Folium Librorum Vitae Deditum. Jaargang 2

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Old sale catalogues

Every one of us book-addicts, bibliographers, librarians, collectors or dealers, keeps a shelf-ful or so of old catalogues and if we all lived in spacious old barns we would never throw a catalogue away but keep them all. Some because they remind us of auction sales we attended and where we played our part or where we got some wonderful bargains. Some because they simply make such excellent reading. Some because they are and will for ever remain so useful to refer to. The fitting memorial of a book collector's endeavours, his ‘monumentum aere perennius’ is the sale catalogue of his library. The misguided blbliomanac is led by his jealous instincts of possessiveness to bequeath his collection to an institution to be preserved intact for all time and so to extend his exclusive ownership beyond the grave. His books moulder, untouched and unseen, behind plate-glass and closed doors and his name is soon forgotten except by some librarian who finds the strict terms of the bequest a tiresome nuisance. The sagacious collector will seek his true immortality in a sale catalogue worth preserving. His name will live down the ages as an illustrious provenance.

Who would now know of the Comte de Hoym, of Guyon de Sardière, of Girardot de Préfond, even of Charles Nodier, if their names were not for ever associated with the splendid copies of rare books they owned?

No collector has ever achieved the ultimate aim of gathering into his library every single title that properly belonged within the range of his chosen speciality. But is it a contemptible glory to leave a catalogue that will for years be cited as a standard of what such a collection should contain? To have a book on Hunting distinguished by some auctioneer or bookseller with the qualification: ‘Rare, not in the Schwerdt Collection’? A book on

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Music as ‘not in the Wolffheim-Auktion’? A book on Angling as ‘not in the Gilbey sale’?¹⁾

There are a great number of old catalogues, both auction-Catalogues and bookseller's Catalogues, which serve the useful purpose of providing us with something like a bibliographical survey of a special field. Sometimes indeed they are the only tools we can hope to keep handy of such a purpose, either because no general bibliographical work exists on the subject, or because a really all-comprehensive bibliography would be so vast as to defeat its object of being easy to consult or even to house. There is no bibliography of the Reformation-movement; if it were attempted it would fill many volumes and would be useless because no one could keep it at hand. There is not even a full bibliography of Luther's writings, or rather it only exists in the big Weimar-edition of Luther's works in 94 volumes, where each one of his tracts is preceded by a description of the early editions. I did know a bookseller once who kept a complete set of the Weimar Luther on his shelves solely for the purpose of consulting the bibliographies, but I regarded him as mildly crazy. Most of as are content to use the auction sale catalogue of the splendid collection formed by J.K.F. Knaake (Leipzig, Weigel, 1906-8 in six parts with Index), or A. Kuczynski's Thesaurus Libellorum.. Verzeichnis einer Sammlung von nahezu 3000 Flugschriften Luthers und seiner Zeitgenossen, a priced booksellers catalogue issued by Weigel of Leipzig in 1870. Equally useful and more comprehensive regarding the French, Swiss and other non-German Reformers is the catalogue of the Bibliotheca Theologica William Jackson-Paris, issued by the firm of Harrassowitz, Leipzig, 1910 in five parts.

For the writings of the members of the Jesuit Order we do possess a comprehensive bibliography: De Backer-Sommervogel, Bibliothèque des écrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus, - Bruxelles et Paris, 1890-1932, in eleven folio volumes, a huge book, difficult and expensive to find in the market. Few booksellers can think of keeping a copy for reference, I certainly do not. Recently I had occasion to investigate whether there were any first editions among a batch of early Roman impressions of the Jesuit Rule I had acquired with a Continental library, so I went to consult the British Museum copy. In Vol. V of De Backer-Sommervogel I did find

1) C.F.G. Schwerdt: London, Sotheby's Four parts 1939 (Fifth Pt. 1946).
A.N. Gilbey: London, Christie's April 1940.
W. Wolffheim: Berlin, Breslauer & Liepmannsohn. 1928-9. 2 Pts.

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a long list of editions of the ‘Regulae’, but for distinguishing the complicated variants of the earliest issues and for establishing the difficult questions of priority, I found to my surprise that they refer to the notes given in the Jesuitica-section of the aucton-sale catalogue of Pierre Antoine Bolongaro-Crevenna, published at Amsterdam by the firm of Changuion & den Hengst in 1789 in five volumes. That catalogue happened to be standing on my own shelves and there I found at the end of Vol. IV, separately paginated, the ‘Collection de presque tous les Ouvrages qui concernent l'Institut et l'Histoire des Jesuites’ with some very informative notes, contributed no doubt by the collector and owner, who was a wealthy Amsterdam merchant.¹⁾

What books we find ‘useful’ depends of course on the field of literature we are interested in. Having for years been occupied with the earlier History of Science in all its branches, I would give an eminent position in any list of handy working tools to Abr. Gotth. Kaestner's ‘Geschichte der Mathematik’, (Goettingen, 1796-1800), 4 vols. 8vo. This is a book that furnishes much more than its title would seem to promise. Not only does it cover a much wider field then the term ‘Mathematics’ suggests, extending its survey over Physics, Astronomy, Surveying and many other branches of Science into which mathematics necessarily must enter. Kaestner gives the titles and dates of thousands of early scientific works accurately and reliably and he adds a brief explanatory note to most of his items in which the main points of interest are indicated. Needless to say that the books to be found in Kaestner are chiefly those of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and that for the later period we must turn to more recent works.

Pre-eminent among the later reference books for its astonishing comprehensiveness and its excellent annotation is Sotheran's: Bibliotheca Chemico-Mathematica, London 1921-1937, which with its Supplements runs to five volumes and describes 22943 items. This great achievement is a bookseller's catalogue and the forrunner of all antiquarian catalogues of scientific books. Its publication really began in 1906 (the date 1921 appears on the title-page of the first collected volume) and it is throughout the work of one great bibliographer, Heinrich Zeitlinger, who at a venerable age is fortunately still with us. Being the first in the field, the material Sotheran's could gather in their early period is of incredible completeness and intrinsic value, and the concise

1) See Molhuysen & Blok: Ned. Biogr. W.X. 222.

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annotations are still models of informative cataloguing. The only feature of the Bibliotheca Chemico-Mathematica we can no longer rely on are the prices; a frist Copernicus for £ 21, a first Newton for £ 18.18.-, these indications of value will hardly be found of practical usefulness now or in the future.

The interest in early books on the exact sciences, regarded as historical monuments of a development leading to the technical achievements of the industrial age, cannot be traced back beyond the nineteenth century. In this field of collecting and of bibliography, as in several other branches, the great initiator and pioneer seems to have been that curious and disreputable genius Guglielmo Libri. Not only as the author of the ‘Histoire des Sciences mathématiques en Italie’ (Paris, 1838-41. 4 vols. 8vo,) but as the collector of vast quantities of rare books on science, Libri has left us a legacy of informative notes which we may gratefully use with due critical caution. How and by what means he brought his book treasures together, we need not too closely inquire; what matters to us is that for dispersing them he produced sale-catalogues equipped with a wealth of annotation by which he brought out the interest of his possessions. Especially the sale of the ‘Mathematical, Historical, Bibliographical and Miscellaneous Portion of the Celebrated Library of M. Guglelmo Libri’, London, Sotheby, 1861, with its 7628 lots, which occupied 20 days, is a catalogue well worth keeping on ones shelves.

Brunet, Manuel III. 1060 says: ‘Ce catalogue est curieux, et par le grand nombre d'ouvrages plus au moins rares sur les sciences mathematiques.. et surtout par les notes que le propriétaire y a ajoutées’. And he is quite right to add that the somewhat arbitrary mixture of authors names and subject headings in one single alphabet makes its use for reference somewhat awkward and difficult. But some of these headings like ‘Arithmetic’, ‘Music’ and particularly ‘Galilei’ (including his supporters and opponents) give excellent groups of notes illuminating the salient points of the subject.

Another very important collection of rare mathematical and astronomical books, is that formed by the great scientist Michel Chasles, described in the auction catalogue prepared by A. Claudin, Paris, 1881. The library is not quite so varied as Libri's astounding mass of curiosities and there are no notes to the single items. But the catalogue being, after the French fashion, systematically arranged with infinite ramifications and subsections, gives a very handy indication into what category of the mathematical sciences

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a book properly belongs. This catalogue is curious also because of the person of the owner who is nowadays perhaps less generally remembered for his merits in the cause of geometry, than as the famous collector of autographs to whom the forger Vrain-Lucas succeeded in selling original letters written by Pontius Pilate to Mary Magdalene (in French of course).

Libri regarded the ‘Mathematical Portion’ as his working library which he discarded only after failing health and financial necessity had forced him to sell the bulk of the precious books he had collected; he only retained comparatively few things, which he prized most highly, the ‘Reserved and most valuable portion’ sold in 1862, and the ‘Precious Manuscripts and Objects of Art and Vertu’ sold in 1864. The greater part however of his accumulation of remarkable books was dispersed in two big sales in 1859: the Manuscripts, 1190 items, in March, the Early Printed Books, Romances of Chivalry, historical Bindings, etc. in the ‘Choicer Portion’ in August. It is the ‘Choicer Portion’ which forms the most interesting and most instructive catalogue Libri has left us. The annotation to the single items reveals a personality of immense knowledge, exuberant immagination and powerful salesmanship. There is hardly a subject within the scope of any kind of old books, blockbooks, Travels, Italian Literature, Music and many others, that is not represented by some shrewd, well-informed and quite original note, by no means always reliable, but invariably interesting and stimulating. This catalogue is memorable also because here Libri created an entirely new branch of interest for the collectors of books: ‘historical and ornamental’ bookbindings are here for the first time brought to the notice of the book-buyers as objects worthy of attention for their own sakes. For describing them he had to create his own terminology which has persisted in current use for seventy years. To introduce his public to the interest of the remarkable specimens he had collected, Libri wrote a special Preface of twenty pages to this catalogue, which in fact is the earliest sketch of a History of Bookbindings. It is, in the light of later research, sadly inaccurate and distorted by his patriotic pro-Italian fervour, it is full of unfounded and fanciful assertions and attributions, but it is extremely interesting, combining acute observation with a wide range of informed knowledge, and it certainly is the starting point of all later literature on the Bookbinder's art.

Libri's ‘Choicer Portion’, however fascinating, is too miscellaneous in content to be consulted as a reference book on any par-

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ticular subject. In the eighteenth century and long into the nineteenth, many private libraries aimed at a universality of content as laid down by De Bure and other bibliographers. Naturally local patriots formed libraries specially devoted to the history of their own province, or lovers of literature collected the monuments of their great writers. Such libraries have on their dispersal furnished us with catalogues interesting to read and especally valuable if the owners' knowledge has been preserved for us in notes. They are too numerous to be set out here. But certain specialised collections may be worth pointing to because their catalogues constitute useful bibliographical reference works on their subjects.

The greatest French theatrical library ever formed has long been dispersed, but the Catalogue of the ‘Bibliothèque dramatique de M. de Soleinne’, Paris, 1843-4 in five vols., admirably listed and indexed by P. Lacroix, remains to us as an excellent reference work especially on the minor playwrights and their products. It should be accompanied by the similar catalogue of Pont de Vesle, 1846-8, which forms something like a supplement to it.

Books on the Fine Arts have in the last half century multiplied prodigiously and modern methods of reproduction have rendered many earlier works almost valueless. Still there are a number of early books of importance to the art-historian as the ultimate contemporary sources on the artists and on the artistic taste of earlier ages.

A great Art Library containing practically all the important books especially on Italian art was formed by Count Leopoldo Cicognara, and described in his ‘Catalogo ragionato dei Libri d'Arte e d'Antichita posseduti dal Conte Cicognara’. - Pisa, 1821. 2 vols. 8vo. Without being unwieldy, this catalogue with its informative and reliable notes serves as a useful reference work on the various editions and the exact contents of many early works on architecture or other branches of the arts and on books of copper-plates. The library itself was not dispersed, but acquired for the Vatican by Pope Benedict XII.

An admirable catalogue of a splendid collection on Architecture and Ornaments especially, but on other branches of the Fine Arts also, we possess in the auction sales of Hippolyte Destailleur, the great Paris architect. There were three sales, 1891, 1894, 1895, of which the first contains the most precious ancient books, the second the special collection on Paris; but the most valuable for

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reference purposes is the third sale of 1895, with its practically complete series of architectural and ornament books described with full detail and exactness by Damascene Morgand who held the auctions.

It would be easy to extend the enumeration of specialised book catalogues which retain permanent value as approximations to subject bibliographies. No doubt every collector or dealer can cite from his own shelves a dozen further instances of such catalogues which he finds useful to keep for reference. The possible specializations are too varied, the degree of comprehensiveness which would entitle a catalogue to be regarded as a ‘near-bibliography’ too ill-defined, to make anything like a survey practically feasible, certainly not within the limits of an article of normal length. What I wished to do is merely to emphasise the utility of many of these early catalogues. The industrious zeal of the collector, the bibliographical labour of the bookseller or auctioneer that have gone into their making, have not been wasted, they are worth searching for and preserving as helpful guides in our own endeavours to form collections or to describe them.

E.P. Goldschmidt

Grote gebeurtenissen van internationale en blijvende betekenis zijn in de boekenwereld zeldzaam. Als een dergelijk feit moet worden aangemerkt de onlangs door een Europeaan in Amerika gedane aankoop van een der meest waardevolle Shakespeare-verzamelingen die ooit bijeen werden gebracht. Verkoper was Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach te New York, koper de Zwitserse bankier, philantroop en bibliophiel Dr. Martin Bodmer te Genève. De koopsom bedroeg meer dan vier millioen gulden.

De verzameling omvat 73 stukken, waaronder gave exemplaren van de vier folio-uitgaven der verzamelde werken en meer dan 50 der zeldzame kwarto-uitgaven. Hierbij bevinden zich 8 eerste drukken: Lucrece 1594, King Lear 1608, Love's Labour's Lost, Othello, Troilus and Cressida, etc.

Dr. Bodmer's bibliotheek is vermoedelijk op het ogenblik de meest representatieve Europese verzameling. Een aanwinst als deze verheft haar betekenis ver boven die van een particulier bezit. Niet alleen Zwitserland, maar Europa is een groot historisch monument rijker geworden.