Special Collections, which includes Rare Books, had another highly successful year of notable and carefully considered rare book acquisitions via purchase, with eight items from three national and four international professional vendors, including Italy, France, and the Netherlands.  Four of the recent arrivals are discussed in detail below, while space issues result in two others related to Scotland having a separate post and the remaining two are mentioned in the footnotes (1). For additional information, see our previous related blog posts and, as always, thank you to both Special Collection and University Libraries staff, especially our former and current Rare Book librarians, who help make these vital additions possible. We also appreciate the university faculty members who sagely advise us on potential books to consider for obtainment, or, impetratio, in Latin.

Our first purchase of the fiscal year, in May 2024, was obtained from the Librairie Hogier of the Rue de Savoie in Paris, France. It is a Sammelband titled Religious Affairs. Duels. Mixtures 1567-1626, a seventeenth century collection of sixteen French and Latin published opinions and critiques of the Roman Catholic clergy about several issues including dueling. The volume is marbled calf, ribbed spine, gilt title, with worn binding, and torn caps.  Among the sixteen titles are Rouillard, a treatise on the ancient veneration and privileges of the Sainte Chapelle of the Palais Royal in Paris. Paris, Thomas de la Ruelle, 1606, 68 pp., first edition, and Hebert, a remonstrance to King Louis XIII against duels, pronounced at Fontainebleau in the name of the general assembly of the clergy of France on June 19, 1625 by the Archbishop of Bourges, Paris, Antoine Estienne, 1625, 24pp.  As an added bonus, our cataloger discovered that this sammelband, purchased by Hogier in auction, was once part of the library of the Chapter of Bayeux, “one of the oldest libraries in France and Europe“, and well known to medievalists for their Tapestry depicting the 1066 Norman Conquest of England, which J. R.R. Tolkien used to base the image of his Rohirrim from Lord of the Rings. (2)

Purchased in July 2024 from the Libraria Alberto Govi in Modena, Italy, on the suggestion of Professor Nelson Minnich, of Petri Delphini Veneti prioris sacre Eremi & Generalis totius ordinis Camaldulensis Epistolarum volume, Venice, 1524. This very rare first edition, folio with 391 of 392 leaves, collects together about 1,200 letters of Petri Delphini (or Dolphin) from his years of religious life and as examples of Latin style to be used for spiritual edification. Delphini was born in Venice in 1444 to a noble family, studied under the humanist Pietro Pierleoni da Rimini, and entered the Camaldolese Monastery of San Michele in Murano. He rose quickly, becoming Abbott in 1479 and General of the Camaldulensian Order in 1480. He promoted the reform of the Order and met several members of the Medici family, who ruled Florence at the time. In his later years, facing consideration opposition, he resigned in 1514, dying in 1525 in the convent of Murano. He is remembered as one of the outstanding humanists of the period and a promotor of ecclesiastical reform. His extensive correspondence with both nobles and prelates is a rich source on Italian history and intellectual life.  (3)

In September 2024, with support from Professor Julia Young, we bought from McBride Rare Books of Dobbs Ferry, New York, a Spanish work titled El Problema Religioso de Mexico Durante los Anos de 1926 a 1929, El Paso, 1938. This unrecorded treatise, in 20^th century buckram with gilt lettering, reviews events of the Cristero War in Mexico during the 1920s, with a focus on the Roman Catholic clergy. The conflict emerged in the aftermath of the Mexican Constitution of 1917 that prompted renewed enforcement of longstanding anticlerical policies. In 1926, Catholic loyalists, or Cristeros, in western and central Mexico, supported by the Church, rebelled in arms against the Mexican government in fighting that raged until 1929 with occasional overspill into Texas and the American Southwest. El Paso, where this work was written and published, was a Cristeros stronghold. (4)

In April 2025, we purchased from Adam Weinberger of New York City, a very rare miniature Greek psalter, Psaltērion prophētou kai basileōs tou Dabid. Printed Ancient Greek by Wolfgang Kopfel in Strasbourg, 1524, in an exceptionally small size, the title within an ornamental border and ruled margins. The volume of 198 leaves has Psalms, ‘Odai’or Greek iambic verses on the Psalms, and the ‘Symbolon tou Hagiou Athanasiou.’ This psalter is part of a humanist tradition of Greek typographic production in the Holy Roman Empire and Kopfel had a reputation for meticulous Greek editions, all of which contributed to the promotion of Hellenistic scholarship in the West. This process also reflected the growing influence of Erasmian textual criticism and broader engagement with the Greek Biblical tradition in Reformation Europe. (5)

 

Notes:

(1) Two books related to the Scottish Catholic Church history, Il cappuccino scozese, or, The Scottish Capuchin, (1645) and  De duplici statu religionis apud Scotos (1628), were purchased in October 2024 and March 2025, respectively, from Italian rare book dealer Federico Orsi Libraio Antiquario in Milan, featured in a recent and separate blog post, Libri rari ecclesiae catholicae Scoticae.

(2) See Librairie Hogier catalog Livres anciens & modernes, Bulletin 3/2024 and also thanks to Alex Audziauk.

(3) See Libraria Alberto Govi Catalog, July 2024.

(4) See McBride Rare Books catalog entry, May 2024, and also records, especially the so-called ‘Mexican Files’ of the Office of the General Secretary, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (then known as the National Catholic Welfare Conference) at Catholic U’s Special Collections.

(5) See Adam Weinberger Catalog, p. 97, April 2025.

(6) Honorable mention should be made for a Franciscan Order of Friar Minor Rules for Entry into the Order received in May 2024 from Artem Rare Books of The Hague, Netherlands. This is a single sheet of vellum, manuscript in Spanish with illuminated margins and initials, published in Spain, 1588.

(7) We also obtained a Sammelband of 17^th and 18th Century Spanish Works from Second Story Books of Rockville, Maryland, in March 2025. This Sammelband, bound in full vellum, contains nineteen items, some only partial, nine of which were published 1682-1684, and two recorded as lost works. Topics ranges from comedy and law to astronomy and current events. We hope to have this cataloged by 2026.

(8) Special thanks as always to Alexis Howlett for her invaluable assistance.