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 BRIDWELL LIBRARY
EXHIBITIONS
 
Welcome Additions

Bridwell Library's Recent Acquisitions in Context


Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Galleries

8 September -- 12 December 2008

 

  

 

Around the year 200 CE, the Roman poet Terentianus Maurus wrote “Habent sua fata libelli” (books have their destinies). These words have special resonance for modern libraries, which are challenged to identify, locate, and acquire those books which by their very nature belong together in a worthy repository. This exhibition highlighted 28 books (or rare leaves) dating from c. 1458 to 1786 that were destined to enter Bridwell Library’s Special Collections during the past three years. We may consider the recent acquisition of each of these books as the fulfillment of its destiny because in every case, a welcome context had been defined for the text by a collection of related books already held within the library. Although each of these “new” books is a work of outstanding merit in its own right, this exhibition situates the recent arrival alongside previous holdings in a pairing that both illuminates its significance and underscores why it has belonged here all along. Brought together at their final destination, a leading theology library, all of these books are now components of a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, coexisting in a place where they will be appreciated in ways that fulfill their highest scholarly potential. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new acquisitions included:

[Biblia Latina (the “36-Line Bible”)]. Single vellum leaf. [Bamberg (?): Printer of the 36-Line Bible (Albrecht Pfister or predecessor), c. 1458-60 (not after 1461)].

 

Psalterium Benedictinum cum canticis et hymnis. Single vellum leaf. [Mainz]: Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, 29 August 1459.

 

Petrus de Rosenheim (1380–1433). Roseum memoriale. Manuscript on paper. [Rood Klooster monastery, near Brussels, c. 1460].

 

Apocalypse. Single leaf from a blockbook. [Germany: anonymous, c. 1465].

 

Peter Comestor (d. 1178). Historia scholastica. Manuscript on paper. [Luzerne, Switzerland]: dated 1466.

   

Quintus Curtius Rufus (1st century CE). Historiae Alexandri Magni [Italian]. Translated by Pietro Candido Decembrio. (Florence: Dominican Nuns of San Jacopo di Ripoli, 1478).

 

Margarita davidica, seu Expositio psalmorum (Augsburg: Günther Zainer, c. 1476).

 

[French New Testament]. Le Nouveau Testament. [Lyons: Guillaume Le Roy, for Barthélemy Buyer, c. 1476-78].

 

Koheleth [Ecclesiastes in Hebrew, with commentary]. [Naples: Joseph ben Jacob Ashkenazi Gunzenhauser, 26 September 1487].

 

[Latin Bible. Henry VIII’s Version]. Sacræ Bibliæ tomus primus in quo continentur, Quinque libri Moysi, Libri Iosue, et Iudicum, Liber Psalmorum, Prouerbia Salomonis, Liber Sapientie, et Nouum Testamentum Iesu Christi. London: Thomas Barthlet, July 1535.

 

[Slavonic Bible]. Biblīa sirēc knigy vetkhago i novago zavĕta po jazykū slovenskū. Moscow: Pecatnyj Dvor, 1663.

 

[Ethiopic Psalter, with Song of Songs]. Psalterium Davidis: Aethiopice et Latine… tantùm hymni et orationes aliquot Vet. et Novi Testamenti, item Canticum canticorum. Frankfort am Main: Johannes David Zunner and Nicolaus Wilhelm Helwig, for Martin Jacquet, 1701.

 

[Anglo-Saxon Psalms]. Psalterium Davidis, Latino-Saxonicum vetus. A Johanne Spelmanno D. Hen. fil. editum. E vetustissimo exemplari Ms. in Bibliotheca ipsius Henrici. London: R. Badger, for Phillip Stevens and Charles Meredith, 1640.

 

Moritz I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1572–1632), translator. Davidis regii prophetae psalterium: vario genere, carminis latine redditum. Schmalkalden: [Michael Schmuck, 1590].

 

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (c. 1466–1536). Io. Frobenius lectori s.d.: Habes iteru[m] Moriae encomiu[m] pro castigatissimo castigatius, unà cu[m] Listrij co[m]mentarijs. Basel: Johann Froben, 1519.

 

John Bale, Bishop of Ossory (1495–1563). Illustrium maioris Britanniae scriptorum, hoc est, Angliae, Cambriae, ac Scotiae summarium. “Ipswich” [i.e. Wesel, Germany: D. van der Straten for] John Overton, [31 July 1548].

 

Confessio Fidei Exhibita Invictiss. Imp. Carolo V. Caesari Aug. in Comicijs Augustae. Anno M.D.XXX. Addita est Apologia Confessionis. Beide Deudsch und Latinisch. Wittenberg:  Georg Rhau, 1531. [Bound with:] Confessio odder Bekantnus des Glaubens etlicher Fürsten und Stedte: Uber antwort Keiserlicher Maiestat: zu Augspurg. Anno M.D.XXX. Apologia der Confessio, aus dem Latin verdeudschet durch Justum Jonam Wittemberg. Wittenberg:  Georg Rhau, 1531.

 

Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea (c. 260–c. 340). Eusebiou tou Pamphilou Euangelikēs proparaskeuēs bib. pentekaideka. Paris: Robert Estienne, 1544.

 

St. John Chrysostom (d. 407). Tou en hagiois patros hēmōn Iōannou Archiepiskopou Kōnstantinoupoleōs tou Chrysostomou tōn heuriskomenōn tomos prōtos [-ogdoos], di epimeleias k[a]i analōmatōn Herrikou tou Sabiliou en palaiōn antigraphōn ekdotheis. 8 vols. Eton: John Norton, 1612.

 

Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471). [Imitatio Christi in Slovenian]. Piismo od nasledovanya gospodinna nasscega Yesussa Duscevno. Rome: Francesco Moneta, 1641.

 

[Armenian Gospels]. Manuscript written in ink on paper. [Turkey?], dated 1650.

 

[Mass for the Dead]. Missae defunctorum, juxta usum Ecclesiae romanae, cum ordine et canone extensae. Freising: Johann-Christian Karl Immel, 1717.

 

Processionale rurale ad usum Ecclesiae Ilbenstadiensis. Manuscript on paper. [Ilbenstadt, Germany]: Fr. Jeremiah Moeller, 1712.

 

John Milton (1608–1674). Paradise Lost. A Poem in Ten Books. London: S. Simmons, “1669” [i.e., 1667].

 

[Hebrew and Latin Psalms]. Sefer Tehillim. Liber Psalmorum, editus a Johanne Leusden. London: Samuel Palmer, for R. & J. Bonwick, B. Barker, S. Ballard, and J. Batley, 1726.  Inscribed “C. Wesley, March 1759.”

 

[Minutes of the Methodist Conferences at London, Bristol, Manchester, and Leeds, between 25 June 1744 and 8 August 1771]. Manuscript transcription, written in ink on paper by Thomas Dixon. England, c. 1771.

 

John Wesley (1703–1791). Autograph signed letter (London, 26 February 1786) to John Stretton, at Harbour Grace in Newfoundland, Canada; [with:] another letter to John Stretton from Thomas Coke (1747–1814) appended on the verso (London, 26 February 1786).

 

Charles Wesley, Jr. (1757–1834). Sonata per il Cembalo (Sonata for Harpsichord in F minor). Autograph manuscript score in ink on paper (London, 1781).

 

 

Curated by Eric White, 2008.

 
 
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