De Gulden Passer. Jaargang 28

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Résumés en langue française
English summaries

La ‘bibliotheca scriptorum societatis jesu’ d'alegambe-bollandus

L'auteur publie dans cet article quelques notes sur un chapitre de l'histoire de la bibliographie de la Compagnie de Jésus. Il y traite de l'origine, du caractère et des vicissitudes de la Bibliotheca Scriptorum S.J. (Antverpiae 1643). La page du titre mentionne comme auteur de cette oeuvre le Père Ph. Alegambe S.J. Cette mention est sans doute exacte, mais l'histoire nous a conservé des indices et des témoignages certains, qui nous prouvent sans aucun doute possible, que le célèbre fondateur des Bollandistes, le Père Joannes Bollandus S.J., n'a pas seulement pris sur lui le soin de l'édition, mais a eu aussi une part importante dans la composition de cet ouvrage. La nature de son contenu et sa valeur bibliographique sont singulièrement mises en lumière, d'une part par la mentalité de l'époque et les circonstances historiques dans lesquels il a vu le jour, et d'autre part par le jugement qu'en ont porté au cours des siècles les bibliophiles les plus compétents en la matière. A la lumière de ces données il appert que le bibliophile soucieux de faire oeuvre scientifique, ne négligera jamais de consulter, à côté de ‘de Backer-Sommervogel-Rivière’, la Bibliotheca du P. Alegambe, de même que l'édition lyonnaise du Catalogus (1609) du P. Ribadeneira.

A. de Wilt S.J.

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XL Ans de mécénat anversois

N'ayant pas les moyens d'acquérir pas même une partie, des impressions anversoises mises aux enchères en 1905 lors de la vente van Havre (Müller, La Haye; catalogue superbe), les dirigeants de la Bibliothèque ‘municipale’ et du Musée Plantin-Moretus, Max Rooses et Frans Gittens, firent appel au ménécat anversois. Une propagande habile fut menée par les journalistes L. van Keymeulen (Le Matin) et F. le Roy (La Métropole). Répondirent, spontanément à l'appel MM. von Mallinckrodt, Havenith, Henry Fester, Böcking, Huffmann, van den Nest, von Bary, Rautenstrauch, Caroly, Franck, Osterrieth. Sur les 1426 lots, 304 furent acquis par Anvers: 168 allèrent au Musée Plantin-Moretus; 136 à la ‘Stadsbibliotheek’; montant total: 19.211,79 frs. conséquences les donateurs consentirent à fonder le ‘Fonds de Dotation permanent en faveur de la Bibliothèque communale et du Musée Plantin-Moretus’, afin d'enrichir le patrimoine local par l'achat d'ouvrages anciens et modernes, d'anciennes cartes géographiques, de plans de ville, d'estampes, de dessins et de croquis de maîtres anversois, de pamphlets et de caricatures. Au début on compta 68 souscripteurs, dont 15 donateurs à vie (1000 frs) et 53 membres (500 frs). Un capital de 41.500 frs fut formé; les intérêts étaient destinés aux achats. Cette formule tomba en désuétude; elle fut remplacée en 1924 par une méthode plus souple, plus démocratique, offrant certaines garanties de continuité: une S. s.b.l. fut fondée, dont les membres paieraient des cotisations annuelles.

Le Fonds fit valoir son efficacité aux ventes Abbeloos (Louvain 1906); van de Corput (Bruxelles 1907); Fonteyn (Louvain 1907); Muller (Amsterdam 1908, 1909, 1910, 1912); de Sadeler (Bruxelles 1909); van de Corput (Amsterdam 1911); Theunissen (Gand 1912); Cogels (Anvers 1912-1913); Flor. van Duyse (Gand 1913); Hoffschmidt (Bruxelles 1913); Ipers (Anvers 1913). Les

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acquisitions figurèrent à l'exposition de 1949, rehaussées des collections graphiques appartenant au Cabinet des Estampes, créé sous les instances de MM. Maurits Sabbe et A.J.J. Delen. (Vente van Cauwenbergh, dons R. Fester).

Cette exposition dans un décor splendide comprit les sections suivantes: manuscrits anciens et modernes; lettres autographes; incunables et post-incunables anversois et d'origine non-anversoise; périodiques (Antwerpsche Tydinghen); almanachs; descriptions urbaines et du pays; biographies se rapportant à l'histoire locale, nationale et universelle; littératures anciennes et modernes de tous pays; jurisprudence; la religion et ses luttes; commerce et sciences économiques; médecine et anatomie; histoire de l'art; philologie; sciences; linguistique et lexicographie, cantiques.

Pour quelques ouvrages de toute rareté, voir p. 65; dessins et estampes: p. 66. Les noms des présidents et des membres, qui dans le courant des années ont fait partie des divers Comités Exécutifs, se trouvent énumérés aux p. 66 et 67; bibliographie des rapports: p. 68-70; à souligner l'instabilité dans la terminologie.

En 1916 Maurits Sabbe composa le sonnet, figurant à la page 67; subtil hommage à Mr H. Fester. La pièce, peu connue, rappelle le ‘Sonnet du bonheur’ de Plantin. Sa reproduction est un acte de reconnaissance envers tous ceux qui, dans le passé, ont contribué au ‘Fonds de dotation’.

G. Schmook.

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Frederik Corcellis, servant of Laurens Jansz. Coster, or, the consequences of a printing error

The discovery of a copy of the Expositio sancti Hieronimi in symbolum apostolorum, which the imprint stated to have been printed at Oxford in 1468, led Richard Atkyns to maintain in 1664 that in England the art of printing had first been practised at Oxford in 1468 and not, as hitherto assumed, at Westminster by Caxton in 1476. From an archive document Atkyns inferred that printing had been introduced into England by Frederik Corcellis, a servant of the first printer at Haarlem. Corcellis was supposed to have been commissioned by Henry VI to come to England in secret and to have set up his press at Oxford. The object of Atkyns, who was in financial difficulties, was to show that printing in England was a royal prerogative and he hoped to receive from the King the privilege to print law books. He failed in his object, but his theories on the subject were keenly discussed, finding supporters and opponents.

When, in the middle of the eighteenth century, wealthy book-lovers, especially in England, started collecting incunabula, several offers came from Holland of books bearing the name of the mysterious Frederik Corcellis. Books with the name of his master, Laurens Jansz. Coster, also came to light. These volumes made their appearance at sales in Amsterdam and The Hague and were purchased by well-known connoisseurs, who subsequently found that the imprint was forged. All these books derived from an Englishman living in Amsterdam, a certain George Smith, reader in mathematics, who was known for his skill in imitating old writing. Smith started to carry to excess this hobby of his, making rather too wildly fantastic rarities, and thus his sins came to light.

One of Smith's victims was the Amsterdam bookseller Pieter

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Ghetiden boec (Delft 1480) met door George Smith vervalst impressum.
(Universiteits-Bibliotheek, Cambridge).

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van Damme, who bought several books from him purporting to have been printed by Corcellis. When it came to be rumoured that van Damme was an accomplice in Smith's forgeries, van Damme, to prove his innocence, had the forged volumes auctioned at The Hague in 1764, stating emphatically in the catalogue that the forgeries had been fabricated by Smith. Three of these books were bought as curiosities by Dr Stephen Askew and at this death they passed to the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, now being in the John Rylands Library. Dibdin at the time made some accusations against van Damme, owing to certain misunderstandings, but there were not the slightest ground for them.

Strangely enough, in spite of Smith's exposure as a forger, the view that Frederik Corcellis was the first printer in England continued to find adherents. Among these may be mentioned Gerard Meerman, another of Smith's victims, who tried to prove at some length in his Origines typographici (1765) the genuineness of the Corcellis story, against the arguments of Coltee-Ducarel, who had called Atkyn's theories a clumsy fabrication. Meerman's assertions closely bear on his championship of Laurensz Jansz. Coster as the inventor of printing; the story about Corcellis afforded this a welcome substantiation.

Modern research of incunabula has shown irrefutably that the date 1468 in the Expositio is a printing error for 1477. This relegates the person of Corcellis, of whom we have no other trace, to the realms of the imagination. It is not clear, however, how it was that Atkyns came to use the name Corcellis. A family of that name flourished in his time, having come to England from Flanders in about 1600.

H. de la Fontaine Verwey

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Les écrits de Jean Nemius

On ne sait pas grand'chose de la vie de Jean Nemius, humaniste néerlandais du xvi^e siècle: inconnue la date de sa naissance, inconnue de même l'année de sa mort. Jean Goverts, qui signa ses ouvrages du nom de Joannes Nemius (c.-à.-d. Jean de Bois-le-Duc), fut immatriculé comme étudiant de la faculté des arts de l'Université de Cologne au mois de juillet 1537; il devint licencié-ès-arts en 1541. Ordonné prêtre, il enseigna les lettres classiques en plusieurs endroits des Pays-Bas, e.a. à Nimègue (1550) et dans sa ville natale de Bois-le-Duc (1552). Peu de temps après il prit sa retraite, mais accepta cependant le rectorat de la Grande École d'Amsterdam (1556-1559), pour retourner ensuite à Bois-le-Duc, où il doit avoir exercé la fonction de recteur des célèbres écoles latines de cette ville vers 1572.

On possède de lui quelques poésies de circonstance en latin et plusieurs ouvrages philologiques, didactiques et poétiques, tous en latin; il publia aussi une version latine estimée de la légende de Tyll Ulenspiègle. Notre bibliographie mentionne tout ce que nous avons pu retrouver de son héritage littéraire, ainsi que la liste des poésies qui lui ont été dédiées par des amis.

Dr M.A. Nauwelaerts.

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A letter by Adrian Saravia about Lipsius and ‘the family of love’

The letter here published was written to Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, by Adrian Saravia, the Flemish refugee whose name remains closely linked with the composition of the Authorized Version. Saravia had been a personal friend of Lipsius's at Leyden, where he held a professorship in theology from 1584 to 1587. (The letter was written after L.'s death, in 1608.) - The Sect ‘The Family of Love’, founded by Hendrik Niclaes (‘H.N.’), had many followers on the Continent, though never in Britain. Its hierarchy was similar to that of the Roman Church, but dogms and sacraments were equally rejected; man should aim at inner perfection, and, by attaining that perfection, become identified with God. Some of H.N.'s works were printed by Plantin; his sect was condemned by Rome in 1590, but continued to exist on the continent till about 1700.

Henri Van Crombruggen.

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The Grimms' correspondence
A Bibliographical Note

In 1948 Professor Taylor Starck published a letter of Wilhelm Grimm, which he had discovered quite by chance. He added a bibliography of all the letters of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published till now⁽¹⁾. This bibliography lists some 30 collections of letters each grouping the correspondence of the Grimms and one or more of their contemporaries; a great number of other letters, sometimes very important ones, have been published in some 85 articles scattered over 26 periodicals.

At a guess one might say that the total number of letters thus published must amount to a couple of thousands, if not more. But there is little doubt that more letters could still be dug up in European and even in American libraries, and not a few in private collections.

Of the two letters published here the former now belongs to the Musée de la Vie Wallonne in Liège. Jacob Grimm wrote it on March 25, 1850 to Charles Grandgagnage, who was then publishing a Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue wallonne (Liège 1845-1880). This letter mainly refers to a number of points in Grandgagnage's dictionary. It also contains an interesting remark on the political situation in Germany at that time. Once that situation will be settled, Grimm adds, one of our first endeavours will be to live in sincere friendship with our neighbours, the Belgians. Would that later generations had taken this to heart!

The second letter, also by Jacob, was mailed to Jean-Henri Bormans on July 21, 1851. It now belongs to the Main Library

(1) An Unpublished Letter of Wilhelm Grimm, Harvard Library Bulletin, Vol. II, N^o 2 (1948), pp. 261-266.

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of the State University in Ghent (No G. 15769⁵⁷). It alludes to two Middle Dutch texts discovered and edited by Bormans: the Life of Saint Christina (ed. 1850) and ‘Gwidekyn van Sassen’ (fragments ed. 1848).

For permission to publish these letters I have to thank Professor R. Apers, Chief Librarian of the University Library, Mr F. de Béhault, of Ghent, Mr J. Warland, Secretary of the Société de Langue et de Littérature Wallonnes, and Professor M. Piron for acting as an intermediary with the Musée de la Vie Wallonne.

Perhaps this brief note may ultimately lead to the unearthing of a few more letters of the Grimms in our libraries. And, who knows, one day we may have at our disposal an index to this rich mine of information, not only on philology, but more generally on intellectual life in the 19th century.

R. Derolez.