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Book Category: Conservation

Pentateuch from Plantin’s Polyglot Bible

The Plantin Polyglot or Biblia regia constitutes the third large-scale polyglot bible edition in European history, after the famous Complutensian polyglot of 1514–7, and Johns Hopkins’ superb copy of the Genoa polyglot psalter of 1516. Many of the original 1,200 copies were lost in a shipwreck en route to Spain. A handful of copies of the Plantin Polyglot Bible are found today in European and American libraries.

Published in eight volumes between 1569 and 1572 in Antwerp by the leading printer of the northern Renaissance, Christopher Plantin (around 1520–89), this bold project was underwritten directly by King Philip II of Spain. Produced by an international team of linguists, biblical scholars, and more than 40 printers, the Plantin Polyglot is a breathtaking masterpiece both of philology and typography. It is, simply put, one of the most famous books ever printed.

The first volume of Johns Hopkins’ copy, which is used frequently for teaching and scholarship, is in need of conservation treatment. It contains the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Hebrew Bible—in the original Hebrew with parallel translations in Latin and Greek as well as an Aramaic commentary (targum) below the main texts.

Conservation Treatment

Remove from current binding, mend and guard all spine folds and other tears/losses in paper, re-sew, and re-bind using conservation-grade materials and structure.

Jane Beltzhoover Commonplace Book

This commonplace book, a reading-diary or scrapbook, is inscribed with the signature of one Jane Beltzhoover and “Berlin, 1882.” It contains recipes, newspaper clippings, passages of literature and poetry, sewing and crochet instructions, prints of cultural institutions and artifacts, and travel ephemera compiled between 1882 and 1885.

The manuscript pages are written in both English and German and the clippings primarily are from from American and German publications on political and social issues, topics of general interest, and cultural events. A few of the articles relate to the relationship between the North and South following the American Civil War and the legacy of slavery in the United States. At the rear of the book is a broadside of the minstrel song “Swannee Ribber, or, Old Folks at Home” printed by P.J. Dennis of Baltimore.

There are also articles related to scientific and mathematical news, including an op-ed about academic freedom by Johns Hopkins president Daniel Coit Gilman and an article about the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition to the Canadian Arctic. The book contains political ephemera, such as tickets and clippings related to the 1884 United States presidential election between Grover Cleveland and James Blaine. It also includes a “Catalogue of W.T. Walters’ Picture Galleries,” the art collection of William T. Walters that was later bequeathed by his son, Henry Walters, to the City of Baltimore and established the Walters Art Gallery.

Conservation Treatment

Disbind, mend any tears or losses in paper, re-sew with compensation guards to accommodate scrapbook additions, reattach original boards with new spine, and house in custom enclosure.

On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books

When De humani corporis fabrica libri septem [On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books] by Andreas Vesalius (1514–64) first appeared in print in 1543, it was an instant sensation. Vesalius’ text on many levels superseded the ancient and much repeated canonical authority of Galen of Pergamum (129-216/217 AD). The volume’s beautiful folio-size engravings offer unprecedented and minutely detailed studies of bones, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, abdominal viscera, thoracic organs, and the brain.

The book derives from the anatomist’s lectures at the storied medical school at the University of Padua, where he developed his preference of teaching anatomy based on the dissection of human corpses. Unusual for the time, rather than rely on a barber surgeon to conduct these dissections, Vesalius preferred to do much of the work himself. No comparable work on human anatomy had been published up that that time, making the De fabrica one of the most influential, and widely reprinted and imitated, works in the entire history of science.

This copy is of special interest for it also retains its early, and possibly original, monastic binding over wood boards, which is finely tooled and embossed with metal corners. The original price paid for the book is also recorded in the front free endpapers in a contemporary manuscript annotation.

Conservation Treatment

Repair paper as needed, create new extensions to current sewing supports, re-sew loose sections, and re-attach original boards and re-back with new alum-tawed spine.

Dada: Literary and Artistic Review

The Sheridan Libraries’ collection of materials relating to Dada, one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, is among the finest in the United States. These materials include the first four issues of the journal Dada (1917–9) published in Zurich by Romanian-born Tristan Tzara (1896–63), a seminal figure for the Parisian Dadaist group who went on to publish additional issues in Paris.

While a safe distance away from the carnage of World War I in neutral Switzerland, Tristan Tzara and his Dadaist colleagues used this journal as their literary and artistic mouthpiece to creatively—and cunningly—undermine the values that were bringing the world to the brink of total destruction. The outcome is an unmistakable style that would go on to influence nearly every subsequent avant-garde movement around the world.

Conservation Treatment

All issues need to be stabilized with minor papers repairs and rehoused so they may be used by students, faculty, and researchers.

Dada: recueil littéraire et artistique. No. 1, July 1917.

 

Dada: recueil littéraire et artistique. No. 4/5, May 1919.

Fervor of Buenos Aires

Among the Sheridan Libraries’ burgeoning holdings in Latin American literature, this first edition of Jorge Luis Borges’ (1899-1986) first book of poetry, Fervor de Buenos Aires, may be the crown jewel. It is one of only sixteen copies known in public collections, out of an original print run of 300.

Published in 1923, this unassuming little book comprises forty-six poems in deeply incisive and personal free verse that heralded Borges’ rise as the Argentine poet par excellence and helped to inspire the Latin American “Boom” movement in turn.

Apart from its scarcity and importance as a literary work, this copy is exceptional for its provenance. It was owned by José Robles Pazos (1897-1937), who was a Johns Hopkins professor of Spanish from 1920 until his mysterious death in the Spanish Civil War. Robles dedicated this copy to friend and novelist John Dos Passos (1896-1970) in an inscription that likens the Fervor de Buenos Aires to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, published just one year earlier.

Conservation Treatment

Remove from the current binding, mend the paper as needed, re-sew, rebind using conservation-grade materials and structure, and create custom housing.

Dada Journal 691

The Sheridan Libraries’ collection of materials relating to Dada, one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, is among the finest in the United States. These materials include 691, the sole issue of a magazine printed by Pierre Andre Benoit that contains reproductions of works by Marcel Duchamp and Tristan Tzara, as well as a paper cut-out print by Jean Arp. Very rare.

Conservation Treatment

All issues need to be stabilized with minor papers repairs and rehoused so they may be used by students, faculty, and researchers.

Dada Journal 391

The Sheridan Libraries’ collection of materials relating to Dada, one of the most significant avant-garde movements of the twentieth century, is among the finest in the United States. These materials include four numbers of 391, the provocative Dada art review edited by artist Francis Picabia (1879-1953).

Published from 1917 to 1924 in Barcelona, New York, Zürich, and Paris in nineteen issues, 391 was modeled after Alfred Stieglitz’s pioneering journal 291. Today the issues are extremely rare.

When Picabia joined the Dadaists in Paris in 1919, he brought his journal with him. In Paris, between the years of 1919 and 1924, he published issues number nine through eighteen of 391 with contributions by such figures as writer Robert Desnos, artists Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and René Magritte, and composer Erik Satie.

Conservation Treatment

All issues need to be stabilized with minor papers repairs and rehoused so they may be used by students, faculty, and researchers.

391, no. 12, March 1920
391, no. 13, July 1920
391, no. 19, October 1924