Kenneth Spencer Research Library

N. Kıvılcım Yavuz is conducting research on pre-1600 manuscripts at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Each month she will be writing about a manuscript she has worked with and the current KU Library catalog records will be updated in accordance with her findings. 

Written in Humanistic cursive by a single hand during the last decade of the fifteenth century, Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS B21 contains a travel itinerary from Italy to France and back. Currently consisting of only five folios, it was probably part of a larger book. It seems that each stop on the journey was recorded between February 1493, with a departure from Naples, Italy, and January 1494, with a return to Sermoneta, Italy, after going all the way to Paris, France. The majority of the text comprises the names of the cities, with occasional mentions of arrival or departure dates and a series of numbers in the margins that probably denote distances between the stops. Unfortunately, no personal name or a reason for the journey is mentioned, but from the language of the text and the style of handwriting we can surmise that the diary belonged to an Italian traveler.

The journey begins on February 21, 1493, in Naples, Italy. 24 days later, on March 16, the traveler arrives at Marseille, France. There are thirteen stops noted for this first leg of the journey between Naples and Marseille. Most of them were relatively easy to identify:

Gayeta = Gaeta
Hostia = Ostia
Civita Vechya = Civitavecchia
Mo[n]te Arge[n]taro = Monte Argentario
Livorno = Livorno
Porto Vener[e] = Porto Venere
Ienoa = Genoa
Villa Francha = Villefranche-sur-Mer
Nirza = Nice
Santa Margarita = Île Sainte-Marguerite
Insola de Heres = Îles d’Hyères

I was not so sure about where “Poncio” is, which is mentioned as a stop between Gaeta and Ostia but I decided it must be Pontinia, which is located almost right in the middle of the two places. I also had my doubts about where “Cornito” might be. It is mentioned as a stop between Civitavecchia and Monte Argentario. Although there are other places with this name in both Benevento and Campania regions of Italy, the contemporary name of the place we are looking for in this stretch is probably Tarquinia, whose name has changed from Corneto to Tarquinia in the last century.

Map of Naples-Marseille itinerary in MS B21. Created using Tableau.

After I identified the stops for the first leg of this journey between Naples and Marseille, I decided to place them on a map and see how it looks: indeed, all the places lined up in a neat route along the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea and southern coast of France. What is striking is that all the places I was able to identify are on either the coast or an island close to the shore, such as Monte Argentario and Île Sainte-Marguerite. This gives us reason to think that this part of the journey was undertaken by ship along the coast of the Tyrrhenian and Ligurian Seas instead of by land. Now that we know the route, how long it took and the possible mode of travel, I was curious to compare this data. At that point, I turned to ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World. Called by some “a Google Maps for Ancient Rome,” ORBIS allows one to analyze movements of people and goods along the principal routes of the ancient Roman world by taking into account different modes and means of transport and even the season in which the travel took place.

Since Roman travel networks and routes continued to be used during the Middle Ages, the approximations created in ORBIS would provide us a reliable comparison point. According to ORBIS, if one travels only by daylight the journey between Naples and Marseille on coastal sea takes 18.7 days during winter. Although by this route there seem to be fewer stops compared to what is recorded in MS B21, the major ports, such as Ostia and Genoa, remain unchanged. The traveler of MS B21 noted that they arrived at Marseille after 24 days. Given that there are more stops mentioned in the manuscript and that we do not know if they spent any considerable time in any of these places, 24 days seem reasonable.

According to MS B21, it seems that the anonymous traveler spent between April and August 1493 in Paris before going to Tours via Orléans and staying there until January the year after. The traveler began their return from Tours, France to Italy on January 23, 1494. On the way back, they traveled exclusively by land, passing through cities such as Turin, Milan, Parma, Bologna, Florence, and Rome. Instead of going back to Naples, where they started, however, they stopped at Sermoneta, approximately 100 miles north of Naples. Unfortunately, the date of arrival is not recorded in the manuscript. If the anonymous traveler of MS B21 was a member of a diplomatic legation, as suggested by Bernard Rosenthal, from whom the Kenneth Spencer Research Library purchased the manuscript, this was a tumultuous time and there would have been good reason for such a journey, for in this very year the Kingdom of Naples was under threat of invasion by Charles VIII, king of France.

If the anonymous traveler was on a mission to the French court, that would also explain their spending time not only in Paris but also in Tours. Palais des Tuileries was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs but Charles VIII and his court also spent considerable time in Tours and had a royal residence there, Château de Plessis-lèz-Tours. Furthermore, we know that the French king may have been traveling from Paris to Tours that very August as Queen Anne is recorded to have had a premature birth and that the baby was buried at Notre-Dame de Cléry, a place mentioned also in MS B21 as the next stop after Orléans on the way to Tours.

King Ferdinand I of Naples died only two days after the departure date mentioned in the manuscript, on January 25, 1494, after 35 years of reign. Although succeeded by his son Alfonso II, the death of Ferdinand I allowed Charles VIII to lay claim to the throne and invade the Kingdom of Naples later in 1494. This marked the beginning of the Italian Wars, also known as Habsburg-Valois Wars, which took place between 1494 and 1559, during which the Kingdom of Naples was the focus of dispute among different dynasties and constantly changed hands.

The Kenneth Spencer Research Library purchased the manuscript from Bernard M. Rosenthal Inc. in July 1960, and it is available for consultation at the Library’s Marilyn Stokstad Reading Room when the library is open.

N. Kıvılcım Yavuz
Ann Hyde Postdoctoral Researcher

Follow the account “Manuscripts &c.” on Twitter and Instagram for postings about manuscripts from the Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

Today is Election Day, so in the spirit of voting and civic engagement, we’re featuring a collection full to the brim with politicians.

Wayne Davis taught history and was a high school principal in Cherryvale, KS, before joining, in 1972, the History faculty at what is now Highland Community College. In addition to his busy day job, he maintained a side passion:  collecting signed photographs of US politicians and federal officials. His collection at Spencer Research Library (MS 189) consists of autographed pictures and brief letters from close to 260 public figures, collected between the late 1940s and the 1970s. Included are politicians like New York Member of Congress Bella Abzug (1920-1988), a feminist and civil rights advocate reintroduced to a new generation through the 2020 TV series, Mrs. America; Michigan Governor George Romney (1907-1995), who in 1968 ran for the Republican party nomination that Richard Nixon would eventually secure; and Massachusetts Member of Congress Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, Jr. (1912-1994), who also served as Speaker of the House from January 1977 to January 1987.

 

Bella Abzug, Representative for New York ; George Romney, Michigan Governor; and Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, Representative for Massachusetts. Wayne Davis Collection. Call #: MS 189, Box 1, Folder: Abzug, Box2, Folder: Romney and Folder: O’Neill . Please click images to enlarge. Bonus points to anyone who can read the faint blue ink of O’Neill’s inscription.

Davis would often annotate the back of the signed photographs with notes about the politician’s date of birth, political party, religion, and career, as seen on the signed photograph of Wyoming Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney (1884-1962).   

 

“With cordial good wishes”: Inscribed photograph of Wyoming Senator, Joseph C. O’Mahoney, with Davis’s notes on O’Mahoney and his career. Wayne Davis Collection. Call #: MS 189, Box 2, Folder: O’Mahoney. Click images to enlarge.

Davis appears to have collected the majority of these by simply writing to the figure in question.  “My hobby is collecting autographed pictures of famous people,” he explained in a 1966 letter to former Montana Representative, Jeanette Rankin (1880-1973), “to be used both as a hobby and in my classroom work.” As a suffragist and the first woman elected to Congress (winning a House seat in 1916, and then again in 1940), Rankin would certainly have been a “get” for Davis’s collection. However, in this particular instance, he would have to be satisfied with just an autograph. “Sorry— I have no picture,” Rankin jots in reply along the side of his letter (below), before signing her name.  Although Rankin was 85 at the time Davis sent his request, she wasn’t entirely retired from politics. In fact, in 1968, she would lead the “Jeanette Rankin Brigade,” a march of women’s groups on Washington, DC to protest the Vietnam War. A committed pacifist, Rankin was the only member of Congress to vote against US participation in both World War I and World War II. Though Davis did not succeed with Rankin, his collection is a testament that many other politicians obliged his requests.

Davis also collected signed photographs for federal officials, and to a much smaller extent foreign dignitaries, heads of state, and public figures such as astronauts and entertainers. Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) and William H. Rehnquist (1924-2005) are both represented in the collection. Marshall’s signed photograph is accompanied by a brief note on his letterhead as Solicitor General of the United States. Dated June 27, 1967, it was sent to Davis shortly after his nomination to the Supreme Court (on June 13, 1967) but before his confirmation (on August 30, 1967).

  

Supreme Court Justices: Thurgood Marshall and William H. Rehnquist. Wayne Davis Collection. Call #: MS 189, Box 2, Folders Marshall and Rehnquist. Click images to enlarge. 

In the later years of his collecting, Davis also sent queries to several politicians, seeking their opinions on the “Mayaguez Incident” and President Ford’s 1974 pardon of Richard Nixon. Among those to respond on the issue of the pardon were Texas Representative Barbara Jordan (1936-1996) and Kansas Representative and Senator Robert J. Dole (1923- ).  Replying in February 1977, Dole (or an aide replying in his stead), wrote: “… I must say that at the time of the pardon, I was very distressed by the action taken by President Ford.  Although in retrospect, I now feel that it was necessary to put Watergate and all of its ramifications behind us so that the nation could move forward.”  He continued that he felt that Ford’s “controversial decision had an adverse effect on his chances in the recent campaign,” alluding to Ford’s loss to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election.

A lawyer by training, Representative Barbara Jordan served on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee as it considered articles of impeachment.  Her speech at the opening of the committee’s hearing is praised as one of the finest examples of American political oratory (you can read and watch it here). Though the committee approved articles of impeachment, Nixon resigned before the process advanced further in the House and the Senate. It is that unfinished process and a lawyer’s eye for legal detail that shapes Jordan’s reply to Davis.  “I did not feel the pardon was appropriate at that particular time,” she (or her aide) explained, “There were many questions regarding the whole Watergate affair which remain unanswered. Also, Mr. Nixon had not been indicted or convicted of any civil or criminal offenses.” Jordan’s reply to Davis, sent in August of 1976, came at a landmark moment. in her career.  A month earlier, she had made history as both the first woman and the first African American to give the keynote address at a Democratic National Convention

Wayne Davis’s collection offers a photo-friendly and slightly idiosyncratic glimpse into American politics, but it is just one of many potential points of entry for researchers. Spencer Library, for example, holds the papers of a number of Kansas politicians, from former Governors Robert Blackwell Docking and Robert F. Bennett, to former US Congresswoman Jan Meyers, to former Kansas State Senate and House Representative Billy Q. McCray, to name but a few. And Spencer Library’s Wilcox Collection of Contemporary Political Movements is one of the largest collections of US left and right wing literature in the country. 

We invite you to explore politics across our collections and—most importantly—to engage by casting your vote! Polls are open in Kansas until 7 p.m. today.

Elspeth Healey
Special Collections Librarian

Happy Halloween, readers! To help you celebrate, we’re sharing some spooky materials from volumes at Spencer Research Library. Get creative with a Frankenstein-themed MadLibs passage and enjoy coloring scenes of monsters, beasts, and mythical creatures. You can download printable PDFs of the images (the two below plus two others of sea monsters) and the FrankenLibs activity (which includes the original Frankenstein text).

Caitlin Donnelly
Head of Public Services

Go to the doctor click here. He or she will listen to you carefully, examine you, and write you a prescription. On the prescription, he or she will write the amount of medication you need for the course.

N. Kıvılcım Yavuz is conducting research on pre-1600 manuscripts at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Each month she will be writing about a manuscript she has worked with and the current KU Library catalog records will be updated in accordance with her findings. 

We have very little information about the past history of Kenneth Spencer Research Library MS C195. When, where and by whom it was made are unknown. This is not surprising; the origins of many medieval manuscripts are uncertain. Scholars utilize different evidence to determine the circumstances in which a manuscript was produced as well as its history since its production. The only hint about the past of MS C195 comes from  a note dated to 1841 glued onto the front pastedown according to which the manuscript previously belonged to the library of the Charterhouse of Montrieux (Chartreuse Notre-Dame de Montrieux) in Méounes-les-Montrieux in southeastern France. This Carthusian monastery that was originally built in 1137; yet even if MS C195 was in their library at some point, it does not mean that it was made there, although it could suggest the general region in which it was created.

MS C195 contains a copy of Petrus Riga’s Aurora, a verse commentary on the Bible. Also known as Peter Riga (approximately 1140–1209), Petrus was a canon of the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Reims and later a Canon Regular of the Order of St Augustine at St Denis, also in Reims, France. It is thought that the Aurora was written over a long period of time at the end of the twelfth century, between 1170 and 1200. The modern editor of the Aurora, Paul E. Beichner, argues that there were three different editions of the work, all by Petrus Riga, over this thirty-year period as well as two later redactions by Petrus’s disciple, Aegidius of Paris (also known as Egidius or Gilles de Paris, approximately 1160–1223/1224). The text as it is contained in MS C195 is a copy of the third edition of the Aurora except that the beginning is missing and it does not include the chapter titled “Recapitulationes.”

Identifying the text contained in a manuscript only takes us so far in terms of understanding and appreciating the book as an object. On the other hand, a detailed physical examination, although it will not provide all the answers about the origin of a manuscript, allows us to discover the circumstances in which the manuscript was produced and used. When it comes to understanding the history of a manuscript, codicology, the study of manuscripts as physical objects, is as vital as the study of the texts contained in the manuscripts. When we look at MS C195, the first thing to be noticed is that the manuscript is no longer in its original binding. The current binding, which is probably early modern, is leather over paper boards, with both of its covers and spine blind-tooled. That the manuscript was rebound at some point requires one to be more careful when conducting an examination of the bookblock as there might be alterations such as added leaves or reorganized gatherings that were introduced—both knowingly and unintentionally—during the rebinding.

MS C195 is a parchment manuscript. As we leaf through the manuscript, we see that some leaves are thicker than others, some have yellower tint than others, several leaves have holes and cuts, and dozens of stubs are visible in the gutters. Furthermore, there are at least a few leaves that are palimpsests, still bearing visible traces of former writing on them. The variety of thickness and color of the parchment may indicate that these were made of different animal skins or prepared at different times or in different ways. Holes and cuts in the parchment usually occur during the preparation of animal skins, especially when hair was being scraped off with a knife. The existence of stubs mean smaller, single parchment leaves were added or inserted into the gatherings instead of using bigger sheets of parchment (or, in some cases that the existing leaves were cut out). Taken together with the existence of palimpsests in the manuscript, these features all indicate that the manuscript was made at a time and a place in which the resources were limited and that the scribe (or the compiler) of the manuscript made use of whatever material was available. 

In most cases, the imperfections in the parchment in MS C195 are found in the margins. Other times, when it was not possible to arrange the leaves so that the holes and the cuts remained in the margins, the scribe worked around these defects to complete the text, as seen, for example, on folio 107v and folio 108v. As for the stubs visible in the manuscript, all of these seem to be additions of single leaves to the gatherings made by the scribe as part of the original design. As it stands, MS C195 consists of 233 parchment leaves arranged in 31 quires. There are some signs of rearrangement. For example, the first two leaves of the original second gathering (now the third quire) were dismembered and are missing, and the last two leaves of the same gathering were misbound (now the second quire). Nevertheless, most of the quires seem to be intact and in their original order.

Although it is not particularly complex, the collation of the manuscript displays the resourcefulness of the scribe. The collation formula of MS C195 is as follows:

1⁴ + 2⁴ (wants 1 and 2) + 3⁴ + 4⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 5⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 6¹⁰ (3 and 8 are singletons) + 7⁸ (3 and 6 are singletons) + 8⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 9⁸ + 10¹⁰ +11¹² + 1 leaf after 10 + 12⁸ + 1 leaf after 3 + 13-14⁸ + 15⁶ + 1 leaf after 1 + 16⁸ + 17⁸ (5 and 7 are singletons) + 18⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 19-20⁸ + 21⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 22⁸ + 23⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 24² + 1 leaf after 1 + 25-27⁸ + 28⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 29⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 30⁸ (2 and 7 are singletons) + 31⁴ (wants 4).

Even for the trained eye, such a collation formula might be intimidating. Furthermore, as detailed as this formula is, it still provides limited information as to the materiality of the manuscript and how the manuscript was actually put together. As it is seen in the collation formula, the majority of the quires are quaternions, that is, gatherings of 8 leaves which are usually made up of 4 folded sheets. In MS C195, however, 11 of the 22 quaternions are formed by putting together 3 folded sheets, which make up six conjoint leaves, and two single leaves. In the seventh quire, the third and the sixth leaves are singletons, and in the remaining 10 quires the second and the seventh leaves; but the arrangement of the leaves with respect to sewing are not always the same.

A visual representation of the collation of the manuscript provides more information as to the arrangement of the leaves in each quire. In the visualization, it is seen clearly that even though quires 4, 5 and 8 are formulated in the same way, the manner in which they appear in the manuscript is not the same. An interactive version of the full collation of MS C195 can be viewed on VisCodex. Part of Digital Tools for Manuscript Study developed by the University of Toronto Libraries Information Technology Services and the Old Books New Science Lab at the University of Toronto, VisCodex is a web application based on VisColl, a system for modelling and visualizing collations of manuscripts created by Dot Porter and Alberto Campagnolo.

Writing collation formulas or indeed creating visualizations for collations is not a recent development, but as it is the case here, digital tools dedicated to manuscript studies can help us understand the physicality of artefacts better and share our knowledge with wider audiences. There are several other codicological aspects of MS C195, such as ruling and pricking, that can be examined and visualized in a similar manner to its collation in order to see what kinds of patterns can be detected. Findings of these examinations in turn can enable scholars to compare MS C195 with similar manuscripts, and perhaps even one day to pinpoint its date and place of production.

The Kenneth Spencer Research Library purchased the manuscript from Bernard M. Rosenthal Inc. in January 1969, and it is available for consultation at the Library’s Marilyn Stokstad Reading Room when the library is open.

• Edition of Petrus Riga’s Aurora: Aurora: Petri Rigae Biblia Versificata. A Verse Commentary on the Bible. Ed. Paul E. Beichner. 2 vols. Publications in Mediaeval Studies 19. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965.

N. Kıvılcım Yavuz
Ann Hyde Postdoctoral Researcher

Follow the account “Manuscripts &c.” on Twitter and Instagram for postings about manuscripts from the Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

Since the 1980s, librarians and readers have marked the last week in September as Banned Books Week – an effort to bring attention to banned or challenged books, celebrate the freedom to read, and promote discussions about the problem of censorship. While Banned Books Week has only been around since the late 20th century, the attitudes and actions that sparked the week’s inception are far from new. For centuries, people have sought to limit access to materials they deemed problematic.

In honor of Banned Books Week (this year September 27-October 3), I wanted to highlight a centuries-old list of banned books: the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books). The Index Librorum Prohibitorum was a list of banned titles and authors published by the Catholic Church, starting in the 16th century. Here at Spencer Research Library, we have several early editions of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

Works included on the list were considered heretical or immoral by the Church with additions and changes continually being added throughout the years. The final edition of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum was published in 1948; Pope Paul VI abolished the list entirely in 1966.

The Index included works by a variety of philosophers, scientists, and authors. Some notable people who appeared on the list (and whose work can be found at Spencer Research Library) include:

• René Descartes
• David Hume
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• John Milton
• John Locke
• Voltaire
• Giacomo Casanova
• Simone de Beauvoir

As times and ideas changed, titles and authors could also be removed from the list as they were no longer considered inappropriate by the Church. This was the case for Dante Alighieri, Nicolaus Copernicus, and Victor Hugo – all of whom were included on the list for a time.

Happy reading, everyone!

Emily Beran
Public Services