thomas: “Whitman was in New York, seeing Drum-Taps through the press, when Lincoln was assassinated on the evening of 14 April 1865, at the very time when he had finally secured victory for the Union. Whitman had come to identify very closely with the president, having supported him when others dismissed him as a mere country hick, and having seen him pass every day under Whitman’s window in Washington on his journey to and from the Capitol. Lincoln was, for the poet, the very epitome of Western, frontier qualities and his steadfast adherence, through the worst of times, to his principled belief in a democratic Union had won Whitman’s unqualified and undying admiration. Years later, in his old age, he would still endeavour, whenever his health allowed, to deliver an annual memorial lecture on the day of Lincoln’s death. On that occasion he always ensured that lilacs were placed on the table in front of him.

“The lilac was in flower near his Brooklyn home when Whitman heard of Lincoln’s murder.”

PS3211-A3-1991-Locomotive

Wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec, made at Gregynog during a residency, supported by the North Wales Arts Association, and printed from the original wood-blocks. Designed and printed by David Esslemont with the assistance of Hugh Willmer on Zerkall mould-made paper. Typeface is Monotype Baskerville. Edition of four hundred and fifty copies, one of four hundred copies bound in quarter leather by Alan Wood and Rhian Ticehurst at Gregynog.

Gregynog Press was a Welsh private press, started and run by two wealthy sisters, whose interests were more artistic than literary. All of the work of the books from this press happened under one roof – design layout, composition, presswork, design and execution of woodblocks, hand-coloring and binding – an unusual circumstance for early twentieth century presses.

Rare Books copy is number 201 with unpublished wood engraving laid in.

PS3211-A3-1991-Horse

April is National Poetry Month.

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Take heed of loving mee

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Autumn, Colorado, Daniel Kelm, English, handset type, John Donne, letterpress, Longmont, love, magic-wallet structure, poet, PS Press, Sign of the Vicious Dog, wire-edge binding

PR2247-P76-2001-Cover
Take heed of loving mee,
At least remember I forbade it thee;
Not that I shall repaire my unthrifty wast
Of Breath and Blood, upon thy sighes and teares,
By being to thee then what to me thou wast;
But so, great Joy, our life at once outweares;
Then, lest thy love, by my death, frustrate bee,
If thou love mee, take heed of loving mee.

The Prohibition
John Donne (1572-1631)
Longmont, CO: PS Press, 2001
PR2247 P76 2001

English poet John Donne wrote often about love. This admonishment to a lover at the end of a liaison expresses the ambivalence of both loving and hating the once beloved. Donne’s twists and turns of thought, his admiration of paradox, are symbolized in the magic-wallet structure of this book. The book opens in a single spread with one stanza each on verso and recto. To finish reading the poem, the book must be closed and then opened again from the back cover where the fore edge reveals, as a hidden resolution, the third stanza.

Illustrated with anatomical drawings of the human heart and arteries, the production uses handset type, letterpress and monoprint, paper over board, bound with Daniel Kelm’s wire-edge binding. Edition of fifteen copies.

PR2247-P76-2001-Spread1

Take heed of hating mee,
Or too much triumph in the victorie;
Not that I shall be mine owne officer,
And hate with hate againe retaliate;
But thou wilt lose the stile of conquerour,
If I, thy conquest, perish by thy hate.
Then, lest my being nothing lessen thee,
If thou hate mee, take heed of hating mee.

Yet love and hate mee too;
So these extreames shall neithers office doe;
Love mee, that I may die the gentler way;
Hate mee, because thy love’s too great for mee;
Or let these two, themselves, not mee, decay;
So shall I live thy stage, not triumph bee.
Lest thou thy love and hate, and mee undo,
O let mee live, yet love and hate mee too.

 

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Rare Books Goes to Utah State University!

23 Tuesday Jan 2018

Posted by rarebooks in Rare Books Loans

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ailments, Alexa Sand, Andromachus, animal, antidotes, Antioch, antiquity, Arab, Arabic, aristocracy, artists, Athalus III, Avicenna, Baghdad, Barcelona, benefits, Bibliotheque National de France, binding, bites, border, Byzantine Renaissance, Cairo, climate, codex, Constantinople, court, covers, Criton, culture, display, doctor, drink, drugs, Egypt, Ellucasim Elimittar, exhibition, facsimile, food, formulas, French, fruits, Giovaninno de Grassi, grammarian, Graz, Greek, handbook, happiness, healing, health, Hebrew, Hellenistic, herbal, herbs, Homeric, household, hygiene, Ibn Butlan, illustration, Italian, Italy, King of Pergamum, Latin, layout, layperson, leather, magical, management, manual, Materia medica, medical, medicine, medieval, Merrill-Cazier Library, Mesopotamia, Middle Ages, mineral, miniatures, Mithridates, Moleiro, monk, movement, nature, Nero, Nestorian, Nicander of Colophon, observation, occidental, opium, pain, paper, patrician, Pedanius Dioskurides, pharmacological, physician, plants, poet, poisons, potions, publicity, rare books, reception, remedies, rest, Roman, sadness, samples, scholar, science, simples, sleep, Special Collections, stings, substances, symposium, Syria, Syrian, Theatrum sanitatis, therapeutic, toxicology, Trajan, Ububchasym of Baldach, University of Utah, Utah State University, vegetables, Venice, woman, wooden

Last semester, Rare Books loaned six of its medieval manuscript facsimiles to the Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University in collaboration with an art history course taught by Professor Alexa Sand. The upper-level course, “Special Topics Seminar in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Rare Books and Facsimiles,” provided a wide-ranging introduction to the interdisciplinary field of manuscript studies. The focus was the history of the codex from its advent in late Roman times to the early print era.

Each student selected a facsimile and researched its origins, history, and significance toward the final assignment of including it in a group-curated exhibition displayed in the library. The seminar concluded with a one-day symposium in which student researchers played an active role in discussion.

The materials selected for study related to botany and its medical and magical associations from late antiquity through the early modern period. Students prepared all aspects of the exhibition, from layout and display to publicity and the opening reception, working with Special Collections faculty and staff and Professor Sand.

Facsimiles on loan from Rare Books were:


Des Pedanius Dioskurides aus anazarbos arzneimittellehre in funf buchern
Ca. seventh century, Italy
Graz: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1988
R126 D56 1988

Facsimile. This manuscript is one of the oldest in the tradition of Materia medica, a pharmacological treatise written by Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the first century CE. Dioscorides’ work was used by the medieval world for centuries. In the sixth century it was translated into Latin and by the ninth century it had been translated into Arabic, Syrian and Hebrew. More than four hundred plants are described in this illustrated herbal manual, each illustration bordered in red ink. The binding of wooden covers and leather accords with the character of the original.


Theriaka y Alexipharmaka de Nicandro
Nicander of Colophon
Barcelona: Moleiro, 1997
QP41 N53 1997

Facsimile. The Greek text for this codex, produced in the tenth century, was written in Constantinople in the second century BCE. Nicander, a trusted doctor, poet, and grammarian served in the court of Athalus III, King of Pergamum. In Homeric-style verses, Nicander describes poisons caused by animal bites and stings and by the ingestion of plant, animal, and mineral substances. Antidotes are given for each type of poisoning. These nearly sixty formulas were later improved upon by Mithridates, who added opium and aromatic herbs to the potions. Nicander’s work was used by Criton, the doctor of Trajan, and Andromachus, Nero’s doctor, and is the oldest extant Greek text relating to toxicology. Using this text as his basis, Andromachus compiled a list of seventy-one curative remedies – a list used until the nineteenth-century as the panacea textbook for all and any poisonings. The tenth-century codex, a product of the Byzantine Renaissance, is the only remaining illuminated copy of Nicander’s poetry. The forty-one illustrations form a part of the Hellenistic artistic tradition. The original is now housed at the Bibliotheque National de France. Facsimile edition of nine hundred and eighty-seven copies. University of Utah copy is no. 469.


Theatrum sanitatis
Ububchasym of Baldach (d. ca. 1068 AD)
Eleventh Century
Barcelona: M. Moleiro, 1999
RS79 T46 1999

Facsimile. This handbook of health was written between 1052 and 1063 CE by the Arab scholar Ububshasym of Baldach, better known throughout medieval literature as Ellucasim Elimittar. Many of the concepts used in his writing were derived from earlier Greek, Roman, and Arabic medical treatises. Good health depended upon six essential factors: climate, food and drink, movement and rest, sleep and wakefulness, happiness, pain and sadness. Plants, fruits, vegetables, and basic hygiene also affect a person’s health. Ninety-nine of these and other elements are described with the therapeutic properties of each and the ailments that may be helped by them. The illustrations were influenced by the school of Giovannino de Grassi. Two hundred and eight red-framed, nearly full-page illuminations illustrate scenes from daily life as well as the elements described.


Tacuinum sanitatus in medicina.
Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck-u. Verlagsanstalt, 1986
RS79 T335 1986

Facsimile. Northern Italy. This illuminated medical handbook was produced for a layperson – a woman of the upper aristocracy or of a rich patrician family able to read, and afford, a lavish book. A reference of sorts for the household management of health and healing, this type of book goes back to an Arab source written by the physician Ibn Butlan in the 11th century. The Arab art and science of healing decisively influenced occidental medicine and enjoyed a long-lived and distinguished reputation. The Latin translation, which made the codex accessible to the educated of the medieval western world, was widely known. Many copies survive. This particular copy is one of the finest of its kind, displaying over two hundred full-page miniatures of all that was considered important with regard to human health and well being. Beginning in the 14th century, the text was placed below an individual image. The evocative miniatures portray everyday life of late Medieval Italian culture. With a natural style and strong colors, two artists portrayed plants, animals, food, and drugs. All of the objects are within scenes centered upon a human. The text below each miniature describes both the benefits and shortfalls of the object depicted. Derived from the classical herbal tradition, but closely related to Arab manuscripts, the format follows a later western tradition. Bound in leather on wooden boards with hand stamping according to contemporary pattern.


Livre des simples medecines
Antwerp : De Schutter, 1984
QK99 A1 L58 1984 v.1

Facsimile. This late fifteenth-century manuscript is of what has become known as “Livre des Simple Medecines,” a major text of medieval science. Many manuscript copies of this work exist – at least twenty-three from the fifteenth century and one from the sixteenth century. It was first printed in 1488 and printed nine more times before 1548. In classic herbal format, Livre des simple medecines is an alphabetical list of “simples,” that is, unadulterated vegetable, mineral or animal products. Each entry provides a description and, among other things, its usefulness in treating ailments. Herbals as pharmacopeia began in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. The earliest surviving medical herbal is a work in Greek compiled by Pedianos Dioscorides. This work would dominate European herbals for the next fifteen centuries. It was translated into Arabic as early as the ninth century and influenced Avicenna and other physicians from the Arab world. Herbals were living works. That is, copyists, often practitioners of medicine themselves or copying for practitioners, would contribute to adapt or modify an herbal depending on new or different experience. In this tradition, the French translation here includes new sources such as ibn Butlan, an Arab physician, and others. The four hundred and fifty-seven illuminations in this copy, the Codex Bruxellensis IV, reveal an attempt by the artists to be faithful to nature. In this sense, the desire was to return to copying nature, instead of merely copying degraded illustrations from older herbals. Deliberate observation and representation of nature emerged in all forms of art in the fifteenth century. Codex Bruxellensis IV was copied onto paper. Written in maroon ink by a single hand sometime in the second half of the fifteenth century in a cursive script, the copy also contains marginal annotations by at least two sixteenth-century hands. An attempted pagination was added by a seventeenth-century hand. At some point in its history, one owner added dried samples of plants within its leaves. Facsimile edition of two thousand copies. The University of Utah copy is no. 316.


Tacuinum sanitatis/enchiridion virtutum vegetablilium, animalium, mineralium rerumque omnium: explicans naturam, iuvamentum, nocumentum remotionemque nocumentoru[m] eorum/ authore anonymo
Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1984 RS79 T33 1984

Facsimile. Venice, 1490. Tacuinum Sanitatis (Handbook of Health) is the modern title given to one of the most popular treatises on medicine during the later Middle Ages. It combines Arabic and western knowledge on many types of foods, plants, and circumstances, with particular reference to their useful and harmful properties, and how the latter could be cured if necessary. The illustrated versions of this text yield much information on medieval daily life. The manuscript is comprised of 82 leaves, with four miniatures per page, a total of 294 miniatures. The captions or text are based on the Taqwin al-sihhah of Ibn Butlan (d. 1066), which was unillustrated. Ibn Butlan, originally from Baghdad, visited Cairo about 1049, after which he went to Constantinople before settling at Antioch in Syria and becoming a Nestorian monk. Facsimile edition of nine hundred and eighty copies, numbered.

Photographs of people by Andrew McAllister/Caine College of the Arts, Utah State University

Digital scans of books by Scott Beadles/Department of Art, University of Utah

Special thanks to our colleague Jennifer Duncan, Head of Special Collections, Book Curator, Merrill Cazier Library, Utah State University.

 

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Autumn’s End

01 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Autumn, broadside, Christopher Buckley, Dante, Hubbub, Lagniappe Press, October, poet, rare books

PS3552-U339-A98-1992
“…yours until the final ghosts
from darkened fires
rise like filaments
on the low blue-grey
edge of light and air,
to shine like music must,
momentarily, to the blind.”

Autumn’s End
Christopher Buckley
Lagniappe Press, 1992
PS3552 U339 A98 1992

Printed in October 1992 with 12 point Dante. The poem first appeared in “Hubbub,” Fall 1992. Edition of forty copies. Rare Books copy signed by the poet.

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Virtue and Knowledge

14 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Uncategorized

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Alexander the Great Gualterus de Castellione, allegory, battle, Biblioteca Angelica, Boccaccio, Boethius, Bolognese, Bosone da Gubbio, Campaldino, canticle, Canto, Christian, Cicero, Dante Alighieri, destiny, dialect, Europe, exile, facsimile, Florence, gold, Guelphs, hand-treated paper, hell, Holy Trinity, Italian, Jacopo Alighieri, Latin, littera textualis, manuscript, medieval, miniature, paradise, Petrarch, philosopher, poem, poet, purgatory, scribe, soldier, song, tanned leather, tercets, terza rima, The Divine Comedy, Thomas Aquinas, tripartite stanza, Tuscan, vernacular, Virgil

PQ4301-A1-2016-Devil

“Consider your origin. You were not formed to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

La Divina Commedia Angelica
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Castel Guelfo di Bologna, Italy: Imago la Nobilita del Facsimile, 2016
PQ4301 A1 2016

Facsimile. MS1102 from the Biblioteca Angelica, this late fourteenth century Bolognese codex contains The Divine Comedy, commentary by Jacopo Alighieri and Bosone da Gubbio, and a fragment of a poem written by Alexander the Great Gualterus de Castellione. Each of the Cantos are introduced with a miniature depicting the contents of the song. Thirty-four other miniatures depict scenes from hell in bright colors on a gold background. The manuscript is incomplete. Empty spaces were left for miniatures for the songs of “Paradiso” and “Purgatorio.” It is likely that only one scribe is responsible for the text. The script hand is littera textualis. The facsimile has hand applied gold leaf before each canticle on hand-treated paper. The binding is hand stitched in a naturally tanned leather.

Dante Alighieri, born in Florence, to a notable family but of modest means, was an Italian poet and philosopher. He is best known for the monumental epic poem La divina commedia (The Divine Comedy), a medieval Christian allegory of man’s temporal and eternal destiny. The poet draws on his own experience of exile from his native city, in which he encounters hell, purgatory, and paradise. Along the way, the poet offers analysis of contemporary problems and spiritual wisdom through inventive linguistic imagery. Dante wrote his epic poem in the vivid Italian vernacular, rather than Latin, using primarily a Tuscan dialect which became the literary language in western Europe for centuries. Dante’s use of the vernacular opened his work to an audience broader than the academy.

Dante was classically trained and drew on the works of Virgil, Cicero, Boethius and others for his philosophical thinking. He was also well aware of more contemporary writers such as Thomas Aquinas. A soldier, he fought in the ranks at the battle of Campaldino in 1289 on the side of the Guelphs — a battle instrumental in the reformation of the Florentine constitution.

Dante is credited with inventing terza rima, composed of tercets woven into a linked rhyme scheme. He ended each canto of the The Divine Comedy with a single line that completes the rhyme scheme with the end-word of the second line of the preceding tercet. The tripartite stanza is symbolic with the Holy Trinity. Later Italian poets, including Boccaccio and Petrarch, followed this form.

Facsimile edition of 423 copies, 25 hors de commerce. University of Utah copy is no. 18.

PQ4301-A1-2016-Lion

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Book of the Week — تاريخ راشد افندي

10 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ Comments Off on Book of the Week — تاريخ راشد افندي

Tags

America, Arabic, Austria, Celebizade, dictionary, European, France, grammar, historian, historiographer, Holland, Hungarian, Ibrahim Muteferrika, Islam, Istanbul, Latin, Muslim, Muteferrika Press, Ottoman, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Turkish, poet, Rasit Efendi, Turkish, typeface, woodcut

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-firstimage
تاريخ راشد افندي
تاريخ راشد
قسطنطنية : ابراهيم من متفرقه كان

The first Turkish printing house was established in Istanbul on December 14, 1727. The director of the press was Ibrahim Muteferrika (1674-1745), a Hungarian convert to Islam. In 1726 Muteferrika sent a report on the efficiency of the printing press to Vizier Damat Ibrahim Pasha, the Grand Mufti. After he submitted another report to Sultan Ahmed, he recieved permission to publish non-religious books, over the objections of calligraphers and religious leaders.

Muteferrika Press published sixteen books between 1729 and 1742. Each edition consisted of between five hundred and one thousand copies. The presses themselves came from France, the typefaces were designed and cut by Muteferrika. The printers were from Austria. The press’s first title, a dictionary, contained maps and drawings from the Islamic world. A grammar (1730) was the first printed Ottoman work in Latin. In 1732, the press published a history of the discovery of America. This was the first book by a Muslim author about the Americas and included thirteen woodcut illustrations.

The work presented here is Rasit Efendi’s Tarih-i Rashid Afandi, published in 1741 by the Muteferrika Press. This was the sixteenth book to be published by the press. The work covers the period 1071-1134AH (1660-1772) of the official Ottoman history.  Rashid’s work is added to with Celebizade Isma’il Asim’s Tarih-i Celebizade Efendi, a history by Celebizade (d 1173 [1760]. Both Rashid and Celebizade held the post of official historiographer for the Ottoman Empire. This publication, printed in four volumes, here bound as one, is considered the prime source for the period.

The text, printed in Arabic script, is in Ottoman Turkish. Rare Books copy has evidence of at least one hand underlining and marking in faded brown ink. Bound in Ottoman style with blind-stamped European leather, lined with patterned paper.

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-pattern

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-colophon

DR531-R36-1741-v.1-secondimage

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Book of the Week — Herbert’s Remains, or, Sundry Pieces of that Sweet…

06 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by rarebooks in Book of the Week

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

American, Barnabas Oley, Church of England, George Herbert, Isaak Walton, London, metaphysics, poems, poet, Robert S. Pirie, Sotheby's, Timothy Garthwait, woodcut borders, woodcut initials

Herberts-Title

“Take heed of the wrath of a mighty man, and the tumult of the people.”

HERBERT’S REMAINS. OR, SUNDRY PIECES OF THAT SWEET…
George Herbert (1593-1633)
London: Printed for Timothy Garthwait, 1652
First edition
PR3507 A1 1652

George Herbert was a clergyman with the Church of England. He is known to this day as a poet of metaphysics, his poems notable for their controlled and inventive use of form. The famous central section (“The Church”) of his collection for The Temple (1633) contains more than 160 lyrics in stanza forms unique to their composition and subject. In tone and narrative mode, Herbert demonstrated his versatility with lyric conversations, allegories, fables, monologues, epigrams, meditations, and prayers.

The most significant of Herbert’s prose writings is A Priest to the Temple, a work on priestly conduct written during his final years. He wrote of the model church man and the fundamental principles of faith, human relations, and religious rhetoric.

Priest and Jacula, a collection of proverbial sayings, were published together as Herbert’s Remains, prefaced by Barnabas Oley’s “View of the life and vertues of the author,” which was a source for Isaak Walton’s Life of Mr. George Herbert (1670). A Priest to the Temple and Jacula Prudentum have separate title pages, the later dated 1651. Some copies of Herbert’s Remains exist without the previously stated titles. Jacula was first printed as Outlandish Proverbs in 1640 and contained 1,032 sayings; Jacula was augmented with an additional sixty-eight sayings in the present edition.

Woodcut borders and initials.

Rare Books copy bound in contemporary calf with gilt-lettered spine ruled in blind, marbled edges. Bookplate of Robert S. Pirie (1934-2015) on front pastedown. Robert Pirie was an American attorney. His extensive collection of rare books and manuscripts was auctioned by Sotheby’s in December of 2015.

Herberts-Author

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