Miraeus Lecture (Antwerp, 6 April 2011): David Shaw, "Poelman and Plantin. Publishing the Classics in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp"

In 2009 Vlaamse Werkgroep Boekgeschiedenis inaugurated a lecture series on themes in book history, to be held four times annually on Wednesday's in the Erfgoedbibliotheek's Nottebohmzaal. The initiative has recently turned into the Miraeus Lectures, with additional support of the Vereniging van Antwerpse Bibliofielen (=Association of Antwerp Bibliophiles).

Other venues potentially are not ruled out for the Miraeus Lectures. The first lecture this Spring is held in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, on Wednesday 6 April 2011 at 6 p.m. Lecturer is David Shaw, on "Poelman and Plantin. Publishing the Classics in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp".

The biggest studies written so far on printer Christophe Plantin are those by Leon Voet and Jenny Voet-Grisolle, the two-volume The Golden Compasses, A History and Evaluation of the Printing and Publishing Activities of the Officina Plantiniana (1969), and the classic 6-volume The Plantin Press (155-1589). A Bibliography of the works printed and published by Christopher Plantin at Antwerp and Leiden.

Another couple is walking in the footsteps of the Voets for Plantin with two studies on the use of printed illustration in Plantin editions, namely Karen L. Bowen's Christopher Plantin's Book of Hours: Illustration and Production (1997) and Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof's Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations in Sixteenth-Centry Europe (2008).

But all is not said and done yet on the Plantin-Moretus printing press, particularly because the business archive still awaits excavation and thorough examination from scholars. The museum has started a piecemeal digitization project - the Flemish government should actually turn this into its third prestigious project after ILE (the edition of the letters by Justus Lipsius in 20 volumes) and the STCV (the online Short Title Catalogus Vlaanderen).

So what are we to expect from David Shaw's talk? Antwerp in the sixteenth century was what Amsterdam became in the next: a vibrant, intensely international commercial hub experiencing its Golden Age. In that century it took the lead from Deventer with the hightest number of printing houses in the Old Netherlands. As the city did not house a university, school masters' schools -like that of Gabriel Meurier- or printing houses were the next best venues for languages and learning.

Greek had been introduced in the Old Netherlands by Dirk Martens and Joannes van Westfalen, and Leuven after 1517 with its Collegium Trilingue became an important center for the study of Greek, Latin and Hebrew. In his former assistant Rutger Rescius Dirk Martens would find a worthy successor to print many Greek and Latin college textbooks.

Decades later, Plantin easily was the richest owner of fonts and printing workshop material out of Antwerp. His abodes were often crowded with scholars pouring over the material to see it appear in print, on many topics. His crowning achievement in scholarship collaboration no doubt was the Polyglot Bible or Biblia Regia.

As to the classics, works in Greek and Latin, a great number of local scholars worked with him: Willem and Dirk Canter from Utrecht and Leuven on Aeschylos (1580), Janus Dousa on Catullus, Mekerkius on Greek pronunciation, the perennial Lipsius on Tacitus, Steewechius on Vegetius, Bonaventura Vulcanius on Callimachus, and so on.

Or Plantin selected from the book fairs at Paris and Frankfurt works first seen abroad, such as the emblemata editions by Joannes Sambucus, French and Italian endeavors on Virgil by Fulvius Ursinus, the cantankerous Joseph Scaliger and Marc Antoine Muret, and the often reprinted Catullus, Tibullus et Propertius that was first published by Aldus in 1511.

In his Annales de l'imprimerie des Alde (1834), Auguste Renouard wrote of the famous Aldus Manutius and his son Paul, who operated from Venice in the late 15th and at the cusp of the 16th century: Remplis d'une admiration enthousiaste pour les chefs-d'oeuvre littéraires de la Grèce et Rome, ils sacrifièrent les avantages de réputation et de fortune (..) et dévouèrent leur vie entière à tirer les écrivains anciens du chaos où huit siècles de barbarie les avaient plongés.

Although Renouard's admiration for the trendsetters the Alduses were for Greek and Latin texts is more than justified, his Winckelmannish hyperbole on how these works came to us somewhat obscures the work of editors and the many sources –in manuscript or printed form and often from earlier centuries- that lay at the basis of a new edition.

As an editor, Theodorus Pulmannus or Dirk Poelman (1512-1581) is expected to particularly stand out for the Plantin house, as his archives are presently part of the Plantin-Moretus Archives. He edited many authors: Avianus, Horatius, Lucanus, and Terentius Afer, to name a few. We eagerly await David Shaw's talk to zero in on some more detail.

Venue: Miraeus Lecture, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Vrijdagmarkt 22, 2000 Antwerpen, Wednesday 6 April, 2011, 6-7.30 p.m.

Illustration: woodcut initial and page from Novum Iesu Christi D.N. Testamentum, ascribed to Christophe Plantin (1566). Cultura Fonds Collection.

Bicentenary at Tournai: Collection of the Great Seminary (1808-2008)

As places of learning, intended for the formation of clergy, Great Seminaries were also known for their cultural heritage. That is, if history had not been too unkind. And in the case of Tournai, it hasn’t.

On 10 November 2008 the Great Seminary is celebrating its 200^th year in the same premises since 1808. It was founded thanks to an obstinate bishop, François-Joseph Hirn, originally from Alsace, and with a little help of Napoleon Bonaparte.

The premises had then seen at least 3 previous owners, and 2 centuries of construction and restauration. At the end of the 16^th century, the Jesuits organised a college and a noviciate in them. When the order was abolished in 1773, the buildings remained empty. A few years later, the canons regular were the new owners, until they had to vacate in 1794 and give way to an administrative office under the French republic.

The Great Seminary today can take pride in a library of more than 100,000 volumes, comprising medieval manuscripts and archival documents, incunables, etchings, and many precious bindings. And one of its abbots in the 20^th century took care to establish a small museum for several artefacts, including oil panels.

The collections mostly have religious provenances. A few go back to the Jesuits and the canons regulars, but most were the scattered holdings of other abolished religious institutions in and around Tournai. For these artefacts, the foundation of the Great Seminary, not long after the abolishment of religious orders in general, proved fortuitous.

The bicentenary has occasioned a new and richly illustrated monograph about the building, the garden, and its collections, which have also been catalogued with text and image. The project has benefited from a close collaboration with the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage at Brussels (IRPA-KIK).

The notes on manuscript, etchings, bindings and rare book holdings have been authored by P. Bogaert osb, Annie De Coster, J.-B. Lebigue, J. Leclercq-Marx, E. Livens, L.Reynhout, F. Tixier, Dominique Vanwijnsberghe, Renaud Adam, Ph. Desmette, and A. Delvingt.

Details: Séminaire de Tournai, Rue des Jésuites 28, 7500 Tournai (Doornik). Press release to be obtained by Monique Maillard-Luypaert, curator of the Great Seminary Library. On 15 and 16 November 2008, Mrs Maillard will be present at a cultural event called Tournai La Page (Halle aux draps, Tournai).

Book: Monique Maillard-Luypaert, et al., Séminaire de Tournai. Histoire – Bâtiments – Collections. Leuven, Peeters Publishers, 2008 (forthcoming). 360 p. 251 illustrations. ISBN 978-904292169-6. Price: 75 €.

Photo credit: M.Maillard-Luypaert

Fortsas and perfume: Journées de Mariemont (4&5 October 2008)

The Royal Museum of Mariemont (Musée royal de Mariemont) at Morlanwelz –56 km south of Brussels and 28 km east of Mons – has an attractive roster of activities year-round, as can be inferred from its information bulletin called Bulletin d’information trimestriel (published every three months, free on request).

If anything in this country comes close to the J. Paul Getty Museum, it's Mariemont. The name (‘Mary’s hill’) refers to Charles V’s sister, Mary of Hungary, who built a castle in 1546. The ancient history of this noble abode stopped with a fire in 1794.

In the 19^th C, a family of industrialists called Warocqué, owners of coal mines in the immediate vicinity, built a new stately home amid facilities for their workers. One of the most prolific collectors of this family was Raoul Warocqué, whose collection became the basis of a state-owned museum.

Warocqué’s collection comprised old archeological finds from the region, as well as artefacts from Egypt, the Far East (China, Japan), and the Greek and Roman period, and porcelain from Tournai, now placed in juxtaposition with contemporary ceramics. There is also the arboretum around the museum, dotted with statues, such as Rodin’s Burghers of Calais.

Raoul Warocqué was a bibliophile collector, and Mariemont houses a library of rare printed books, bindings, artist books and original editions, ranging in date from the 15^th until the 21^st century. It also comprises almost 10,000 autograph letters, medals and prints, among others nearly 600 by Félicien Rops.

This year, the Museum opens house on Saturday and Sunday 4 & 5 October 2008 to present the collections from an olfactory standpoint. Les parfums de Mariemont is the organizing theme.

The museum is currently hosting an international exhibition (until 30 November 2008) related to perfume in Antiquity: Parfums de l’Antiquité. La rose et l’encens en Méditerranée. The exhibition shows artefacts from numerous institutions abroad, and has a catalogue that promises new scientific findings.

But back to the Activity Days, which can count on the collaboration of three curators with ties to rare book holdings: Bertrand Federinov, Claude Sorgeloos, and Frédéric Van de Vijver.

Bertrand Federinov is director of the Rare Books Department at Mariemont. Frédéric Van de Vijver is librarian at Mariemont. Both serve as guides on visits to the collection.

Federinov hosts a visit entitled ‘Sentir les livres. Approche olfactive des collections de la Réserve Précieuse.’ (Sunday, 5 October, 3 p.m.) Recently, Federinov compiled a catalogue of imprints from Mons from the Mariemont holdings: Quatre siècles d’imprimerie à Mons. Catalogue des éditions montoises (1580-1815) du Musée royal de Mariemont (monograph no. 12 of Musée royal de Mariemont, no ISBN, legal depot no. D/2004/0451/102).

Van de Vijver hosts two kinds of tours to the holdings. One is ‘Galanterie et raffinement capiteux des livres de la marquise de Pompadour, la comtesse du Barry, Marie Leszcynska et Madame Victoire’ (Saturday, 4 October at 2 p.m., repeated on Sunday at 11 a.m.) and the other is ‘Encens et souffre entremêlées aux parfums libertins dans les salons du Siècle des Lumières. L’encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, un diffuseur de savoir et d’idées révolutionnaires.’ (Saturday, 4 October at 5 p.m.)

Claude Sorgeloos, director of the Rare Books Department at Belgium’s Royal Library, will guide a tour to the exhibition ‘Renier Chalon, alias Fortsas.’ He will approach it with ‘L’odeur facétieuse du cochon.’ (Saturday 4 October, 4 p.m.)

Sorgeloos is one of the curators of the Fortsas exhibition, which has been running at Mariemont from 5 July 2008 onwards, and which is closing 5 October 2008. So the weekend at Mariemont is the last chance to see it.

Subtitle to the exhibition ‘Renier Chalon, alias Fortsas’ is: ‘Le canular en Belgique: toute une tradition!’ (the hoax in Belgium: an entire tradition). The museum’s website refers to a recent hoax called ‘Bye Bye Belgium’, presented about a year ago by the news department of the state-owned French speaking television network, which caused quite a stir in prime time.

Renier Chalon (1802-1889) was an avid collector of coins and rare books. He was born in Mons, but a quiet administrative career brought him to Brussels, where he was at leisure to pursue his numismatist and bibliophile predilections, as well as his passion for pranks.

Chalon fathered a hoax known under the name of Fortsas, short for a soi-disant Comte de Fortsas, and an equally fictitious sale of the library of this elusive count, which, with catalogue and all, was promised to be held at Binche, on 10 August 1840. Book collectors from all over Europe descended there in vain.

A few other blogs have recently referred to Fortsas, here and here, both without mention of the exhibition at Mariemont, which is said to paint a far more complex picture of Chalon, and which provides a Belgian history of the prank from the 19^th century until this day.

Mariemont has published the following monograph on Chalon: Reinier Chalon alias Fortsas: un érudit malicieux au mitan du XIXe siècle (Monographies du Musée royal de Mariemont no. 16, publishing year: 2008). Authors: François de Callatay, Claude Sorgeloos. ISBN: 2-930469-19-6.

Hora est!

In 2008, quite a number of Belgian researchers in the fields of history, as well as in history of art, literature and the book, defended a PhD thesis or are about to. A short overview.

On February 5, 2008, Alexandre Vanautgaerden, Director of the Erasmus House at Brussels, defended a thesis on Erasmus and typography as a rhetorical instrument in the 16th century: "Erasme typographe. La mise en page, instrument de rhétorique au XVI siècle", towards a PhD in history, art and archaeology at the ULB (Université libre de Bruxelles).
Promotors were Sylvia Deswarte-Rosa (CNRS-Université Lumière-Lyon) and Alain Dierkens (ULB). The jury consisted of Franz Bierlaire (ULB-Université de Liège), Wouter Bracke (ULB-KBR), Jean-François Cottier (Université de Montréal), and Michel Magnien (Université de Paris III-Sorbonne nouvelle).
Vanautgaerden has edited, with Jean-François Gilmont, a study called La page de titre à la renaissance (Brepols Publishers, 2008), ISBN 978 2 503 52669 0. See our June 2, 2008 post

On April 18, 2008, art historian Lieve Wattteeuw presented "The Touch of Chronos: Caring for the Medieval Manuscript (1731-1937)", in defense of her PhD at the KUL (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). Promotor was Prof. Jan Van der Stock, Director of the Center of the Study of Illumination, Illuminare. Watteeuw can easily be regarded as one of the (alas, too) few authorities (Dutch-speaking research), on the conservation on paper, parchment, and bindings. We will dwell somewhat longer on the contents of this thesis in a next post.

On May, 27, 2008, Kevin Absillis defended his PhD at the University of Antwerp, with research conducted about an episode in the history of Manteau, a Dutch-language Belgian publishing house founded by Angèle Manteau (1911-2008): Literaire kwaliteit uit Arm Vlaanderen. Uitgeverij A.Manteau en de verzelfstandiging van het literaire veld (1932-1971). Professor of Dutch Literature Kris Humbeeck was promotor. Absillis will publish this thesis in edited form at Meulenhoff/Manteau early in 2009. He has already published on the rather complex history of this publishing house:
-Kevin Absillis, Een kleine uitgeverij van stand. Fondslijst uitgeverij A.Manteau/Les Editions Lumière 1956-1970 (250 numbered copies). L.P. Booncentrum/Demian, 2005. ISBN 90 804548 8 5.
-Kevin Absillis and Katrien Jacobs, eds, Van Hugo Claus tot hoelahoep. Vlaanderen in beweging 1950-1960 (Literatuur in veelvoud-series, no. 17). 282 p. Maklu/Garant, 2007. ISBN 978 90441 201 89.

On May 29, 2008, Gerrit Verhoeven defended his PhD at the Department of History of the University of Antwerp: "Anders reizen? Evoluties in vroegmoderne reiservaringen van Hollandse en Brabantse elites (1600-1750)." Promotors were Professors of History Guido Marnef, specialist of the history of the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, and Bruno Blondé, who heads a research unit called History of Cities (University of Antwerp).
According to Verhoeven, historical research on travel in the early modern period all too often limits itself to study of the Grand Tour as carried out by British noblemen, with the occasional foray into the travel habits of French and German nobility, but with the Netherlands entirely out of scope. Unjustly so: travel in the early modern period in the Netherlands showed more variation and was subject to greater changes than is known to current research.
Verhoeven consulted diaries and fringe documents in libraries and archives in Holland and Brabant, and chose the quantification of thousands of data as his gauge for how travel exceeded the utility aspect of the Grand Tour, what the means of travel were and the destinations, and what the social profile of travellers was.

On June 20, 2008, Dirk Imhof, Curator of the Museum Plantin-Moretus, will defend his PhD in History with a study of the publishing activities at the Plantinian house of Jan I Moretus: "De Officina Plantiniana ratione recta: het uitgeversfonds van Jan I Moretus (1589-1610)," at the University of Antwerp. Professor of History Alfons Thijs and Professor of Dutch Literature Hubert Meeus serve as promotors.
Imhof, with Karen Bowen, recently published Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Cambridge Univesity Press, 2008, ISBN 978 0 521 85276 0.
Regarding Plantin's successors, the Moretus family, see also, amongst others, Imhof's introduction to Le rayonnement des Moretus, a 2006 exhibition catalogue of the Bibliotheca Wittockiana, edited by Bruno Liesen and Claude Sorgeloos.

On June 24, 2008, at the University of Antwerp, Department of Dutch Literature, Goran Proot defends a PhD on Jesuit school plays: "Het schooltoneel van de jezuïeten in de Provincia Flandro-Belgica tijdens het ancien régime 1575-1773." Promotor is Professor of Literature Hubert Meeus. Goran Proot has been a bibliographer at the STCV, the Short Title Catalogus Vlaanderen. Regarding Jesuit plays, recent articles of his are:
-Goran Proot and Leo Egghe, "Estimating editions on the basis of survivals: Printed programmes of Jesuit theatre plays in the Provincia Flandro-Belgica before 1773. With a note on the 'bookhistorical law'" in The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 102, no.3 (2008).
-Goran Proot, "Gebruikssporen in programmaboekjes voor het collegetoneel van de jezuïeten in de provincia Flandro-Belgica 1575-1773," in Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis 15 (2008), p.71-91.

Lastly, Bart Op de Beeck Curator of the Rare Books Department of the KBR (Royal Library of Belgium), who's been working for years on the library holdings of Jesuits, is finally presenting his PhD thesis at the University of Leuven in September 2008. As Op de Beeck has been working on this for over 10 years, and as he has closely scrutinized up to 24,000 copies out of Jesuit collections, if not more, his work is expected to be.. weighty. Serving as promotor is the former head of the University of Leuven's Central Library, Jan Roegiers.

Illustration (to follow): woodcut on the titlepage of Francisco Del Tuppo, La Uita De Esopo Hystoriata. S.l. [probably Venice], s.d. [15..]. Page: 149x94 mm; typesetting: 122x72mm.
See no.4 in our second catalogue: Claude Sorgeloos, La bibliothèque du Cultura Fonds: acquisitions 1991-1999 (See label: Our catalogues).

Annual convention of librarians and book researchers (Flanders chapter), May 30, 2008

The Dutch-speaking or Flemish chapter of rare book librarians and book history researchers, the Vlaamse Werkgroep Boekgeschiedenis (see: Book and Manuscript Research) convened at the city of Ghent on May 30, 2008.

Location was MIAT, museum voor industriële archeologie en textiel, an old textile factory with an historical approach to industrial technology. The museum simulates a walk through time from the 18th to the 20th century. As MIAT not only emphasizes textiles, but also printing technology, it houses a fair amount of printing presses and composition casters.

During a guided tour at the end of the day, the participants got to see a Blaeu wooden hand-press from the 18th century, the Stanhope, and other hand-presses in iron, among them one driven by steam. The two composition casters F4 and C4 came from the Harris Intertype Corporation of New York.

But first came the household meeting, with an overview of 2007, several announcements, and a lecture, followed by critical remarks from a referee, by a Dutch researcher currently working at Antwerp, Janneke Weijermars: Het literaire bedrijf in de Hollandse tijd 1815-1830 (The Literary Trade in the Dutch Period 1815-1830).

Weijermars' study is part of a large-scale project studying "Literature in Context" led by Dutch professor Lisa Kuitert (Amsterdam) and Belgian professor Piet Couttenier (Antwerp): De Nederlandse literatuur en het literaire bedrijf in het Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden 1815-1830: interactie en differentiatie, about Dutch literature and the literary trade in the fifteen years during which the Southern Netherlands (more or less Belgium shortly before its independence in 1830) were united once more with Holland, with Dutch king Willem I as ruler.

From more than one standpoint, this reunion fell uneasy on the South. In reaction to a Dutch society that was founded in the North in 1784 called Maatschappij tot 't Nut van 't Algemeen, also called "het Nut", and aimed at the edification of its population through education, social work, and good books, a society came to existence in the South in 1825 in the city of Mechelen (Malines) called the Society for the Distribution of Good Books. This society chose its "good books" to be of a catholic signature, partly in reaction to het Nut and its protestant stamp.

Weijermars presented one case in all its ramifications: a publishing project that lasted about three years (1825-1828), executed by Hanicq, printers at Mechelen, which consisted of printing religious books in series, in Dutch translation mostly from Latin, French and German, in a small format and aimed at a large audience.

Weijermars has so far researched a few case studies for the period, applying Pierre Bourdieu, but with a unifying idea for the study still lacking. The audience was quick with critical remarks and useful suggestions. As an overarching history of the book trade with regard to Flanders has yet to be written, this project seemed welcome indeed.

From the announcements during the household meeting, we retain many that deserve attention in separate posts. Here, we'd like to enumerate the Belgian researchers who are scheduled to deliver talks at SHARP 2008 on "Teaching and Text", the 16th annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, held at Brookes University, Oxford (24-28 June, 2008).

-Jürgen Pieters (professor of Dutch literature, University of Ghent) together with PhD students Christophe van der Vorst and Lise Gosseye, reporting on their project of reading Constantijn Huygens in a new historicist light;
-Chris Coppens (University of Leuven) on a topic in the 16th century Italian book trade;
-Pierre Delsaerdt (University of Antwerp) with typographic analysis of Christopher Plantin's dictionaries;
-Kevin Absilis (University of Antwerp), on Pascale Casanova's systemic model for studyingliterature, and its use for book publishing;
-Janneke Weijermars (University of Antwerp) on a systemic model by Siegfried Schmidt;
-And stretching it, professor of China Studies in the U.S. Hilde De Weerdt, who did her graduate work at Leuven.

In teasing reference to the speaker's topic and in mild jest -professor De Weerdt aside- it was said that for once Belgian speakers at SHARP outnumber the Dutch.

A special entry at the Plantin-Moretus Prizes 2008

The Plantin Genootschap - Hoger Instituut voor Grafische Kunsten (Higher Institute of Graphic Art, Antwerp) and the VUV. or Vlaamse Uitgeversvereniging (Union of Flemish Publishers) join forces to discern prizes, the so-called Plantin-Moretusprijzen, to books in Flanders (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) which deserve attention for of their graphic design.

Prizes are given in several categories: literature, schoolbook and scientific study, art book & exhibition catalogue, other non-fiction, the children's book, the experimental book & private press, as well as work by graphic artists from Flanders for publishers abroad.

New categories in 2008 are a vote for best debut or graduation project, as well as the public's prize for Best Book Cover.

As of May 30, 2008, public voting is open from a shortlist of ten book covers, accessible via the website of the Plantin Genootschap, which leads one to the site of the Flemish daily De Standaard to cast a vote. The prizes will be distributed on June 30, 2008 in Brussels, at Bozar, the Centre of Fine Arts. A public vote is possible every day until then.

The books with best layout will be on show all summer in Brussels at Bozar, the Centre of Fine Arts, from July 1, 2008 until August 24, 2008.

We were extremely pleased to discover that among this public shortlist, between a cookbook and humor, is a study co-edited by the formidable Belgian bibliographer Jean-François Gilmont and the curator of the Erasmushouse Museum, Alexandre Vanautgaerden.

Very aptly, this study has typography as a theme: La page de titre à la Renaissance. Treize études suivies de cinquante-quatre pages de titre commentées et d'un lexique des termes relatif à la page de titre (ISBN 978-2-503-52669-0, Brepols Publishers, 2008, 396 p., 100 b/w ill., 65 color ill, paperback, 75 €).

This study is also "Nuger 6", n° 6 in Nugae humanisticae sub signo Erasmi, or a study series devoted to nugae, varia or trifles, published at the Erasmushouse Museum. Under its young curator Alexandre Vanautgaerden, this museum, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2007, does communication no less than in fine typography. Report on the current exhibition of this museum is soon to follow.

Quaderno fiorentino

The curator at Cultura Fonds just got back from a short off duty experience. We mention this for some entertaining ties to the book world.

First, our guidebook was Quaderno fiorentino, with reminiscences about Florence, Italian art mainly of the Rinascimento, as well as interviews with Italian literary figures in a bleak postwar period, written by Luc Indestege in 1951 (In Dutch, published at Davidsfonds). Despite its antiquarian state, the book effuses lively writing, pared to reliable guidelines, still today, to the art of this city.

Luc Indestege (1901-1974) counts as a Belgian specialist on bookbindings, with many studies tied to his name, e.g. on an archive of rubbings of Flemish panel bookbindings by Prosper Verheyden. Indestege is also the father of Belgian book historian Elly Cockx-Indestege, former Head of the Rare Books Department at Belgium's National Library.

The retirement of Elly Cockx-Indestege was marked with a study in three volumes, by Hendrickx F. et al., editors, E Codicibus Impressisque. Opstellen over het boek in de Lage Landen voor Elly Cockx-Indestege (Leuven, Peeters, 2004). Miscellanea Neerlandica series, 20 (ISBN 978-90-429/-1423-0, /1422-3, 1421-6). In 1951, Elly Indestege had just embarked on reading history.
Secondly, we visited the Bibliotheca Medicea Laurenziana. Luc Indestege documents his visit in 1951. But this is how the Laurenziana discloses itself as of 2007: by thematic forays into the holdings, in the shape of small, permanent exhibitions, accompanied by booklets -not exceeding one hundred pages, with color illustration, published by Mandragora, in Italian or in English, sold at 14 Euros.

We mention by way of example the three English titles so far:
Imaginary Creatures. 2007 (ISBN 978-88-7461-098-3).
The World of the Aztecs in the Florentine Codex. 2007 (ISBN 978-88-7461-102-7).
The Shape of the Book from Roll to Codex (3rd century BC-19th century AD). 2008 (ISBN 978-88-7461-116-4).
The Laurentian building, splendid design by Michelangelo, reopened April 1, 2007, after a long period of being closed to the public. Its research facilities were never in cessation. Therefore, the thematic exhibits seem to serve mainly as a permanent reminder of the function this magnificent architecture once had.

PS: The execution of the glass windows, with references to the de Medici benefactors, some dated 1568, is attributed to an Antwerp artist.

Inaugural Chair "Boek.be" at University of Antwerp (April 23, 2008)

Yesterday the Chair "Boek.be" was inaugurated at the University of Antwerp, with five speakers and a half-day conference around a chosen theme: "Publisher, bookstore and library in the digital world: partners or opponents?" Jef Maes of Boek.be signed on as organizer, and the conference was chaired by professor Pierre Delsaerdt.

Location: the renovated monastery of Grauwzusters, at Lange Sint-Annastraat, part of the university's city center campus.

The Chair is part of APUB, a course called Actuele problemen van de uitgeverij en boekhandel, that is part of the MA Informatie en Biliotheekwetenschap (IBW). The degree is undergoing a makeover to Master after Master. Book history and preservation are part of it as well.

The sponsoring by Boek.be, the Federation of Booksellers in Flanders, is a novelty, and a welcome one at that for the only university degree of its kind, and one that also partly serves as a crash course for professionals into aspects of this very industry.

The first speaker was Ivo Volman, who heads the Digital Libraries and Public Sector Information Unit of the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media. He presented Europeana, the European Digital Library or the digitization of Europe's museum, library, and archival holdings. We're in it, because of Google, he implied. Still, Volman holds the physical sensation of reading paper copies of books in high regard.

Christine de Mazières of the Syndicat national de l'édition (France) approached digitization from the perspective of publishers. France has at its National Library the project Gallica2, for the digitization of French books that are free of copyright. The portal now provides the possibility for publishers to reach the reader, in an experimental phase, with books under copyright, rendered accessible by e-providers (e-distributors).

Denis Zwirn is the CEO of Numilog or one of 2 or 3 e-providers in France today. In his view the chain between publishers and readers remains pretty stable. The implementation of e-book access lengthens the tail to get books to customers. Neither publishers nor booksellers should miss the train. Books and bookstores will stick around, but with the importance of e-providers on the increase.

Trudi Noordermeer formerly headed digitization projects at the National Library of the Netherlands, and is presently Head of the University of Antwerp Library. Digitization projects in libraries have undergone an evolution and are feeling the influence of 2.0 user-generated content. Unfortunately, they are also more sensitive to the challenges that remain in connection with digitization, such as funding and backup problems.

Lastly, Geert Joris as Director of Book.be, did not mince words when he concluded with a strong plea for e-book production. Old business models should be given the glove treatment, but new ones should be firmly embraced, as e-technology is here to stay. The music industry provides one of the most exciting models around. The book trade cannot carry national digitization projects alone. Governments should create momentum and provided the necessary financial means for the digitization of the national heritage.

The challenges in connection with digitization were shared by more than one speaker. In kind, they are technological (is digitization stable enough?), juridical (what about material under copyright?), fiscal (what is more crucial under VAT, carrier or content?), financial (who pays for providing e-books, more costly still than paper publishing?), and also related to content (what gets digitized, by whom, and how do you know when it is?). Here's what worrisome - that's a plateful. The challenges remain formidable, as no speaker ventured easily past the questions. They are bound to lead to new conferences.

But who cares not to heed the call of digitization? In times when kids think that something does not exist, unless they can google it, when people wait eight months for an e-reader, the conclusion that day was: we'd better. And fasten your seatbelts, too.

Springtime is book time

Springtime is not only auction time, but also a busy period for authors and publishers, as we saw a few interesting new publications around book preservation and research arrive in rapid succession.
1. It's worth repeating that on February 1, 2008, In de ban van boeken was opened at Belgium's National Library. This exhibition highlights books from 20 book collectors from the 19th century, that went into the collection by donation or via acquisition. The catalogue (ISBN 90-6637-145-5), work of reference in provenance research, has the same title, and was edited by Marcus de Schepper, An Kelders, and Jan Pauwels.

This exhibition still runs until August 24, 2008, and in May the entire contents will be fully renewed, so that new books will be on display for each collector. On Sunday April 18, 2008, the National Library has a special Visitor Day from 1-6 p.m.

2. On February 29, 2008, volume 2 of Armarium. Publicaties voor erfgoedbibliotheken, was presented to the public. Mieke Lietaer of Stadsbibliotheek Antwerp, Flanders' largest depot library, wrote Goed gegeven! Gids voor schenkingen aan bibliotheken (ISBN 9789072679338): a manual geared to librarians, acquainting them with every aspect of book donations to libraries. The Koning Boudewijnstichting, consulted on the matter as well, put a the information on its page devoted to the preservation of artefacts.

Promotors of Erfgoedbibliotheken Vlaanderen (libraries preserving books and manuscripts in Flanders) are Antwerp professor of history and book history Pierre Delsaerdt, and Director of Stadsbibliotheek Antwerpen, An Renard. The Armarium publications are funded by the Flemish government, the City of Antwerp, and the University of Antwerp.

3. The prize for sumptuous elegance in academic publishing certainly goes to the folio produced by Luc Knapen and Leo Kenis (editors) around the use of wood in books: Hout in boeken, houten boeken en de "fraaye konst van houtdraayen", Documenta libraria series no. 35 from Peeters Publishers, Leuven (ISBN 9789042920576). This work unites contributions from historians, book historians, and woodturning lathe specialists from this country and abroad. It is truffled with color illustration.

4. And just this week we saw the arrival of a monograph on 16th-century book illustration in the Low Countries: Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations in Sixtieenth-Century Europe, by Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof (Cambridge UP, ISBN 978052185276-0). Bowen is a specialist on book illustration and Imhof is curator of rare books and archives at the Plantin-Moretus Museum. Their research relies heavily on the rich archives of the Plantinian Press. As a study, it takes a contextual approach to document how Plantin's choice for etchings influenced a change in taste with regard to book illustration at the time.

Exhibition "Hout in boeken" (Wood in Books) at Leuven (1-31 March 2008)

The Theology Department of the University of Leuven houses an interesting Rare books and manuscripts collection, better known as the Maurits Sabbebibliotheek (MSB). One of their subcollections is the Jesuitica collection. The Maurits Sabbe Library is also known for its charismatic librarians, who once in a while set up exhibitions on their premises.

Most fastidious and prolific among them is Luc Knapen, organizer of the current exhibition Hout in boeken, houten boeken (1-31 March, 2008, to travel to Hasselt in May and possibly in part on to London), a full day of conferences around this theme (29 February, 2008), and the executive editor of a scientific study, forthcoming from Peeters Publishers. Here is Luc Knapen at the opening, receiving the first copy of the study.
As we can see, it promises to be richly documented.
Apart from numerous artefacts, xylaria, and the results of wood turners' work, the pièce the résistance in the exhibition is the reconstruction of a lathe, or a wood turners instrument, based on a Jesuit emblem from 1627. Photo: Luc Knapen, Maurits Sabbebibliotheek.
Cultura Fonds is proud to have an Antiphonary/Responsory on loan in the exhibition. This manuscript (grand in-folio) is dated 1503 (Princedom of Liège, Meuse region), and has a binding and rich illumination pointing to use by Crosiers. This copy is currently under further examination.Another interesting artefact is this revolving book stand or bookwheel, on loan from the University of Ghent Library. A restoration of this piece of furniture was possible specifically for this exhibition.

Provenances: 16th C (starting with Aldrovandi)

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage. The 16th C naturalist Ulissi Aldrovandi (1522-1605), from Bologna, can be linked to item LC 379 (in our first catalogue Labore et Constantia).

This is a work devoted to archeology and Roman artefacts: Stephanus Winandus Pighius, Themis Dea, sev de lege divina. Antverpiae, Ex officina Christophori Plantini, 1568. 8°. With several woodcuts, among them of a Roman vase found in the city of Arras, linked to Cardinal Granvelle.

Aldrovandi's name can be found first on the title page. Three further entries, a few lines each, can be found on pages K3 r°( p.149), [O3] r° (wrong pagination) and P4 v°. The last two are given here (cf supra, cf infra). There's a date: 21 June 1593.Bart Op de Beeck of the Rare Books Department of the Royal Library of Belgium recently has held in his hands 24,000 copies pertaining to Jesuit collections and Louvain. The results of this study will be presented in his PhD thesis (forthcoming).

Our scope is much more modest, but soon we'll know how many of our printed books and manuscripts sport early provenances.
Here is another provenance marking (vdb, pastedown) in the same Pighius.

Provenance research in Belgium today

The Royal Library of Belgium currently has a noteworthy exhibition on show: In de ban van boeken. Grote verzamelaars uit de 19e eeuw in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België - Les seigneurs du livre. Les grands collectionneurs du XIXème siècle à la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique (February 1, 2008-August 24, 2008, Nassaukapel).

The opening was preceded by a half day of lectures about Private Collections in Belgium (1750-1850). Some of our finest book historians delivered talks: Pierre Delsaerdt (Antwerp), Carmélia Opsomer (Liège), Bart Op de Beeck (Brussels), Ludo Vandamme (Bruges), Claude Sorgeloos (Brussels), and Jan Pauwels (Brussels). Talks were moderated by Stijn Van Rossem (Antwerp), who's preparing a PhD on the Verdussen printers.

The exhibition highlights twenty 19th-century collectors, from abroad (e.g. Richard Heber) and from the young nation state that Belgium was or was going to become. The period was marked by four regimes in a time spanning two generations.

The collections of these twenty collectors captured a fraction of collections changing hands or at peril of calamity, following the abolition of monasteries and their libraries at the end of the Ancien Régime (around 1797). Either these collectors donated directly (too few of them), or their books and manuscripts were acquired in auctions, not without a degree of vicissitude, for the newly inaugurated national library (from 1837 onwards).

Provenance research is increasingly becoming a focus in several public institutions in this country. The lecturers stressed the importance of noting the markings in copies, for a better understanding of how collections developed. The online catalogue of our National Library for instance gives extensive provenance data for each copy, and the Short Title Catalogus Vlaanderen may soon follow suit.

Our catalogues

The library's holdings have been described in 2 catalogues so far.

The first catalogue is the sales catalogue accompanying the 510 books and broadsides that we acquired in 1991 at Brussels. These were all printed in the second half of the 16th C at Antwerp, by Christophe Plantin (Christophorus Plantinus, Christoffel Plantijn).
Catalogue #1:
Bibliographical info:
1589-1989. Labore et constantia. A Collection of 510 Editions Issued by Christopher Plantin from 1555 till 1589. Catalogued by Claude Sorgeloos. Introduction by Leon Voet [Honorary Director of the Museum Plantin-Moretus]. Brussels, Eric Speeckaert, 1990. No ISBN. Legal depot number: D/1990/2948/1. 465 p. Illustrated. Hard cover (cloth).

In auction catalogues, this catalogue #1 is often simply referred to as "Sorgeloos".

Claude Sorgeloos, an historian (ULB, Brussels), was our library's first curator (1991-1999). In 1999 he left Cultura Fonds to head the Rare Books Department at the Royal Library at Brussels (Koninklijke Bibliotheek/Bibliothèque royale, a.k.a. KBR).

Claude Sorgeloos is one of our most prolific authors regarding books, having produced numerous books, exhibition catalogues, and articles regarding book history, bindings, and other historical topics. He heads the research unit Groupe de contact 'documents rares et précieux' and is scientific director to the Bibliotheca Wittockiana.

The KBR, our Royal Library, houses not only one of the finest collections of Printed Books in the world, but also -in other Departments- of Manuscripts and of Etchings and Prints.

Claude Sorgeloos authored the second catalogue pertaining to our collection. This catalogue comprises rare books and manuscripts purchased prior to and following the big Plantin acquisition of 1991, up to December 1999. As to printed books, it comprises not just works from Plantin's printing press, but also by other European printing houses.

This catalogue appeared as an imprint of Le livre et l'estampe, the journal of the Royal Society of Bibliophiles and Iconophiles of Belgium, known as the venerable Société Royale des bibliophiles et iconophiles de Belgique (SRBIB).
Catalogue #2:
Bibliographical info:
Claude Sorgeloos: La bibliothèque du Cultura Fonds: acquisitions 1991-1999. Tiré à part de la revue [imprint of the journal] Le livre & l'estampe, XXXXVI, 2000, n° 154. 256 p. Illustrated. Paper. BE ISSN 0024533 X.

Acquisitions from the year 2000 onwards have not yet been published, neither in print, nor online.