“The Discoverie of Witchcraft”: a sceptical treatise on superstition and magic in 1584

As it’s Halloween I went hunting for our copies of The discoverie of witchcraft, wherein the lewde dealing of witches and witchmongers is notablie detected, written by Reginald Scot and first published in 1584. Unlike the majority of 16th century works on the subject of witches and witchcraft, Scot’s Discoverie takes a predominantly sceptical view and reveals how the superstitious public were often fooled by charlatans and frauds.

The title page of the 1665 edition of The discovery of witchcraft

Scot believed that the prosecution and torture of those accused of witchcraft, most often the elderly or simple-minded, was un-Christian and irrational. He set out to prove that belief in magic and witchcraft could not be justified by religion or observation, and that many reported experiences of the supernatural were either wilful attempts to defraud or  illusions caused by mental disturbance.  The book includes chapters on contemporary beliefs about witchcraft, magic, alchemy, ghosts, devils and other spirits, and was a heavy influence on later works about the occult, including Shakespeare’s portrayal of witches for Macbeth.

The aspects of the planets and the characters of angels

Publication of the book caused great controversy, with many clergymen writing in defence of  their concerns about witches. Scot in fact placed most of the blame for these superstitions on the Roman Catholic Church, but King James I, an enthusiastic witch hunter, ordered all copies of the first edition of the Discoverie to be burnt. Among the sceptical minority however, Scot’s work remained authoritative. In 1593 Gabriel Harvey wrote that “Scotte’s discoovery of Witchcraft dismasketh sundry egregious impostures, and in certaine principall chapters, and speciall passages, hitteth the nayle on the head.”

Scot’s Discoverie includes one of the first studies of magic tricks and sleight-of-hand ever published, with detailed explanations of tricks still performed today

Unexpected opportunity for a cataloguer: exhibiting Arthur

Reblogged from dark-side-of-the-catalogue:

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This week sees the 'unveiling' of an exhibition in SCOLAR our special collections department on the subject of Arthur: King of the Britons.  I'm really excited about it because I have had an integral part in the curating of it.  This is one of those 'unexpected opportunities' that I didn't actually manage to talk about in my presentation at the CILIP CIG conference on 11th September because I over ran and had to skip it!

Read more… 1,016 more words

Karen Pierce has written about her experience of curating our new Special Collections and Archives exhibition on "King Arthur in Britain".

Full cataloguing of Cardiff’s private presses collection now complete

We are very happy to report that cataloguing of SCOLAR’s extensive collection of private press books has now been completed and that all 1,300 items are available to view on Cardiff University’s Library Catalogue. We hold books by all the major presses of the Arts and Crafts movement, including near-complete runs of publications from the Golden Cockerel Press, Cuala Press and William Morris’s Kelmscott Press.

The beautiful embroidered binding on Cardiff’s copy of “The Floure and the Leafe” published by the Kelmscott Press

These have been wonderful books for us to work on, with many delightful illustrations and beautiful bindings to enjoy, and there have been some great surprises along the way. We’ve discovered books signed by A.A. Milne, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost and W.B. Yeats, unique proof copies with comments by William Morris, Elizabeth Yeats and Lucien Pissaro, and works finely bound by some of the leading craftsmen of the day.

Illustration from “La belle au bois dormant” by Charles Perrault, printed at the Eragny Press in 1899

With cataloguing finished on the private presses, we are now moving on to SCOLAR’s unique collection of Restoration dramas, many of which are heavily annotated. I will also be continuing to work on our English early printed books, the first 1,000 of which have been added to the catalogue over the first year of the project.

“Samson and Delilah”, printed at the Golden Cockerel Press and bound by Sybil Pye in red morocco with Art Deco inlays

Mapping the heavens and earth: Apian’s Cosmographia in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection

Petrus Apianus (1495-1552), also known as Peter Apian, was Professor of Mathematics at the University of Ingolstadt in Germany and a pioneer in astronomical and mathematical instrumentation. Apian is best known for his studies in the science of cosmography and we hold several editions of his works here in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection.
 
Cosmography was a broad science which aimed to provide a mathematical basis for mapping the position of everything in the universe, and Apian’s work required not only his skill in mathematics but also expertise in geography, navigation, astronomy, and cartography. He published manuals for astronomical instruments, printed scientific works on his own press, and crafted volvelles, or “Apian wheels”, for the calculation of time and distance.

In 1524 Apian produced his first major work, Cosmographia, which provided readers with a guide to cosmography and an introduction to the disciplines of astronomy, geography, cartography, navigation and instrument making. Gemma Frisius (1508–1555), a Dutch mathematician and student of Apian, produced several expanded editions of the Cosmographia, including the 1545 and 1584 editions we have in SCOLAR. The book remained popular throughout the 16th century, being reprinted more than 30 times and in 14 languages.

Cosmographia describes various scientific instruments, but there are also several working paper examples of Apian’s volvelles included in the text, with which readers could find the positions of the sun, moon and planets, or calculate latitude using the sun’s height above the horizon. Interestingly, the moving parts in Cardiff’s copies of Cosmographia have been printed on the back of used paper – perhaps an early example of recycling to keep costs down. Considering the practical nature of the volvelles, it is also remarkable that these delicate instruments have survived in such good condition.

John Gould’s hummingbirds – a Victorian obsession

John Gould (1804-1881) was a prolific bird artist and the most celebrated ornithologist of Victorian Britain. He published more than forty folio volumes on birds of the world, beautifully illustrated with nearly 3,000 hand-coloured lithographic plates.

Considered a pioneer of ornithology, Gould’s identification of the birds now known as “Darwin’s finches” helped Charles Darwin develop his theory of evolution by natural selection and Gould’s work is referenced in On the Origin of Species. We are very lucky to have in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection complete sets of some of John Gould’s greatest works, including The Birds of Europe, The Birds of Great Britain, and Gould’s masterpiece, A Monograph of the Trochilidae, or Family of Humming-birds.

Hummingbirds were Gould’s great obsession and he accumulated a collection of 320 species, which he exhibited during the Great Exhibition of 1851. Victorians were greatly attracted to the fleeting beauty of the tiny creatures and Gould’s display of stuffed birds at the Regents Park Zoological Gardens attracted more than 75,000 visitors, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, netting the naturalist a substantial profit. As the Queen later noted in her journal, “It is impossible to imagine anything so lovely as these little Humming Birds.”

Sadly, the exhibition sparked a craze for the colourful, iridescent hummingbird plumage to adorn ladies’ hats and clothes and millions of birds fell victim to Victorian fashion over the next fifty years. In 1888, 12,000 hummingbird skins from Central and South America were reportedly sold in a single auction; the total for that year in London alone may have exceeded 400,000. Fortunately, by the early 20th century organisations such  as the Audubon Society and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds had succeeded in switching the emphasis from exploitation to conservation.

Gould’s Humming-birds took 12 years to produce and was issued from 1849 to 1861; the monumental five-volume work was illustrated with 360 plates produced by Gould with the assistance of H.C. Richter and William Hart. Gould also patented a process of applying gold or silver leaf, transparent oils and washes of colour to mimic the shimmering quality of hummingbird feathers, and the birds are depicted throughout with indigenous flowers and detailed backgrounds.

Despite his passion for hummingbirds, Gould did not see a living specimen until 1857 when he  travelled with his son Charles to visit the United States. On 21 May in Bartram’s Gardens, Philadelphia, and to his great and lasting delight, John Gould finally witnessed his first live hummingbird.

Magnificent bindings by Sangorski & Sutcliffe from the Cardiff Rare Books Collection

“The deserted village” by Oliver Goldsmith (1855), bound in green morocco with gilt and colour inlays by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

I was recently asked to put out a display of books from our modern fine bindings, which gave me a perfect excuse to rummage through the stacks of the Cardiff Rare Books Collection pulling out some our most beautiful items. We are lucky to have a number of exceptional bindings by some of the leading craftsmen of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including several outstanding examples from the famed London firm of Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

Back cover of “The deserted village”

Formed by Francis Sangorski and George Sutcliffe in 1901, this bindery was best known for producing elaborate bindings inlaid with gold and encrusted with precious stones. Their most famous work was a fabulous copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, with a lavishly decorated binding designed by Sangorski that took the firm over two years to produce. Finally completed in 1911, the Great Omar was shipped off to America on the maiden voyage of the ‘unsinkable’ RMS Titanic and was never seen again.

“The book of wonder” by Lord Dunsany, published by Heinemann in 1912 and bound by S&S in full deerskin with a spider web design in gilt.

Back cover of “The book of wonder”.

Detail from “The first crusade” (1945), three-quarter-bound in vellum over orange cloth with a wonderful gilt design.

Ivor Bannet’s “The Amazons” (1948), published by Golden Cockerel Press and three-quarter-bound in brown morocco over marbled paper-covered boards.

These are just a few examples of the fine bindings in the Rare Books collection, with many more waiting to be discovered and featured in future blog posts.

“A sure guide to hell” – advice to university students from the Devil himself!

Published in 1751 and purportedly written by Belzebub, A sure guide to hell is a satirical attack on the prevalent follies and vices of the day which form the surest path, in the opinion of the author, to an eternity in the bottomless pit. A response to Joseph Alleine’s A sure guide to heaven, the book is ostensibly an advice manual for sinners, including directions to parents in the education of their children, to youth, to the clergy, and “to those whose minds are possessed with envy, malice, &c.”

Parents are provided with assistance in choosing a suitable school for their spoiled offspring: “If you send him to school, give the master a particular charge … not to correct him, though he should neglect to learn his lesson; thus will he acquire a habit of idleness and carelessness.” Youths are invited to ease their tempers by defacing public building and parks, and are advised to frequent “taverns, playhouses … and masquerades, all of which are nurseries of vice and folly.”

Belzebub also offers helpful advice for students entering the debauchery of higher education: “Perhaps thou may’st come to the university a sober, virtuous youth … I doubt not but thou wilt be surpriz’d and shock’d to see such a dissoluteness of manners reign throughout a place.” Innocents should not worry too much about keeping up with their studies while being led astray: “Thou needst not be concerned about making progress in thy learning … it is beneath a gentleman to trouble himself about the languages, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, &c. … Do thou spend thy evenings jovially … crack some bottles of wine, and a bowl or two of punch; toast the healths of some noted beauties; get drunk … and about three or four o’clock in the morning stagger to bed.”

Cardiff’s copy of A sure guide to hell even boasts a celebrity provenance: a Latin inscription in ink on the front endpaper reads “Donum Luciferi” - a gift from the Devil himself!

A well-used book: marginalia and manuscript notes in an early 16th century herbal

This early herbal forms part of our Continental collection and was published in Paris around  1520. Our copy of Herbarum varias qui vis cognoscere vires (‘Various types of herbs that you want to know the powers of’) has been extremely useful to its previous owners and virtually every page is covered with detailed manuscript notes, observations, lists of ingredients, recipes and other marginalia.

Herbals, from the medieval Latin liber herbalis (‘book of herbs’), contain the names and descriptions of plants with details of their medicinal or culinary properties, often with illustrations to assist with proper identification. These books were among the first literature to be produced in both the East and the West and continued to flourish long after the invention of moveable type in the mid 15th century. We have several other early printed herbals in the Cardiff Rare Books Collection but none have been quite as well used as this one!

The right way to a long life: a 17th century physician on health, obesity and smoking

While cataloguing part of our Early English collection, I discovered this interesting work by the 17th century Somerset physician, Tobias Venner (1577–1660). Venner was a  pioneering writer on health and nutrition - he produced an important early treatise on the effects of tobacco and was also the first writer to use the term ‘obesity’.

On graduation from St Alban’s College, Oxford in 1599, Venner returned home to Somerset to establish his practice. By the time he obtained his medical degrees in 1613, he was already spending summers in Bath, where the city’s thermal spa enjoyed a reputation for the treatment of illness, and the annual influx of visitors ‘taking the waters’ provided a lucrative market for physicians.

In 1620 Venner published Via recta ad vitam longam (The right way to a long life), in which he described how hygiene, diet and environment can influence health. He cautioned against drinking water conveyed through lead piping and advocated cleaning of the teeth to prevent decay. Our 1622 edition of Via recta… is also bound with the second part, published the following year, in which he describes the benefits of sleep and regular exercise. Venner claimed that bathing in Bath’s thermal springs would “make slender such bodies as are too grosse.” “Let those that fear obesity …  come often to our Bathes. For by the often use of them … they may not onely preserve their health but also keepe their bodies from being unseemingly corpulent.”

Via recta… includes plenty of advice on sensible eating and drinking. For example, while Venner considered wine to be healthy in moderation, he believed it unsuitable for younger men because it “stimulates them like madmen unto enormous and outrageous actions.” Obviously not much has changed over the last 400 years!

Tobias Venner is also famed for his Briefe and accurate treatise concerning the taking of the fume of tobacco, first published in 1621. Although he recommended tobacco to improve digestion, Venner personally disliked its “detestable savour” and his observations on the adverse effects of smoking are remarkably close to those of modern medicine: “It dries the brain, dims the sight, vitiates  the smell, hurts the stomach, destroys the concoction, disturbs the humours and spirits, corrupts the breath, induces trembling of the limbs. It desiccates the windpipe, lungs and liver, annoys the milt, scorches the heart, and causes the blood to be adjusted.”

Venner could certainly claim to have discovered the right way to a long life: he died at Bath on 27 March 1660 at the grand old age of 83 and was buried in Bath Abbey.

Postgraduate Curators 2012

Postgraduate Curators is a programme that offers curatorial skills training to PhD students, and gives them the opportunity to curate their own exhibitions. This programme is organised by the Graduate College and SCOLAR, and open to PhD students from all disciplines – this year we had attendees from ENCAP, WELSH, JOMEC and SHARE.

The format consists of a half day workshop, with Peter Keelan speaking on project management, Alison Harvey on research and selection, and a senior lecturer from SHARE, Jane Henderson, on conservation issues. At the end of the workshop, we ask the students if any of them would like to volunteer to spend the next week planning a small exhibit on their PhD topic. This year, five of the eight students agreed to take part, and of these five, three had never visited SCOLAR before.

For those who wish to take part, we ask that in the week following the workshop, they use Voyager and our Excel lists to collate a long-list of potential material. We retrieve the items and they visit SCOLAR to examine them and make selections to cut the long-list down to a short-list. We ask them to research and write captions for each item on the short-list, and we ask them to design a poster for the exhibition. Once they have their short-lists, captions and poster, we ask them to all come in on an agreed half-day to set up the exhibits. We then talk through each exhibit to review each other’s work, and generally reflect on the experience.

The students gain time management and project management experience, as well as research and information literacy skills in searching for relevant material. In the case of those who have not visited us before, they may discover untapped resources for their research. They gain employability skills, and two types of work experience which can be very difficult to obtain – specifically in special collections work, but more broadly in the creative and cultural industries. They learn to think visually, and to phrase their research in non-specialist terms.

If the students gain a new perspective on their work – so do we. They extract and draw significance from material in our collections, of which we are often unaware. We have the opportunity to promote our collections to new audiences, and demonstrate our support of postgraduates from a range of disciplines, in a very visible way.

This year, we are featuring the following exhibitions:

Victorian medievalism: the fallen women of Tennyson’s Camelot
Sarah Clausen, Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture

The Victorian author: artist or businessman
Helen McKenzie, English Literature

Representing the workhouse
Laura Foster, English Literature

From Celtic languages to the Roman alphabet
John Caulfield, Welsh

Welsh architecture from the Salisbury Collection: a selection of original artworks
Mark Baker, Archaeology and Conservation

All the students produced excellent exhibits, but one in particular made a significant discovery. Mark Baker is working on a historical study of Welsh country houses, and found an image in the Salisbury prints collection, which is thought to be the earliest depiction of the Hafod estate, which has since been demolished. In the case of the earlier building to the right, it is the only image in existence. It’s a watercolour, not a print, so it’s entirely unique – it only exists here in Cardiff.

Mark has notified the Hafod Trust, who confirmed his hunch. As well as being a discovery which is very significant for his research, he has succeeded in interesting the local press. Both the Western Mail and the Cambrian News in Aberystwyth will be including a feature on his discovery, and by extension, the postgraduate curators programme. Mark may also be volunteering with us in future to research and prepare a full-scale exhibition on the prints contained in the Salisbury collection.

The exhibitions will be on display in SCOLAR until the end of February. Extracts from the exhibitions can be found on the SCOLAR website.