Crawford, J.P. Wickersham

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Kosmopolis

The Spanish and Italian Collections

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The Library ChronicleVolume 1Number 2 University of Pennsylvania LibraryChronicleArticle 26-1-1933The Spanish and Italian CollectionsJ.P. Wickersham CrawfordThis paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/librarychronicle/vol1/iss2/2For more information, please contact libraryrepository@pobox.upenn.edu.The University of PennsylvaniaLIBRARY CHRONICLEIssued Four Times a YearBy and For the Friends of the LibraryOf the University of PennsylvaniaVol. 1 No. 2 June, 1933THE SPANISH AND ITALIAN COLLECTIONSBy Dr. J. P. Wickcrsham CrawfordAs the first purchase from the fund generously establishedby the late Mrs. Sabin W. Colton, Jr., our Library came into pos-session of the Spanish collection of the late Hugo A. Rennert,who was professor of romanic languages from 1885 until hisdeath on December 31, 1927. This library was generally re-garded as the most valuable private collection of old Spanishbooks in the world. Dr. Rennert was known chiefly as the bio-grapher of Lope de Vega, the founder of the Spanish nationaldrama, and, as might be expected, his collection is especially richin old editions of this famous playwright and poet who was bornin 1565.While preparing his "Life of Lope de Vega," Dr. Rennertmade a collection of the non-dramatic works of his favoriteauthor, which consists almost wholly of first editions and is un-paralleled in this country. Here are found the more important ofhis youthful works: "The Beauty of i^ngelica" (1602), writtenby Lope in 1588 while soldiering in the Invincible Armada; a rareedition of "The Arcadia" (1605), in which he describes the un-happy love affairs of his young patron, Don Antonio, Duke ofAlba ; and copies of the three editions of "The Pilgrim in His OwnCountry" (1604, 1608, 1618), which include the most authenticlists of Lope's plays that we possess. No other library in theUnited States contains these three editions.Mention should also be made of the very rare editions ofLope's "Verses" (1605 and 1611), the latter containing thefamous treatise on "The New Art of Writing Plays," addressed tothe Academy of Madrid, in which in a bantering tone Lope de-fends the so-called irregularities in his plays and his violation ofthe sacrosanct classical unities; and the first edition of "JerusalemConquered" (1609), an epic poem In which he attempted, with-out success, to rival Tasso's "Jerusalem Dehvered."Other notable volumes, most of them first editions, that rep-resent the later years of Lope's literary activity, are "Filomena"(1622), noteworthy for its defense against the Euphuistic poetsof the day; "Circe" (1624) ; "The Tragic Crown" (1627), a re-ligious epic that mirrors Spanish resentment at the execution ofMary, Queen of Scots; "Apollo's Laurel" (1630), in which heextols the poets of his time; the "Dorotea" (1632), a semi-auto-biographical novel in which Lope describes unblushingly some ofhis youthful escapades; and the diverting volume entitled "Rimesof Tome de Burguillos" (1634), In which Lope's wit appears atits best.Lope de Vega died In the year 1635, and contemporaryaccounts tell us that all Madrid mourned his passing. And hisfame had spread to Italy, as is attested by the little book pub-lished the following year at Venice with the title "Poetical Obse-quies, or the Lament of the Italian Muses on the Death of Lopede Vega, Distinguished and Incomparable Spanish Poet."As a poet, Lope holds a position of high rank, but as thefounder of the national drama In Spain his position is supreme,and It Is In Its priceless collection of his plays that the Rennertcollection surpasses all others with the exception of the NationalLibrary at Madrid and the British Museum. The world has neverseen dramatic inventiveness equal to his, even when due allowanceis made for probable exaggeration In his own statements andthose of his friends regarding the number of plays he wrote. Theepithet "Nature's prodigy," applied to him by Cervantes, has beenaccepted by posterity. Lope did not ascribe much Importance tothe composition of his dramatic works, and a hundred more orless In his estimates of his production seem to have meant littleto him. In 1632 he wrote that he had composed no less thanfifteen hundred, while his friend Perez de Montalban In 1636 setthe mark at eighteen hundred. Dr. Rennert and other scholarshave spent much time In trying to Identify the genuine plays ofLope; no easy task, for In the heyday of his popularity, un-scrupulous printers frequently placed his name on mediocre worksin order to sell them. Careful study reveals that four hundredand thirty-one comedies of Lope are extant, and of this numberProfessor Rennert's collection contains about three hundred inoriginal editions. Some idea of the total may be gathered by acritic's statement that if a person should set to work to read theextant plays, at the rate of eight hours of reading each day, hewould require a little over six months to complete his task.16The chief repository of the plays of Lope de Vega consistsin the twenty-five volumes or parts published between 1604 and1647, with an average of twelve plays to each volume. Completesets are found only in two foreign libraries, and even separatevolumes have become so rare that they practically never appearon the book market. Dr. Rennert's set is complete with the ex-ception of the sixteenth volume and portions of the third andeighteenth. No collection on this side of the Atlantic can becompared with it. In addition to those already mentioned, itcontains extra editions of a number of these volumes, as, for ex-ample, four copies of the first part, all of which are important forthe preparation of critical texts.The library is also notably rich in editions of the Valencianplaywrights, and Calderon de la Barca and Moreto. Practicallyevery one of the minor dramatists of the Golden Age is found herein original editions.Early editions of Spanish lyric poets also form an exceed-ingly important section. Juan de Mena, the most distinguishedpoet of the fifteenth century, is represented in the rare black-letteredition of "Las Trecientas" (1520), and also by an edition of thecomplete works printed by Martin Nucio at Antwerp in 1552.Auzias March, who sang so passionately of his love for TeresaBou, appears in the Catalan original of Barcelona, 1545. Boscanand Garcilaso de la Vega, devoted friends during their lifetime,who by their metrical innovations changed the whole course ofSpanish poetry, appear together in an edition published at Sala-manca in 1547, while Garcilaso stands alone in an edition, almostunknown to bibliographers, printed at Coimbra in 1600.Fernando de Herrera appears as an inspired patriotic poetin the rare edition of Seville, 1619, and as a rather pedantic com-mentator in his famous edition of Garcilaso (1580), which hasnever been reprinted. Lopez Maldonado's "Cancionero" (1586)contains graceful verse that has only recently been reprinted, andincludes one of the first published compositions of Cervantes. The"Discourses, Epistles and Epigrams" (1605) of the AragoneseRey de Artieda is chiefly interesting for its criticism of Lope deVega and other popular dramatists who, in the poet's opinion, ca-tered overmuch to the tastes of the groundlings. Pedro de Espinosa,in the first part of his "Flowers of Illustrious Poets of Spain"(1605), gives us the most important anthology of the poetry of histime. This copy was formerly in the library of the noted bibli-ographer, Gallardo, and bears important marginal notes datingback to the early seventeenth century. Another rarity is the volumeof "Tragical and Lyrical Works" (1609) of Cristobal de Virueswhich contains the lyrical verse of this soldier-poet, as well as five17tragedies which are among the rarest in Spanish Hterature, and noless rare is the first edition of the poetical works of the distin-guished diplomat and humanist, Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza,published at Madrid In 1610, thirty-five years after his death.Not all the poets accepted the sonnet and other verse formsthat Boscan and Garcilaso imported from Italy, and the chiefchampion of old-fashioned verse and traditional measures wasCristobal de Castillejo, of whose works there is an edition ofAntwerp, 1598. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-turies ballad literature, for which Spain is famous, flourishedalongside of the Italianate forms, and of these we find notableexamples in the "Cancionero de Romances" (1555), "RomanceroGeneral" (Medina del Campo, 1602), and "Romancero General"(Madrid, 1604).Charming translations of Anacreon and other classical poetsare found in the "Erotic or Amatory Rimes" (1617) of EstebanManuel de Villegas with the title page containing a cut that rep-resents the rising sun, with the caption Me surgente quid istae? bywhich the young poet bumptiously referred to his own exaltedmerits. It excited so much ridicule on the part of his contempo-raries that the title page was suppressed almost as soon as theedition appeared. Francisco de Quevedo Villegas Is representedby two volumes of great rarity, "The Spanish Parnassus and Cas-tlHanMuses" ( 1660) , "The Last Three Castihan Muses" (1670),as well as by Important editions of his prose works.The rather doubtful honor of making fashionable the arti-ficial, over-ornate style that characterized Spanish poetry in theseventeenth century Is generally accorded to Luis Carrillo y Soto-mayor, whose works are found here In the edition of 1613. HisInnovations seem timid enough when compared with the bold ex-periments of Luis de Gongora, a far greater poet who was thestorm center of a most bitter literary controversy In the earlyyears of the seventeenth century. Gongora Is here represented byrare editions of 1644, 1648, and 1658, and also by a valuablemanuscript collection. The library also contains the first edition(1629) of the verse of one of Gongora's most devoted admirersand imitators, the Count of Villamediana, who met a tragic deathone evening In the year 1622 on his return from an entertainmentat the Royal Palace. Rumor whispered that the Count had paidcourt too openly to the Queen. There is also an important manu-script collection of this poet's works.Important Cervantes items are editions of "Don Quixote"of 1607 and 1608 and a French translation of 1639; an edition ofthe "Exemplary Novels" of 1615, with an Italian translation of181629; a copy of the exceedingly rare first edition of the "EightComedies and Eight Interludes" (1615), sumptuously bound inred morocco; and the 1617 edition of the "Wanderings of Per-siles and Sigismunda." Of great sentimental interest is Haedo's"Topography and History of Algiers" (1612), which incidentallydescribes the heroism of Cervantes during his years of captivityby the Barbary pirates. The author, a good friar, wrote his nar-rative long before Cervantes became famous.Spain's pastoral novel began with the publication of Monte-mayor's "Diana," a famous book that merited imitation by Shake-speare. The library contains editions of 1561, 1580, 1585, and1624; French translations of 1592 and 1615, and the even rareredition of Montemayor's lyric poetry published in 1554. Prac-tically all the subsequent novels of this type are found here infirst or early editions, for example, "The Golden Age in the Forestsof Erifile" (1608) of Balbuena; "The Constant Amarihs" (1609)of Suarez de Figueroa; "Cintia of Aranjuez" (1629) by Gabrielde Corral; and "Experiences of Love and Fortune" (1633) byFrancisco de las Cuevas.The creation of the rogue or picaresque novel was Spain'sgreatest contribution to European fiction in the sixteenth century,and nearly all the famous Spanish rogues are found in the library.The prototype, "Lazarillo de Tormes" is here in an edition pub-lished at Antwerp in 1555, one year after the original edition.His illustrious descendant "Guzman de Alfarache" by Mateo Ale-man follows in an edition of 1615, and in a beautiful Englishtranslation (1622) by James Mabbe (who signed himself DiegoPuede-Ser, translating his name into Spanish), which contains,along with other interesting preliminary matter, verses by BenJonson in praise of the author and the translator. From the SalvaLibrary comes a copy of "The Entertaining Journey" (1603) byAgustin de Rojas, with its delightful description of the experi-ences of a troupe of strolling players. Other rogue novels are thefamous "Picara Justina" (1608), with a French translation ofthe year 1636, and Vicente Espinel's "Life of Marcos de Ob-regon" (1618).The Italian collection at our University owes its importanceto Francis Campbell Macaulay who, during a residence abroad ofmany years, collected rare Italian books and, on his death atNaples in 1896, bequeathed his library to the University of Penn-sylvania. The Dante collection, consisting of about 2500 volumes,was catalogued with the assistance of Dr. Theodore W. Koch andwas opened to the public in 1901.Editions of the "DIvina Commedia" naturally deserve first19mention. The earliest is the Nidobeatlne text printed at Milanin 1477-78, which is closely followed by the rare Venice edition of1478. The two other incunabula in the collection are the Veniceedition of 1484 with Landino's commentary, and the Venice edi-tion of 1497 with occasional woodcuts and vignettes.The Aldine edition printed at Venice in 1502 leads the six-teenth century texts. This is of interest because of the correct-ness of the text and typographical beauty, and also because it isthe earliest edition in octavo. Beside it stands the first of theAldine counterfeits printed at Lyons in 1502 or 1503.Among the sixteenth century editions, which number twenty-eight, may be mentioned the exceedingly rare text printed at Flor-ence in 1506; the handsome folio edition of Venice, 1507; Venice,1512; Venice, 1515; Paganino's edition of 1515; and the folioedition of Venice, 1529, the first to contain a portrait of Danteworthy of that name.Other rarities include a complete set of the volumes of the"Divina Commedia" issued by the city of Brescia in 1828; theedition of Filippo Macchiavelli (1819) with three volumes oforiginal drawings by Gian Giacomo Macchiavelli, published atRome in 1806-07; and the first edition of "De vulgari eloquentia"published at Paris In 1577.The collection contains twenty-five translations In English ofthe "Divlna Commedia," and versions in Armenian, Bohemian,Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian dialects, Latin,and Spanish.The two earliest editions of Petrarch In the Library are theVenice, 1490, edition of the "Trionfi, SonettI et Canzoni" and theCremona, 1492, edition of the treatise "De remedlls utrlusquefortunae." We also have the Venice, 1501, edition of the "Opera,"the second collective edition of the Latin works, and the fourthedition of the same, together with the Italian verse, published atBale in 1554. We have a total of thirteen editions of the "Rime"published during the sixteenth century.Of Boccaccio we have a fifteenth century manuscript of the"Teselde;" a very rare edition of the Latin work "De genealogiisdeorum gentillum," Venice, 1472, bound with the treatise "Demontlbus, sylvls, etc.," Venice, 1473; Marchlglano's very raretranslation of the "De Mullerlbus Claris," Venice, 1506; editionsprinted at Venice of "Fllocolo" (1488) and "Flammetta" (1491);the Florence edition, 1516, of the "Corbaccio," and various edi-tions of the "Ameto" beginning with the Florentine of 1521.The Library contains eighteen sixteenth century editions of20the "Gerusalemme Liberata" beginning with three published in1581 at Ferrara, Casalmaggiore, and Lyons, the last of which isespecially rare. We have also a nearly complete collection inoriginal editions of the controversial works written to criticize anddefend Tasso's epic. The many editions of the "Rime" begin withthose printed at Venice and at Ferrara in 1582; and the collectionincludes many texts of the "Aminta," beginning with the Aldine of1581, and the first edition of "II Re Torrismondo" of Bergamo,1587.Aside from the works of the four masters, the Library fur-nishes good facilities for the study of Italian literature and lin-guistics, especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Ofparticular note is the collection of Italian lyric poets of that period,a collection which we have been gradually gathering for manyyears. This includes early editions of almost all the lyric poetsfrom Serafino dall'Aquila and Tebaldeo, to Giambattista Marinoand his contemporaries, as well as a valuable collection of the manyanthologies printed during that period.PTOLEMAIC STUDIESBy Dr. Walter Woodburn HydeTwo additions to the Library have been made recently fromthe Lamberton Fund which are notable enough, from the pointof view of cost and importance, to be worthy of rather extendednotice:I. Geography of Claudius Ptolemy. Translated into Englishand edited by Edward Luther Stevenson, with Introduction byProf. Joseph Fischer, S. J. Folio, New York, 1932, pp. xvi, 167,29 double plates.This is the first complete translation into any modern lan-guage of the Geography of Ptolemy, the last of the Greek geo-graphers, who worked at Alexandria 1700 years ago, notwithstand-ing that there have appeared over fifty editions of the Greek textsince the editio princeps of Erasmus at Basel in 1533. The trans-lator is widely known for his many contributions to the fields ofhistorical geography and cartography. The size and cost of thissumptuous volume, published by the New York Public Library,are largely due to the cartographic supplement which takes upnearly half of it. The paper, typography, and binding in half-leather are superb. Only 250 copies have been issued.The translation is based on Greek and Latin manuscripts ofthe Geography, the former dating from the eleventh century, thelatter from the Renaissance or from the early fifteenth century;21

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The Spanish and Italian Collections

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