July 6, 2011 by Kristi Young
With the
coming of summer, engagements and weddings abound. Naturally at BYU there are customs to mark the excitement of an engagement. The groom-to-be is automatically out several dollars as he treats his beloved’s roommates to a steak dinner. (FA14 1.1.3.1.1) The bride-to-be escapes with a lighter hit in the wallet. She needs to only provide her roommates with banana splits. (FA14 1.1.3.2.1)
At BYU the Greek custom of engagements that last a minimum of two years is seldom practiced. (FA14 1.2.0.1.1) The proposal that begins the engagement is always exciting. And it might involve food. Whether it is a ring in a Cracker Jack box or a ring tastefully presented by the waiter with the dessert following a romantic meal, the excitment is still the same. (FA14 1.2.1.1.1 and FA14 1.2.1.2.1)
Wedding showers are popular. A lucky groom may get a kiss for each bow he removes from his fiancees hair. (FA14 1.2.3.3.1) An unlucky one may be thrown into Botany Pond by his roommates. But whatever happens it is a time of festivity and promise.
June 29, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
The History of Printing Collection is especially rich in its holdings of Renaissance-era pamphlets and treatises about comets. The library has recently acquired two German pamphlets dating from 1665, one printed in Ulm and the other in Dresden. The Ulm pamphlet records observations made in October 1664 by astronomer Christoph Schorer, and the Dresden pamphlet, pictured here, is actually a German-language poem on the comet of December 1664-March 1665 written by Tobias Petermann, with scholarly notes in Latin and German.
To find these pamphlets and others like them, search for “comets” in the library catalog or in the “Books and More” tab on Scholarsearch. Just remember to limit your search to Special Collections materials.
June 7, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
Visiting the UK this summer? You’re probably bringing along a guidebook to help you navigate, see the sights, and understand the local culture. Old guidebooks can provide an interesting snapshot of place and time. For example, Special Collections owns numerous 19th century guidebooks to places in the British Isles, including Scotland, the English Lake District, and the city of London. These books not only can give historians a better understanding of the geography of specific locales, but can help modern researchers better understand the culture and values of earlier times. Guidebooks like the “Hand-book of Modern London” for 1856 (pictured here) not only describes how the city looked and functioned in the time of Dickens, they answer questions like: what were the most valued places in London, and why? How were those attractions marketed to tourists and visitors?
To find guidebooks and travelogues in Special Collections, go to the library catalog and perform a subject search on a given location using the location name and the term “guidebooks” or “description and travel.”
May 18, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
One of the newest acquisitions for the History of Printing Collection is this example from the press of Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia. The work is a 1758 pamphlet entitled A Mite into the Treasury by Society of Friends (Quaker) minister David Hall. Hall ran a school in Yorkshire, England, and was the author of many works of guidance and support for members of the Society of Friends.
Franklin learned the printing trade as an apprentice to his older brother James in Boston, moving to Philadelphia in 1728 (at age 22) to establish his own printing business. He was so successful that he was able to retire from active business 20 years later, though the press continued to operate under the supervision of Franklin’s business partner David Hall (no relation to the pamphlet’s author). Hall bought out Franklin’s share of the business in 1766.
Franklin and Hall often reprinted Quaker tracts originally produced in the British Isles at their press; besides A Mite into the Treasury, the library owns two other Quaker-related titles printed by Franklin and Hall in 1757. The library also owns an earlier example of Franklin’s work, a travel account by George Whitefield which Franklin issued in 1740. These items can be found in the library catalog by searching Special Collections’ holdings for works by Benjamin Franklin.
May 3, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
L. Tom Perry Special Collections holds around two dozen medieval manuscripts (or manuscript fragments). Recently, the library digitized one of these treasures: an English manuscript dating from 1343 entitled Regimen Animarum. The manuscript was written for the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The text is in Latin and is a religious manual for ecclesiastical officials, covering preaching, teaching, and administering religious rites and sacraments. It also contains four leaves of music, a version of the New Office of the Corpus Christi, a portion of which is shown above.
The manuscript can be viewed online here or by searching the library’s Digital Collections.
April 20, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
A recent donation of a Gutenberg Bible facsimile now graces Special Collections’ reading room. The facsimile is bound in two volumes in a German medieval-style reproduction binding. Here is a detail of some of the illuminations in the facsimile:
Patrons wishing to consult the facsimile must abide by Special Collections’ reading room policies. It can be viewed during Special Collections’ hours of operation.
April 8, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
This month, Special Collections is displaying a number of books from its collection of works of the Aldine Press. Founded by Renaissance scholar Aldus Manutius (or Aldo Manuzio) in Venice, the Aldine Press is still renowned today for its attractive typography, excellent book design, and its historical contributions to the scholarship of the late 15th and 16th centuries. As both a printer and a scholar, Aldus demonstrated to the printing world that scholarly books could be produced finely as well as profitably. The Aldine Press also contributed to the survival of many ancient Greek and Roman texts and greatly facilitated the diffusion of the values and scholarship of the Italian Renaissance across the rest of Europe. The library holds over 500 titles produced by the Aldine Press. In addition, the library has collected books published by the press’s agents in Paris, a selection of the “Lyon forgeries” (unauthorized reproductions of Aldine publications produced in Lyon, France, during the lifetime of Aldus the Elder), as well as a fair number of other sixteenth-century imitations. This represents one of the finest collections of Aldine and related books in North America. For more information about the Aldine Collection, view our online exhibit, In Aedibus Aldi.
The exhibit is on display in both Special Collections’ lobby and the reference area outside our reading room. It is open during Special Collections’ normal operating hours.
March 25, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
One of Special Collections’ most recent acquisitions is a copy of the new facsimile of the Codex Sinaiticus issued by the British Library. The Codex Sinaiticus is a very important Greek manuscript dating from the 4th century. It is one of the two oldest manuscripts of the Bible in existence, and the oldest copy of the New Testament in Greek in existence. The manuscript was broken up during the 19th century and the fragments are in four different libraries. In the past decade, efforts have been made to reunite these fragments by digitizing them. The British Library has released the images of the entire manuscript both online and in print form.
The new facsimile bears the call number Rare Book Collection Folio BS 64 .S3 2010. Scholars may also wish to consult earlier facsimiles of the manuscript: the 1922 Old Testament facsimile (Vault Collection Folio 221.42 Si61L 1922) or the 1862 facsimile issued by the manuscript’s modern discoverer, Constantin von Tischendorf (Vault Collection Folio 220.42 Si61 1862).
March 7, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
BYU’s multi-year project to digitize its unique collection of French political pamphlets continues making strides. To date, nearly 1500 items have been scanned and posted online at http://www.lib.byu.edu/dlib/fpp/.
The collection includes works printed between 1547 and 1626 which cover such topics as French laws and statutes, economy, propaganda, religion, and social and cultural commentary.
February 22, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
At Brigham Young University, the spotlight is shining on the King James Bible, which was first published during the year 1611. To celebrate the King James version’s 400th anniversary, during the month of February BYU has hosted a university forum address by Bible scholar David Norton, and the Religious Studies Center will present a symposium on the role of the King James translation in the Restoration. In conjunction with this symposium, L. Tom Perry Special Collections will host a small exhibit of King James Bibles in our collections, including a first edition of the King James Bible and a Bible owned by Hyrum Smith. The Bibles will be displayed Feb. 23-Mar. 4, 2011 in Special Collections’ lobby area during our’ normal operating hours.
The Harold B. Lee Library will present a major exhibit celebrating the life and legacy of the King James Bible later this year. It is scheduled to run from August 2011-May 2012 on level 1 of the library.
February 7, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
Valentine’s Day greetings were just as popular with the Victorians as they are today. In 1865, the British postmaster general reported that 542,000 valentines were mailed annually within London and more than double that amount sent from London to the countryside. No wonder that in 1870, one newspaper noted that “[St. Valentine] is the terror and annoyance of postmen, as well as of men of business, whose letters are seriously delayed about the middle of February”!
The library’s Victorian Literature Collection contains an assortment of valentine greetings from the 19th century. They provide an interesting peek at the types of cards available to Victorians from different decades and different economic classes: cheaply-produced woodcut valentines from the 1840’s; expensive, intricate three-dimensional cards from the 1860’s, and modern-looking illustrated greeting cards from the 1870’s and 1880’s.
Victorians produced an array of romantic or sentimental valentines, not unlike the sorts of greetings available today. More shocking to modern sensibilities are the Victorians’ “comic valentines,” which were not so much funny as they were rude or insulting. Comic valentines were especially popular in the early Victorian period and tended to be marketed and sold to the lower classes. Comic valentines would usually be sent anonymously. The recipient could be teased or insulted for their age, appearance, trade, hobbies, and other traits. Old maids were particular targets. The comic valentines pictured here date from about 1840.
January 26, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
BYU’s Motion Picture Archive Film Series is screening the 1940 Errol Flynn movie “The Sea Hawk” this Friday. The film is set during England’s naval wars with Spain in the 16th century and stars Flynn as an English sea captain.
Special Collections owns primary documentary evidence of these wars from the Spanish point of view, a collection of letters dated 1591-1597 from King Philip II of Spain to the governor of Spain’s northern coast. These letters document Spain’s naval offensive and related intelligence regarding England, Scotland, and Ireland; shipping and smuggling; and ship-building. The entire collection has been digitized and placed on the library’s Digital Collections site, accompanied by full transcriptions and English summaries.
So after checking out these letters, come see King Philip II of Spain make an on-screen appearance in “The Sea Hawk”!
January 4, 2011 by Maggie Kopp
The Harold B. Lee Library has scanned and made available the British Social Periodicals held in the JFC Harrison collection online at the Internet Archive. The collection includes full-text scans of periodicals related to political, cultural, and social movements, including temperance, free-thought, and working-class educational associations. The digital collection also includes literary items related to Special Collections’ current exhibit, Literary Worlds.
December 26, 2010 by Maggie Kopp
Hunting has been a popular sport in Europe since the Middle Ages. Medieval manuscripts depict aristocrats hunting on horseback and on foot, with hawks and hounds, and provide insight into the methods and practices used in organized hunts. Over the centuries, printed books about hunting, falconry, and fishing have been popular with sportsmen and book collectors for their informational content and their illustrations.
The books pictured here include a facsimile of Henri de Ferrières’ Livre de chasse du roi Modus; Thomas Speedy’s Sport in the Highlands; and Charles Estienne’s L’agriculture et maison rustique.
These and other books can be located in the library catalog by performing a subject search using the terms “hunting;” “falconry;” or “fishing.”
December 8, 2010 by Kristi Young
Sinterklass is a Dutch tradition that is also popular in other areas in Europe, especially those with a Germanic background. One young mother from the Netherlands whose husband is from the United States recreates this tradition in her Santaquin, Utah home with her children. Generally on December 5, Sinterklaas and his horse and his servant Zwarte Piet visit homes during the evening leaving behind some gifts for the children in their shoes. The children leave carrots and water for the horse and a cup of milk for Sinterklaas.
The next morning the children are surprised with traditional treats as well as a present or two. In this picture the little girl is interested in the food, while her brother can hardly wait to open the presents.
The Wilson Folklore Archive contains accounts of Sinterklaas and the shoes–although not everyone is lucky enough to have wooden shoes. Sometimes it is a family tradition and other times it is a tradition picked up while serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Find more information at Customs 8.1.8.4.1 to 8.12.1.8.6.3.
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