Sixteenth-century Books Research Articles

On the use of hand-held X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy coupled to Monte Carlo simulations for the depth assessment of painted objects: The case study of a sixteenth-century illuminated printed book

This paper presents the application of an established XRF-MC (X-ray fluorescence-Monte Carlo) protocol to evaluate for the first time the thickness of pictorial layers in illuminated manuscripts. A previously investigated, sixteenth-century book printed in Paris (BPE, Inc. 438) was chosen as the case study: multiple analysis spots were scanned in selected areas (painted and unpainted) with p-XRF (hand-held XRF); later, the obtained spectra were compared against Monte Carlo simulations. Two pathways of MC simulations emerged: a three-layer model for the painted areas (stratigraphic sequence, from outer to inner: pictorial layer–underdrawing–parchment) and a two-layer model for the unpainted areas (underdrawing–parchment). Also, the calculated thickness of each simulated layer was compared against the thickness of micro-samples from Inc. 438. The results proved the protocol to provide quantitative compositional and stratigraphic data, yet with limitations. Results encourage the future research to elaborate a protocol.

On the Full- and Half-Sheet Inserts of Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica (1543 and 1555)

On the Full- and Half-Sheet Inserts of Andreas Vesalius’s <i>De humani corporis fabrica</i> (1543 and 1555)

Antipodean Early Modern: European Art in Australian Collections ed. by Anne Dunlop

Reviewed by: Antipodean Early Modern: European Art in Australian Collections ed. by Anne Dunlop Jennifer Jorm Dunlop, Anne, ed., Antipodean Early Modern: European Art in Australian Collections, c. 1200–1600, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2018; hardback; pp. 296; 150 colour illustrations; R.R.P. €99.00; ISBN 9789462985209. This collection of essays focuses on medieval and early modern objects from the Kerry Stokes Collection, some of which were featured in a 2015 exhibition at The University of Melbourne. The collection features some of Australia's most impressive medieval European manuscripts, including the Rothschild Prayer Book, a sixteenth-century book of hours that made international news after it was sold to Australian collector Kerry Stokes for US$15.5 million, much to the surprise of collectors and the media. Australia is not known for medieval and early modern art collections, a misunderstanding these essays seek to correct. Anne Dunlop writes that the goal of these essays is to make the Australian collections known to scholars and to encourage engagement with medieval and early modern holdings in Australia. The essays in this volume illustrate the broad range of potential research applications for early European collections, and the Stokes Collection in particular. While most of the essays are focused on books, material culture is featured in the form of a writing casket and a wedding cassone, and art in the form of an altarpiece, and a panel from Pieter Brueghel the Younger's Crucifixion. Opening essays by Kay Sutton and Kate Challis feel representative of the approach taken in all of these essays—to contextualize items in the collection and demonstrate their research potential. Both chapters focus on the Rothschild Prayer Book and similar devotional texts as political and diplomatic tools. Sutton highlights the intimate relationships people had with their prayer books, and the ways in which they featured in private spiritual life, as well as the political and social use of lavish devotional texts. Challis approaches the Rothschild Prayer Book differently, tracing the book itself, from its likely beginnings to its reappearance in a Rothschild baron's private collection, to its theft by the Nazis, and the subsequent role it played in negotiating the recovery of stolen art. The strength of this collection of essays lies its demonstration of the richness of possible studies that emerge from the objects in the collection. A copy of the [End Page 210] Satires by Juvenal leads to its creators—who also happen to be the creators of the first printing press in Paris (the Sorbonne Press). Jan Fox brings the Sorbonne Press creators Heynlin and Fichet to life, illuminates the excitement and enthusiasm surrounding this new technology, and highlights the role of the book's 'presentation miniature' in the culture of patronage. Miya Tokumitsu examines a bronze writing casket that reveals the Renaissance fashion for 'scholarly' decor and intellectual pretensions. Dagmar Eichberger's chapter, 'Women who Read Are Dangerous', explores the reading habits of aristocratic women, Margaret of Austria in particular, using the Rothschild Prayer Book as an example of the kinds of devotional texts women read, commissioned, and gifted. Eichberger refers to the Rothschild Prayer Book and to the advice literature of the period in order to explore the reading habits and intimate reading spaces of noblewomen. The stated goal of these essays is to draw attention to medieval and early modern collections in Australia, and the subtitle of this book is 'European Art in Australian Collections'. The items in this book are all part of the Stokes Collection. I am left wondering what other medieval and early modern pieces and collections are being overlooked in Australia. Perhaps that was the author's intention. Jennifer Jorm The University of Queensland Copyright © 2021 Jennifer Jorm

Poisonous books: analyses of four sixteenth and seventeenth century book bindings covered with arsenic rich green paint

Efforts to read medieval manuscript waste recycled as bookbinding material in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have resulted in the chemical analysis of four books housed at the University Library of Southern Denmark and the Smithsonian Libraries in Washington DC. Four green coloured book bindings have been investigated by optical microscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy, and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The results show that the green pigments used to obscure the manuscript waste in all four cases contain orpiment (As2S3) and indigo (C16H11N2O2). Although the books were printed in diverse places in Europe—Basel, Bologna, and Lübeck—the styles of their bindings indicate that they were likely bound in the same region in the same period. It is further likely that they acquired their arsenic-rich paint as part of the bookbinding process. Issues concerning the toxicity, health issues for library staff, conservators and researchers handling the books are also addressed.

Gender in Early Constructions of Authorship, 1447-1518.

The notion and construction of authorship has been reinterpreted and shaped throughout history. In the Iberian world, the rise of authorial self-consciousness begins to manifest in the early thirteenth century, thanks to the gradual rise of vernacular languages as literary languages, which afforded a new understanding of the writer’s craft and place in society. The establishment of decrees within the sixteenth-century book trade reshaped it by making it compulsory to register on the work certain bibliographical details. The turn of the seventeenth century, furthermore, witnessed a rapid commercialization of the literary product — despite remaining rooted in a system of patronage, literary production began to give way to the active role of printer-publishers and booksellers. Writing for publication was a complex venture for most aspiring authors, to be sure. Nevertheless, pre-modern literary careers continue to be qualified, chiefly upon gender grounds. This essay, therefore, will reflect on the role of gender in early constructions of female authorship within Iberian book history, using a critical stance informed by new approaches to the field. It is hoped that it will help to provoke more nuanced discussions on the role of women as cultural producers within the pre-modern Iberian literary field.

Sixteenth century books from the Library of Gian Rinaldo Carli High School in Koper

What are they, how many are there, and in what condition are the sixteenth century books found in the Library of the Gian Rinaldo Carli High School in Koper? These are some of the questions answered in this article. In addition to providing a detailed catalogued and physical description of the aforementioned books, I also analysed them in order to determine their historical, and even more importantly, their pedagogical profile. Therefore, this article consists of three parts. Firstly I pre- sent a historical outline of the library and books deposited in it, then I analyse the sixteenth century books found in the library, and finally, I provide their catalogued and physical description. The analysis focuses on the volumes which are marked by affiliation, the marking which determines that they belong to the Collegium/High School or to the private individuals who were in some way connected with the insti- tution, or from whose hands the books were passed on to the library. Beginning with the typology of the books found in the library, I apply the results to other volumes in the collection and thus confirm that most of them had didactic purpose because these are mostly classic works, from philosophy to history, rhetoric, politics, literature, and educational texts. In short, they represent the core from which the Library of the Gian Rinaldo Carli High School in Koper was created.

Ordinary and extraordinary prices in the Giolito Libri spirituali sales List

This article illustrates an early modern sales list of books, the Libri spirituali di stampa of the Venetian Giolito publishing house. This printed list, kept in the Biblioteca Comunale Augusta in Perugia, includes the descriptions of 81 devotional and religious sixteenth century books with their prices expressed in Venetian lire (an account money). The aim of the research is to illustrate the price policy of the Giolito firm between 1587 and 1592, and the segment of the market they intended to serve. For this purpose, on the basis of the books priced, the list has been dated and placed in chronological relation with other already known Giolito sales catalogues. In the second part of the article, average prices per printing sheet are calculated and the relationships between prices and dates, languages and formats are taken into consideration. In the end, the reasons why some few editions were proposed on the market at a higher price are discussed. The list is published in the Appendix.

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

News, Programs, Publications, and Awards

Editor’s Note

Editor’s Note

Representations in the Sixteenth-Century Arithmetic Books

The research on the History of Mathematics and Mathematics Education has on textbook a useful tool to provide diverse types of information; this fact has led to the realization of many different studies focus on them. In this context, this work analyzes eight different sixteenth-century arithmetic books to know the different types of representations included in them. For this, it has used the historical analysis supported by the content analysis of textbooks. The results obtained show diversity between the representations included in each book. Even though verbal and numerical ones are part of every one of them, graphic representations vary from one book to another.

Indigenising the Medieval; or How Did Māori and Awabakal Become Inscribed in Medieval Manuscripts?

This article examines two moments in the history of two manuscripts now held in collections in Auckland, New Zealand. The first moment is the flyleaf inscription recording the gift of an early sixteenth-century Book of Hours from one settler to another in the Wellington colony in 1842, while the second is the addition of a faux-medieval decorative scheme to the Awabakal Gospel of St Luke under the orders of Sir George Grey in the early 1860s. Analysis of these two moments of manuscript re-inscription are revealing of the way in which nineteenth-century medievalism was deployed in the service of British imperial ideology.

Framing Books and Reading: An Exploration of Sixteenth Century Title Borders

IntroductIon When a sixteenth-century book is opened, the human eye quickly scans to find important bibliographic information — author, title, printer, date — and then perhaps examines at greater leisure the decoration of a title-page border before moving along to the leaves that follow. This process is an intricate dance between readers and book producers and is difficult to untangle with certainty at a distance of five hundred years. The following study explores this issue and argues that title-page borders may often have been designed or chosen by printers and their associates in order to frame or contextualize the reading of the book itself, assuming that even in cases where the author or printer may not have given much thought to the border, the reading of the book would have been shaped by the title page and its border anyway by virtue of its position in the work.

North and South: Cultural Transmission in the Sixteenth-Century European Book World

Despite the early enthusiasm for printing, the establishment of the new technology was neither easy nor even. Previous general narratives of print have concentrated on its rapid spread to over 200 centres in every part of Europe; but in fact most of these early ventures were short-lived. This article used the data gathered for the recently launch Universal Short Title Catalogue to chart the contrasting fortunes of publishing north and south of the Alps. It points up the stark contrast that quickly emerged between a core of large publishing centres that dominated, in particular, the production of scholarly literature, and a far less well served European periphery. This understanding of the structural economics and logistics of the trade has significant repercussions for our understanding of how ideas and texts moved around Europe in the age of the Renaissance and Reformation.

Saint Anna’s Hospital in Ferrara, Italy: Accounting and organizational change during the Devolution

This article provides insights into organizational and accounting changes at Saint Anna’s Hospital in Ferrara (Italy). These changes were driven by a wider environmental change which occured in 1598 when the Dukedom of Ferrara was devolved to the Papal State. This brought about an institutional and political shift that affected the overall society and its main institutions, including the hospital. Research material was drawn from State and private archives, including the original sixteenth-century accounting books, statutes and organization manuals. The article adds to the sparse literature on accounting practices in non-Anglo-Saxon countries in under-researched centuries. More specifically it provides an internal perspective on understanding the definition of responsibilities among organizational levels as well as accounting development within Saint Anna’s Hospital both before and after an episode of significant institutional change.

A sixteenth-century book of trades: das Standebuch

A sixteenth-century book of trades: das Standebuch

Sixteenth-Century Private Book Inventories and Some Problems Related to their Analysis

The first part of this paper sketches the interest that has been growing since the nineteenth century in private book inventories. It also examines the two primary ways in which book inventory studies have been undertaken: with the examination of a relevant single private book inventory or of a wide range of them. The second part of the paper examines some of the relevant obstacles to the correct identification and interpretation of sixteenth-century inventoried books. Such obstacles often result from categorizing and analysing private book inventories on the basis of received criteria and ignoring the differences between book inventory and book possession, book possession and book reading, and reading and text. This paper examines the problems in the formation and study of sixteenth-century private book inventories by focusing on Spanish examples. Such examples illustrate obstacles to the correct identification and interpretation of sixteenth-century inventoried books. The paper's general considerations are, nevertheless, equally applicable to other European sixteenth-century book inventories.

The French Book and the European Book World

This excellent and unusually coherent collection of essays communicates some of the discoveries made and insights gained by Andrew Pettegree as he and his team from the University of St Andrews worked on their recently published inventory of sixteenth-century books in French (French Vernacular Books: Books Published in the French Language before 1601, ed. A Pettegree, M. Walsby and A. Wilkinson, 2007). Five of the thirteen essays in this collection have never previously appeared in print. Most of the others are quite recent. After an initial essay sketching the history of the French Bibliothèques Municipales that were so important to the St Andrews project, the bulk of the volume is divided into three sections of four essays apiece. Part One, ‘Pamphlets and their readers’, contains essays reporting and contextualising some of the most exciting finds made by the St Andrews team. A recueil factice of 33 pamphlets discovered in the Bibliothèque Méjanes of Aix-en-Provence, composed primarily of news pamphlets published in Rouen between 1537 and 1544, brought to light a previously unknown ‘provincial news community in sixteenth-century France’. It serves as the basis for an essay illustrating the circulation of information about current affairs. The accumulation of new discoveries concerning evangelical or Protestant texts of the middle of the century demonstrated that, while (as was previously well known) Geneva presses overwhelmingly dominated the production of such works between 1539 and 1560, Protestant presses multiplied within France itself to such an extent in 1561 and 1562 that over the subsequent decade more than four out of every five Protestant books in French were published within the kingdom itself. This profusion of Protestant printing in France is examined in three essays: one on the output of three previously unstudied Caen printers in the years 1560–63, one on the Lyon printer Jean Saugrain who specialised in anti-Catholic songs and satires of a verbal violence that went well beyond anything published at Geneva at the time; and one sketching the overall contours of this publishing phenomenon.

Watermarks

Watermarks

DEBORA: Digital AccEss to BOoks of the RenAissance

EBORA (Digital AccEss to BOoks of the RenAissance) is a multidisciplinary European project aiming at digitizing and thus making rare sixteenth century books more accessible. End-users, librarians, historians, researchers in book history and computer scientists participated in the development of remote and collaborative access to digitized Renaissance books, necessary because of the reduced accessibility to digital libraries in image mode through the Internet. The size of files for the storage of images, the lack of a standard file format exchange suitable for progressive transmission, and limited querying possibilities currently limit remote access to digital libraries. To improve accessibility, historical documents must be digitized and retro-converted to extract a detailed description of the image contents suited to users' needs. Specialists of the Renaissance have described the metadata generally required by end-users and the ideal functionalities of the digital library. The retro-conversion of historical documents is a complex process that includes image capture, metadata extraction, image storage and indexing, automatic conversion in a reusable electronic form, publication on the Internet, and data compression for faster remote access. The steps of this process cannot be developed independently. DEBORA proposes a global approach to retro-conversion from the digitization to the final functionalities of the digital library centered on users' needs. The retro-conversion process is mainly based on a document image analysis system that simultaneously extracts the metadata and compresses the images. We also propose a file format to describe compressed books as heterogeneous data (images/text/links/ annotation/physical layout and logical structure) suitable for progressive transmission, editing, and annotation. DEBORA is an exploratory project that aims at demonstrating the feasibility of the concepts by developing prototypes tested by end-users.