Ardent Endeavor: un délice du Pays de Liège (part I)

Are book collectors and book curators worlds apart? The former might well be hoarding books since the age of 15. A he could have stored books under the beds of his children, and a she could have been briskly bidding at auction unbenownst to her husband. The book curator meanwhile may have prudently acquired a few precious items, and studied many more in the silence of the university library.

A collector is capable of pulling out each precious treasure in a sequence that would rival artillery fire, but rarely jots down basic information on so much as a notecard. The book curator or historian is able to x-ray a book, present it under peer review in the shape of statistical, material and bibliographic facts, which isn't to say that he or she remains obtuse to its beauty, or doesn't know a jolly good story or two.

United by their love of a similar object, the twain do meet: in bibliophile societies. Book historians may deliver the acumen for membership publications, whereas venerable collectors may bring up the memory of Baron such and such, and may have seen every elegant drawing room and château with a library.

Recently, an elegant mingling of both worlds has taken place in the city of Liège (Luik) and within the Société des Bibliophiles Liégeois, which resulted in a sumptuous publication: Florilège du livre en principauté de Liège du IXe au XVIIIe siècle (2009, ISBN 978-2-9600900-0-0).

This is merely the announcement; we hope to come back to the contents of this volume in the next two weeks.

Details:
Florilège du livre en principauté de Liège du IXe au XVIIIe siècle. Société des Bibliophiles Liégeois, 2009. 560 p. numerous color illustrations. Hard cover and colored dust-jacked. ISBN 978-2-9600900-0-0. Paul Bruyère and Alain Marchandisse, Scientific Editors. Available by subscription from the Société des Bibliophiles Liégeois.

Sounds of the city 18: Conference on and Festival of 18th-century music (Antwerp, 11-14 March 2010)

Among my acquaintances I have someone with an extensive collection of operas on vinyl, from Monteverdi to this day. While he was leafing through his operas all placed in chronological order, I was struck not to know that our own Belgian composer of opéras comiques, André Ernest Modeste Grétry (Luik/Liège 1741-France 1813), was Mozart's contemporary.

Grétry's name will be dropped in the upcoming conference, in English, at Antwerp devoted to 18th-century music culture in an urban environment, entitled Stadsklanken 18 - Sounds of the city 18, the 18 referring here to the century under scrutiny.

Not only is the eighteenth century in Flanders a blind spot on my personal map, studies related to this century in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium seem scarce to me. In the Taalunie’s prestigious book series on the history of Dutch literature, emeritus professor Joost Kloek has yet to publish the volume related to the 18th century. Or is it a false impression? And did our regions know its share of book dealers and other savants discussing the local epistolary novel, prince de Ligne and Voltaire?

Stadsklanken 18 – Sounds of the City 18 is looking at the music culture of the city of Antwerp in the 18^th-century. Several aspects of music culture – private music, church music, song books, music and spectacle, performance practice for historical music, – are held against the light of a broader picture of music culture in Western European cities at that time.

The conference is interdisciplinary, as musicologists, musicians, (book) historians and concert organizers mingle on the subject in lectures and panel talks.

The conference is accompanied by a choice selection of concerts: the performance of an opera called Sinjoôr in China performed in Kasteel d’Ursel in Hingene, church music, organ music, a Sunday concert of carillon music, and the performance of eighteenth-century dance music and historical dance by specialist in the field Lieven Baert.

Members of Vlaamse Werkgroep Boekgeschiedenis, the Dutch-speaking chapter of book historians in this country, are delivering talks. Timothy De Paepe has a talk called “Les opéras étaient en vogue” (Friday 12 March 2010, morning session 10.00 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.), and Maartje De Wilde tackles “Merriness and Misfortune in Songbooks” (Friday 12 March, afternoon session 1.45-3.45 p.m.).

Registration for conference and concerts is mandatory, but some activities are free.
All details here: Stadsklanken 18 – Sounds of the City 18. Date: 11-14 March 2010. Venue: Cultureel Congrescentrum Elzenveld, Antwerp, as well as other locations.

VWB Lectures 2010: Belgium’s First Printers (24 February) - Color on 15th-century Title Pages (28 April)

Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience at Antwerp –formerly Stadsbibliotheek - I am constantly using EHC now to refer to this heritage library, and I invite my readership to do the same – has the biggest collection of rare books and documents in the Dutch speaking part of this country (not counting our Royal Library at Brussels). And this library has the added advantage of being located in proximity of the Museum Plantin-Moretus.

EHC fittingly took it upon itself to embrace the VWB lectures series, VWB as in Vlaamse Werkgroep Boekgeschiedenis, society of book historians in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. These lectures on current themes in book history have become part and parcel of EHC’s calendar.

Venue 4 times a year is Wednesday at 5 pm in EHC’s Nottebohmzaal, a 19^th-century hall filled with books which for every tourist in Antwerp is a must see.

Too much related to paper heritage in this country is still a best kept secret, and these pages are vibrantly trying to get much out of that category. We have in this country a paper heritage so fine, that I think foreign visitors should travel to us to become acquainted. Just like one should travel for Old Masters - Old Masters shouldn’t travel for us.

Now on to the first VWB lectures in 2010. On Wednesday 24 February, Renaud Adam, from the Rare Books Department at Belgium’s Royal Library (Brussels), is holding a lecture in French on Belgium’s first 15^th-century printers, entitled “Alost, le berceau de l'imprimerie en Belgique? Retour sur l'atelier de Jean de Westphalie et Thierry Martens (1473-1474).”

We have previously mentioned the new census on Dirk Martens that Renaud Adam and Alexandre Vanautgaerden have published (ISBN 978-2-503-53112-0 ; jointly with Passeurs de textes: 978-2-503-53118-2). Next to well-known bibliographies for incunabula and Van Iseghem for Martens, Adam & Vanautgaerden should become a new staple in reference libraries.

On Wednesday 28 April, Rémi Mathis (Bibliothèque de l'Université Paris Descartes/CNRS) will hold a talk in English entitled “Red in a black and white world. Coloured title-pages in early printed books.” He will no doubt summarize the most important findings about the use of colored ink on title pages in the earliest days of hand-printed books.

Venue: EHC – Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience - Hendrik Conscienceplein 4, 2000 Antwerp – Wednesdays, 5.00-6.30 pm. Entrance is free.

Prestigious American Prize for Seminal Study on Plantinian Illustration

On a day when a Belgian prime minister is receiving accolade for becoming the first President ever of the European Counsel, we are pleased to announce that the book Christopher Plantin and Engraved Book Illustrations in Sixtieenth-Century Europe, by Karen L. Bowen and Dirk Imhof (Cambridge UP, ISBN 978052185276-0), has received the Roland H. Bainton Book Prize.

The Roland H. Bainton Prize was named after a professor of church history at the seminary of Yale University, and is awarded yearly for best books in Art and Music History, History/Theology, and Literature.

The news has yet to be announced by Sixteenth-Century Society & Conference (SCSC), which appoints the committee who chose this year's winners. We previously announced publication of this study here.

Bowen and Imhof's study borrows heavily on archival research to document how Plantin's choice for etchings influenced a change in taste with regard to book illustration at the time. Their book is to date the most comprehensive monograph on 16th-century intaglio production and trade for our region, and a must-have for any serious research library.

Theodoricus Martinus Typographus (Erasmus House Museum, 23 October-6 December 2009)

One would think that by now scholars would have unearthed everything about the origin of printing. Not quite. For more than three centuries, Paul Needham wrote in The Invention and the Early Spread of European Printing As Represented in the Scheide Library (2007), antiquaries and scholars have been trying to identify and pin down the earliest survival of printing. An attempt Needham still defined as "not banal."

Two Belgian scholars have placed themselves in that tradition: Renaud Adam and Alexandre Vanautgaerden, with their recent study "Thierry Martens et la figure de l'imprimeur humaniste. (Une nouvelle biographie)," Brepols, 2009, ISBN 978-2-503-53112-0. Theodoricus Martinus or Dirk Martens is none other that Belgium's first printer: every child is taught at school that Martens printed the first book at Aalst (Alost).

When the Low Countries -Belgium and Holland- celebrated the 500th anniversary of printing in 1973 -with a catalogue from Belgium's Royal Library that became an instant classic- the prototypographi were, as was admitted, chosen by convention, and differently so along national borders, with Martens as first printer for Belgium. Streamlining festivities even more, both countries were letting printing begin in 1473.

As Adam & Vanautgaerden write, a partnership between Dirk Martens and the German Joannes van Westfalen comes closer to the truth of the first printed book at Alost. Already in 1474, Joannes van Westfalen would be a very succesful printer in the city of Leuven, and the first activity of Martens at Alost was short-lived. Whether both men actually did meet in Venice, as their first printing material seems to betray, and who was actually printing at Alost, are just two of many questions laden with mystery.

Still, the new census by Adam & Vanautgaerden of 269 editions attributed to Dirk Martens also reveals that there is a good reason to shed light anew on our first printer: more so than Joannes van Westfalen, Martens was successful at experimenting with and introducing new language and character sets, and therefore deserves to be celebrated as first typographer.

The exhibition "Theodoricus Martinus Typographus" looks at Martens as graphic designer. It also puts ancient and contemporary typography in juxtaposition. The exhibition is in the hands of a graphic design studio from Brussels, Sign, which has signed every card or web page of the Erasmus House Museum in the last 15 years.

Details: Theodoricus Martinus Typographus. Exhibition. Erasmus House Museum, Anderlecht (Brussels). 23 October - 6 December, 2009.

VWB Lecture at Antwerp (28 October 2009): The Jesuits in China

It's official: Vlaamse Werkgroep Boekgeschiedenis (VWB), test riding last Spring with lectures in book history, now has its foot in the door at Antwerp's largest heritage library, Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience at Concienceplein. Two lectures are planned before Christmas; 4 lectures are held each year.

VWB aims at acquainting a larger public with scholars from this country and abroad who present ongoing research or current topics in the history of books.

Venue for these Wednesday lectures is the -must-see- Nottebohmzaal. Starting time is 6 p.m. On Wednesdays, the Hendrik Conscience Library is open until 8 p.m. Each lecture is followed by a Q&A from the audience. Entrance is free.

Two lectures are planned before Christmas. On Wednesday 28 October 2009 Professor Noel Golvers from the Ferdinand Verbiest Instituut (KU Leuven) will hold a lecture entitled The Jesuits in China in the 17th and 18th centuries: the ‘Ultima Thule’ of the European book distribution.

Note: by exception, Golvers' lecture will start one hour earlier: 5 p.m.

In fact, professor Golvers is test riding as well. He will dwell on recent research on this theme at the Jesuitica Conference at Leuven (3-5 December 2009). More on that in a future post.

Golvers has also written about a corpus of 5000 books that was known as the last Western library in Beijing in the 19th century, the Beitang Library. See Noël Golvers, "De jezuïetenmissie in China (17de-18de eeuw): (Ook) een kwestie van Westerse boeken en bibliotheken," in De Gulden Passer 83:2005, p. 201-221. This library was deemed lost, but its holdings have been incorporated by the Peiching Tushuguan library in Beijing.

Picture: The Nottebohmzaal.

Scripta manent

The thick of summer permits an off-track musing. The New York Times obituary for Merce Cunningham has a beautiful quote by the choreographer on the impermanence of dance:

"[Dancing] gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive."

Illustration: Illuminated initial, Responsoriale, Crosiers, Pays de Liège, 1504. Collection Cultura Fonds.