2000

AB -- Bibliographies and Catalogs

Epigraphy is potentially a daunting field. Millions of inscriptions in Greek and Latin as well as other Mediterranean languages have survived, and with new discoveries the number grows annually. Would-be epigraphers and those using epigraphy in support of other disciplines will turn gratefully to this guide, which provides an excellent critical overview of the complex literature of the discipline. Those more advanced in their studies or knowledge will value it as an aide-mémoire.

A selective bibliography, it sets forth the key works in numerous subfields covering the period from the Greco-Roman world to the barbarians. The first edition of 1986 developed from in-house bibliographic guides orienting students of the École normale supérieure to libraries at the École and elsewhere in Paris. This remains its principal function. The second edition in 1989 reproduced the first with only minor corrections and the addition of a second supplement covering publications appearing between 1985 and 1987. The third edition has, however, been completely revised. Containing 2,600 entries (compared to 2,051 in the second edition), it has added 950 new items and eliminated 290 superceded works.

Though expanded, the Guide remains a convenient, practical, and portable reference work. While the editors consciously chose not to circumvent space constraints by creating an electronic edition, they did embrace technological advances in a more limited way. The Guide now lists those electronic resources (CD-ROMs and Internet sites) which offer new and fruitful research possibilities. In addition, the web site of the École normale supérieure <http://www.ens.fr/antiquite/guide-epigraphiste.html provides a concordance between the item numbers of the second and third editions. The editors plan to issue periodic online supplements, and welcome comments and suggestions via e-mail <guide.epigraphiste@ens.fr.

The Guide is divided into 11 chapters, preceded by a list of abbreviations and maps indicating the principal cities and major geographical and administrative subdivisions of the ancient world. Following an appendix of 10 titles published too late for inclusion in the body of the work, the work concludes with three indexes. The first covers authors, translators, and the honorees of festschriften. The second lists geographical entities appearing in the titles of works; Roman provinces and modern states are indexed to bring together all the works concerning a given region. The third is a subject index.

In addition to a bibliographic citation, entries may contain an annotation and a call number. Brief comments describe the scope of the work and indicate reviews and essential features; rarely they evaluate. The call numbers are principally those of the library of the École normale supérieure or those of the nearest Parisian library. Some entire sections (for example, on Semitic or Egyptian epigraphy) refer the reader to the collection of the appropriate institute.

The first nine chapters on Greek and Latin epigraphy comprise about three-fourths of the work. Brief lists of general and introductory works (Chapter I) and selective collections of inscriptions (Chapter II) precede two longer sections on Greek inscriptions up to 1453 (Chapter III) and Latin inscriptions before the Merovingian period (Chapter IV). Introductory notes comment on the major corpora of inscriptions, their development or publishing history, and their supplements, complements, and replacements by more modern works. The result is a very informative though concise bibliographic survey of epigraphical publications in general and by region. Each chapter concludes by discussing electronic collections or databases of inscriptions.

There follows a listing of catalogs of the great national museum collections that assemble inscriptions from many regions (Chapter V). A long chapter (VI) is devoted to printed collections of Greek and Latin inscriptions on 13 themes, including history, warfare, law, religion, funeral inscriptions, and writings on domestic objects. A short chapter (VII) covers serial publications containing new epigraphic texts, corrections to existing texts, and critical bibliographies of new publications. An extensive classed listing of secondary works about inscriptions follows (Chapter VIII). They comprise nearly 800 important works, some 300 more than in the previous edition.

Also considerably expanded, the chapter on "Peripheral Epigraphies" (Chapter IX) explores nine fields corresponding to languages or systems of writing. Two final chapters feature collected studies by epigraphers along with bibliographies of their works (Chapter X), and major congresses, journals, reference works, and monographic series in the field (Chapter XI).

This excellent work provides a comprehensive guide to the multi-faceted discipline of epigraphy. Librarians as well as students and scholars in many fields will find it a useful resource.

Susanne F. Roberts (Yale University)
 
 

Perhaps it is unfair to compare this worthy project with inventories that have been prepared according to the exacting guidelines of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council). (These guidelines have been published as Richtlinien Handschriftenkatalogisierung [5th ed., 1992] and are available free-of-charge from the DFG.) One obvious difference is that DFG-compliant records are available online via the website of the former Deutsches Bibliotheks-Institut (go to <http://www.dbilink.de, then select "Handschriften des Mittelalters"), while the Allegro database of the Westphalian project, to the best of this reviewer's knowledge, is not presently accessible online.

The more substantial differences between the HCW and the DFG-compliant projects have to do with levels of description and investment of staff and time. The HCW is not intended to be the last word in research-level catalogs, but rather to serve mainly as an inventory bringing together holdings of libraries in the Westphalian part of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The inventory is not supposed to replace, but instead to provide the basis for later detailed coverage consistent with the DFG standard. This approach seems sound, since, unlike the south of Germany with its greater degree of ownership consolidation, in Westphalia medieval manuscripts are dispersed far more widely: the 972 manuscripts inventoried in this volume are scattered among 138 often very small collections in 83 Westphalian municipalities.

The Westphalian inventory project dates back to 1984, when Ferdinand Seibt of the Ruhr University in Bochum began collecting data on manuscripts, incunabula, and printed works in Westphalia for the period 1300-1500. When the University and State Library in Münster took over the project in 1993, it dropped incunabula and printed works from its scope, but extended the period of coverage to the entire Middle Ages up to 1550.

The HCW's descriptive points generally correspond to those of its sister publication, the Handschriftencensus Rheinland. Based on actual inspection (or "Autopsie," as this careful physical examination is called in German), description in the HCW encompasses both physical characteristics and content, ideally allowing the unambiguous identification of a given piece. Researchers will find current owner and call number, author and title (assigned, if necessary), and languages used-other than for completely Latin texts. The physical description comprises statements covering material, foliation, format, number of columns, a summary description of decoration, and statements relating to the geographic origins and the dating of the script and the identity of the scribe. Unfortunately, incipits are omitted altogether, although this information is normally regarded as indispensable for works that have not been completely or adequately identified.

Manuscript holdings of the University and State Library in Münster and the Soest Public Library, already described in published catalogs that apply the DFG guidelines, are enumerated in a highly abbreviated form in a 34-page appendix. An especially laudable achievement is the treatment of manuscripts in private collections: anonymity of owners present and past who wish it has been honored, but researchers are encouraged to contact officials in Münster for help in obtaining further information about these holdings.

Copious indexes (author, title, name, and place) complete the work, whereby the index of names integrates scribes, earlier owners, and other named individuals into a single alphabet, while the geographical index accomplishes the same for script styles, corporate entities, and other occurrences of place names. Only a subject index and a list of abbreviations are missing from this apparatus, absences that do not diminish the overall usefulness of this work as an aid for students of medieval and early modern manuscripts. [jom/jg]
 
 

This catalog presents a rich description of the incunabula holdings of the archive and library of the abbey of Aschaffenburg listed by Wendelin Renz in a publication of 1908. In preparing this work, Ludwig K. Walter has also drawn on unpublished research done by Hermann Leskien in the 1970s. The 586 entries of his catalog correspond to 389 volumes that were given as a permanent loan to the Aschaffenburg court library (Hofbibliothek) in 1967. It is fortunate that the loan agreement not only provided for the administration of this collection, but also for its cataloging.

The level of description goes much beyond what is normally found in incunabula catalog descriptions, and one wonders if the compiler was not inspired by the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke. At the top of every entry, for example, we find a biographical note on the author, and at the end a list of secondary literature consulted. In the extensive introduction, the collection is analyzed in light of traditional medieval subject classes. Separately, the compiler describes especially notable and rare books, and devotes particular attention to late Gothic blind-stamped panels used in creating the embossed bindings, making reference to the standard works of Kyriss and Schwenke/Schunke regarding materials used.

Incunabulists will find here (in addition to two unique titles, a host of confessional works, and an edition of Vergil's Bucolica) many familiar works exhaustively described. The wealth of information Walter has brought together makes his catalog useful not only for researchers and librarians on site, but also for those elsewhere interested in penetrating a bit more deeply into the history of the early printed book. [ls/jg]
 
 

There is a great need for the listing and describing of incunabula in Mecklenburg-Pomerania, as they are distributed in small collections. Sadly, World War II seriously decimated the holdings of the region. The University Library of Rostock has the largest regional collection, with holdings of 650 incunabula (in 1999). There is currently no published catalog of this collection.

The catalog reviewed here is in three parts: incunabula (1-627); fragments (628-678), including some unknown and rare items; and titles lost mostly during World War II (679-752). This last section provides as much descriptive title detail as do sections one and two. Greifswald incunabula are concentrated in three institutions: the Library of the Ecclesiastical Council, which has the largest share, followed by the University Library of Greifswald, and the State Archive of Pomerania [Vorpommersches Landesarchiv], which houses only six incunabula and five fragments. As most of the incunabula came from church or monastery libraries, theological topics in Latin predominate. The most valuable item is a complete version of a 36-line Bible in two volumes. The catalog includes extensive bibliographies, one for abbreviated citations (some errors there) and another for secondary literature.

At the time of the publication of Inkunabeln in Greifswalder Bibliotheken, the Greifswald State Archive organized an exhibit showing 35 incunabula. The book accompanying the exhibit targets the educated layperson. In addition to two-page descriptions of each item in the exhibit, the author provides an exemplary introduction to early printing and an abbreviated history of the library collections of the region. There is also a glossary of terms related to late medieval book history and a bibliography. The 90 illustrations, 72 in color, make this companion volume a beautiful addition to the scholarly catalog. [pa/hsb]
 
 

This is the second volume in a project to identify and describe all incunabula contained in the libraries of Baden-Württemberg. The first volume covered the libraries of the Diocese Rottenburg-Stuttgart (Katalog der Inkunabeln in Bibliotheken der Diözese Rottenburg-Stuttgart, 1993). The current volume describes 160 incunabula and 4 fragments, including a heretofore unknown broadsheet: Balsamum Mariae Magdalenae (in German). The exemplary catalog's thorough descriptions accurately inform the reader and provide a complete picture of the described objects. It does excellent justice to the well-kept and topically rich incunabula collection. [ls/hsb]
 
 

The Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana is widely recognized as one of the most important medieval libraries in the world, especially in the realm of manuscripts. In Sheehan's catalog of its early printed works, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae incunabula, we learn that many Vatican librarians did not value printed volumes and thought of them as having little consequence when compared to manuscripts. For example, Giovanni Andrea Bussi, an important figure in the history of printing, was librarian to two popes during the period 1467 to 1475, but the library acquired none of the printed works associated with him during his tenure. Because of this historical de-emphasis, the catalog's author, William J. Sheehan, had to perform detective work as well as cataloging to produce the Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae incunabula.

This catalog was completed in fewer than 10 years, and Sheehan made use of the previous research of important Vatican librarians, reference works, and The Illustrated Incunable Short Title Catalogue on CD-ROM. The first three volumes contain an alphabetical listing of the incunabula with basic bibliographic information, citations to other catalogs, call numbers, and notes. The fourth volume provides an index of printers, a concordance to the major reference works cited, a bibliography of works containing references to incunabula in the Vatican, and an index to incunabula bibliography. Descriptions of bindings are completely lacking. The indexes are not easy to use, and researching facts such as provenance can be frustrating to the user.

On the whole, this catalog is disappointing, and we learn little about the unique pieces in the collection. An incunabula catalog for a library of the Vatican's stature would have benefited from a more comprehensive strategy, including contributions of art historians and experts in book binding. Also, the reader would have benefited from more information about the ownership, illustrations, and coats of arms of the individual pieces. [hn/ldb]
 
 

Instead of a catalog of incunabula held by Dutch libraries (such as Incunabula in Dutch libraries: A Census of Fifteenth-Century Printed Books in Dutch Public Collections, 1983), this work is a bibliography of early works printed in Dutch-language areas listed from A(alst, French Alost) to Z(wolle). This census includes the Flemish areas of Belgium as well as the Netherlands and is a comprehensive documentation of the early printing history of these areas. The basis for the catalog is The Illustrated Incunable Short Title Catalogue on CD-ROM. The short entries for the 2,000 incunabula correspond closely to those in the ISTC, including bare-bones information about illustrations, provenance, and dating. Campbell's Annales de la typographie néerlandaise au XVe siècle (1874) lists 1,800 works. Unlike Campbell, the census does not provide text excerpts, and for this reason, the older catalog should be used along with this new one. At least one-third of the new census consists of the scholarly apparatus, appendixes, concordances, and bibliographies.

This is a useful and reliable standard reference work for the history of printing in Dutch-language areas; however, one must ask if it is necessary to buy the print version of a subset of a larger database, the ISTC. For sophisticated research, which relies on copy-specific details, the census will really only serve as an index that includes places of origin. [jm/ldb]
 
 

The art work of printing presses and artists' books has gained worth in the face of an increase in electronic self-publishing. Thus this catalog of the collection of fine printing in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, with its 1,057 entries (approx. 200 illustrated), appears at a time when more than "just" bibliophiles will appreciate it.

According to the dust jacket, the volume annotates the entire collection of post-1945 imprints acquired since 1960, although in reality some editions are represented only as a selection determined on the basis of typography and decoration. Nevertheless, it is the only available catalog at present, and provides a survey of German book art during the second half of the 20th century. The titles are listed alphabetically under the names of the press, publisher, university, etc., that published them. There is an index of artists and typographers, and a separate index of authors. The entries describe the objects including their physical form, i.e., typography, illustrations, and printing techniques, as well as bindings. No background information about presses or artists is provided; there are only occasional references to further literature.

In the age of excellent illustrated online catalogs of special collections, printed catalogs are doomed to die out. Isphording's is successful as an accounting of the acquisitions made during the author's tenure, but it is insufficient as a reference book, and has too small a format and too few illustrations to function as a coffee-table book. [rni/vh]
 
 

A brief sketch of the historical background will help in understanding this project. Order No. 4 of the Control Council required that all materials in the following two categories be turned over to the Allied Command so that they could be destroyed: (1) books, pamphlets, newspapers, music books, films etc., containing National Socialist propaganda or racist teachings and (2) all materials that contributed to military education or to the support or development of military potential. Because of protests from librarians, the order was modified so that a limited number of copies of the forbidden works were retained for research purposes in 18 libraries. A catalog was begun in 1948, with the intention of including these items in the central catalog for North Rhine Westphalia. The catalog was never completed, however, and Dirk Thies found the partial catalog (20,000 titles) in 1986 in the basement of the Cologne University Library. This partial catalog formed the basis for the "Catalogue of Politically Undesirable Literature."

Fortunately, the CD-ROM software used for this project has also been used for other databases, such as the Internationale Bibliographie der Zeitschriftenliteratur [International Bibliography of Periodical Literature], and is therefore familiar and proven. The expanded search interface allows for searching by title keyword, author, corporate body keyword, corporate body, title, series keyword, year of publication, place of publication, and subject heading. The holding libraries, if any have been determined, are indicated below the citation. Of the approximately 250,000 titles collected in 1948, 100,000 books were determined to be relevant for research purposes, but only 20,000 were included in the partial catalog. There are 26,309 in the database, a discrepancy not explained by the compiler. The titles from the CD-ROM have also been added to the database of the Hochschulbibliothekszentrum Nordrhein-Westfalen, so that they can be searched on the world-wide web, but the CD-ROM is still useful for a subject search, which is not available in the HBZ database. In addition, the CD-ROM documents both the National Socialist system itself, as well as the cultural politics of the Allies during the postwar period. [kh/vh]
 
 

The status of the serial national bibliographies in the German-speaking countries at the beginning of the 1990s was discussed in a series of extensive reviews in IFB 93-3/4-106-135. Only the subsequent changes will be discussed briefly below.

The Deutsche Nationalbibliographie [German National Bibliography], which had been re-organized at the time due to the reunification, has been appearing with nice regularity ever since, with the single exception of the Bibliographie der Bibliographien, which ceased with N.F. 5 1995 (1996). Many users now turn to the citations in the online catalog of the Deutsche Bibliothek [German National Library], so that the expensive Halbjahresverzeichnis [semiannual catalog] is no longer really necessary. The Fünfjahresverzeichnis [five-year cumulation] is still useful for archival purposes as well as for research on broad topics.

The Österreichische Bibliographie [Austrian Bibliography] has undergone the most changes. A number of subseries were introduced at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s; not many are left at the end of the decade. Here is a short survey:

The two main series, Reihe A, Verzeichnis der österreichischen Neuerscheinungen [new publications] and Reihe A, ...Sonderheft praktische Musik [practical music] continue to appear as usual. However, the following subseries have ceased: Reihe A...Sonderheft Zeitschriften [periodicals] ceased with 1992 (pub. 1993); Reihe B, Verzeichnis der österreichischen Hochschulschriften [dissertations] ceased with 1999; Reihe C, Neuere ausländische Austriaca [recent foreign publications about Austria] ceased with 1991 (pub. 1999).

There have been no changes in the Schweizer Buch [Swiss Bibliography]. [sh/vh]
 
 

This subjective regional bibliography of works printed in Lugano in the 18th century is practically identical with a list of publications from the printing shop of Agnelli, a publisher active from 1746 to 1799. The three other printers in Lugano during this period produced only a few publications, while Agnelli played a significant role, especially in the production of anti-Jesuit tracts. Because Lugano was under the political control of Switzerland, which exercised less censorship than did the Italian states, it was also used as a false imprint for numerous publications from other locations, mostly Venice. The bibliography first lists the authentic Lugano imprints and then the false. Bibliographic descriptions are extremely detailed and extensively annotated.

This is an excellent example of a regional bibliography, which makes one eager to see the additional volumes that have been announced, covering Agnelli's job work and periodicals. [sh/mjc]

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