iApparatus in Rare Books

May 16, 2014
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On April 3rd of 1973, Martin Cooper, the leader of Motorola’s cell phone team, broke History. In a fashion reminiscent of Alexander Graham Bell 100 years prior, Cooper called Joel Engel, the research head of rival AT&T’s Bell Labs to say – “Joel, I’m calling you from a real cellular phone.” Historic breakthrough introductions such […]

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The Market for Early Printings of Venetian Woodblock Decorated Books

May 9, 2014
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Not long after Johannes Gutenberg invented an improved movable type mechanical printing system in Europe around 1450, the first woodcut book illustration was printed in 1461. Woodcuts can be easily printed together with movable type because both are relief-printed (a process by which protruding surface faces of the printing plate or block are inked; recessed […]

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Ver Sacrum – The Most Beautiful Art Journal Ever!

May 2, 2014
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One of the most beautiful art journals ever printed was Ver Sacrum, published in Vienna from 1898 to 1903. Ver Sacrum was a team effort led by Gustav Klimt, who was the first president of the Vereinigung Bildender Künstler Österreichs, the Viennese avant-garde movement, with offshoots in Paris, Brussels, and Munich. Born in Vienna in […]

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When condition affects more than value – Interpreting Beowulf

April 25, 2014
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The oldest surviving epic poem of Old English, the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature, is also a great example of how a manuscript’s condition affected the impression it had on writers and scholars through the centuries. Beowulf, like most Old English poems, has no title in the unique manuscript in which it survives in […]

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Trojan horse of the Women of Suffrage

April 18, 2014
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In ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy, only men were permitted to vote. Such a narrow privilege reserved only for male citizens, rightfully prompted women to fight for the existence of women’s suffrage, or the right of women to vote and to stand for electoral office. However, the global change that the suffrage movement brought […]

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Brooke-Hitching’s Rare Books of British Exploration

April 11, 2014
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Having identified the Prime Meridian, where longitude is defined as 0°, as being Greenwich, we have also acknowledged the starting point of exploration. An imaginary great circle on the earth’s surface passing through the North and South geographic poles places tremendous appreciation to the explorers who first sailed ship from that point going into strange […]

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Rare Book Sale Monitor update – 1st Quarter 2014 – Factor of Provenance

April 4, 2014
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The study of the circumstances in which individual copies of books have changed ownership throughout their lifetime, also referred to as provenance, is quite important to the workings of the Rare Book Sale Monitor (RBSM). Since any tool used in measuring a commodity’s price changes over periods of time is quite vulnerable to sampling errors, […]

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Happy 450th Birthday to William Shakespeare

March 28, 2014
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The most valuable collection of Shakespeare’s works was accumulated by Henry Clay Folger, a millionaire Standard Oil executive, who died two weeks after he laid the cornerstone to the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1930. He appointed the Trustees of Amherst College to administer the library located in Washington, DC and the collection that includes 79 […]

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The Lombard Gradual

March 21, 2014
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Rare Books Digest is pleased to host Laurent Ferri, Curator of Pre-1800 Collections at Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, presenting the Lombard Gradual. Graduals are large books from which choirs of monks, friars, or nuns chanted prayers and portions of the mass during medieval times. This Latin manuscript on vellum originated […]

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RENAISSANCE “THEATRES OF MACHINES” – A 1578 BOOK OF (PLEASANT AND USEFUL) INVENTIONS

March 14, 2014
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Books of inventions are a little-known category of Renaissance books: an excellent example is the 1578 the Théâtre des Instruments Mathématiques et Mécaniques de Jacques Besson, Dauphinois, Docte Mathématicien, published for the first time in 1571 or 1572 (Cornell University, Kroch Library, Division of Rare Books and Manuscripts, History of Science TJ144 B55 1578++). Born […]

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