The Special Collections library at the University of Iowa is an amazing archive -- but it is not generally known as a repository of Renaissance books. There is a rich collection of early modern books here -- a collection that is, nevertheless, mostly hidden from scholars and students. In my own research and (especially) my teaching, I aim to use and build on the strengths of the collection in order to make it visible and accessible. I maintain a few freely available lists of books I often use in class sessions, and I encourage students to undertake their own investigations.
There are many discoveries to be made in "hidden" collections around the world -- and I'm not the first one to have this idea right here in Iowa City.
Curses and Cuttings
There may be no better way of demonstrating discontinuous, indexical reading than paging through a Geneva bible, with all of its cross-referenced (and occasionally ideologically entertaining) marginalia. Bibles are more likely than "literary" books to show signs of use, and because there were simply so many bibles printed in the early modern period, just about any special collections library is likely to have a good number of them. That is certainly the case here at Iowa, which is why I always incorporate a unit on bibles in my book history courses.
X-ray Vision
Last Friday, while everyone else prepared to flee Iowa City for spring break, I took a field trip to the Oakdale research campus north of town, to visit the research lab and papermaking studio of our resident paper expert, Tim Barrett. You may have heard of Tim -- he's a renowned expert in the field, and in 2009 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (making him not only the expert on paper here at the UI Center for the Book, but a certified genius as well). Joining me were the Curator of Rare Books in the UI Special Collections, David Schoonover (who packed a suitcase full of rare books for us), and Rachel Stevenson, an undergraduate English major who is conducting an independent study with me this semester on the topic of early modern reading.
The Importance of Being Indexed
I recently taught Sir John Harington’s “Briefe Apologie of Poetrie,” which prefaces his monumental translation of Orlando Furioso (1591; the 1634 edition from the Iowa Special Collections is pictured above; the catalog record is here). Harington’s “Apologie” is just as much a defense of himself as of poetry in general, particularly his decision to expend so much effort on a work that so many would find trivial, if not outright offensive. As he writes (in the excerpt below): “But now it may be and is by some obiected, that although he [Ariosto] write Christianly in some places, yet in other some, he is too lasciuious.” After listing several examples of just this kind of lasciviousness, Harington predicts the likely reaction of readers (if not twenty-first century students) at this point, writing that “I see some of you searching already for these places of the book, and you are halfe offended that I haue not made some directions that you might finde out and read them immediately.”
Festina lente
If the Renaissance had a trademark, it would be the the dolphin-and-anchor device of Aldus Manutius. The famed Venetian printer and humanist scholar produced a series of elegant and convenient editions of the classics in the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries, and the Aldine press was so successful and renowned that the device was imitated by printers throughout Europe. By using an anchor device, printers could capitalize on the existing authority and prestige of the Aldine press--an act of appropriation and allusion that would be reenacted by numerous publishing firms over the following centuries. And it is in that spirit (of both attribution and arrogation) that the anchor device has lent itself, once again, as the title of this blog. For the inaugural post, then, I'm going to combine two things that this blog will feature frequently -- thinking about the meaning of early modern books (and their various and sundry features) and looking for interesting examples of those books (a lot of which will be found right here, out on the prairie of Iowa).
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