Goran Proot
"Wherein True Bliss is Buried": A Tragi-Comedy for the Prince of Poland, Brussels 1624
In the fall of 1960 an auction catalog was delivered to the Acquisitions Department of the Folger Shakespeare Library in which the following small typewritten notice was enclosed: The typewritten note from Sotheby’s The auction catalog was from Sotheby’s and…
Measuring Hamlet and the golden section
It is an understatement to say that the layout of most books doesn’t show much daring, and that academic publications are among the most dull in this respect. But solid content and tasteful form do not necessarily exclude each other,…
The Single Vine Leaf, aka the "Aldine Leaf"
I have always been a devotee of the “Aldine leaf”, even long before I knew its exact name or where it actually came from, and I am still delighted spotting it in early modern typography or when it is expertly…
Ten copies of the “bad” 1640 Sonnets in good and bad shape
The Folger Shakespeare Library has ten copies of the second edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets (STC 22344). All ten copies of STC 22344 in a row Engraved portrait (fol. p1v) and the first title page (fol. *1r) from copy 1 The…
Mors comoedia. A comedy a hundred years old brought to life again in 1726
Sheer chance is an important factor in research. Some sixteen years ago I was surveying a sammelband held at Antwerp University Library that contained 257 programs documenting theater performances in Jesuit schools in Flanders. For the results of this research,…
Opening Ornamental Initials
During the last couple of months at the Folger, we have come across a number of exceptional ornamental initials in Flemish imprints, as we are processing these systematically together with two interns. Bettie Payne and Amanda Daxon were trained to make…
An important auction
broadside advertising a 1617 auction (click to enlarge in a new window/tab) Let it be known that amongst the furniture of the late Duke of Aerschot, there are about 2000 paintings in all kinds of colors by a variety of excellent…
Capital News from the Low Countries
What from a distance may look like a pasture, perhaps with oddly shaped poppies or some other flowers on the foreground and two buildings in the background, is actually much less pleasant. (Click any image in this post to enlarge…
Winning the lottery
On Saturday 4 November 1617, the archdukes of the Southern Netherlands, Albert and Isabella, granted permission to the “gentil homme Lucquois” Matthias Micheli to organize a lottery for the foundation of the “Bergen van Barmhartigheid” or “Monts de piété.” First…
Second Thoughts on Second Editions. The Dutch Fingerprint (Part II)
In my previous Collation post I explained what a bibliographic fingerprint is and how it works. The examples I will discuss in this post will demonstrate how useful the fingerprint is to compare copies remotely and to identify title editions…
Detective Work: The Dutch Fingerprint (Part I)
Previous Collation posts may convince even the most skeptical reader that bibliographic work often requires detective work. In some cases, this may involve bibliographers to take fingerprints. Fingerprints are regularly used by bibliographers to find out whether or not two…
A treasure chest 6.75 meters long
It is not a secret that in most libraries—and I am tempted to write “in all libraries”—treasures are slumbering and waiting for their discovery. This sort of thing may happen when you least expect it, for instance when you call…