Acknowledgements
Research for this bibliography was carried out as part of the ‘Spinoza’s Web’-project which was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO; dossier number 360-20-350). The project (2014–2017) was housed at the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University. I am deeply grateful to this institution for allowing me to take up this unique book project and see it to completion. I am especially indebted to the Utrecht Department’s staff for their generous support.
The present study, composed during implementation of ‘The Spinoza Web’ (a website/database also part of the NWO ‘Spinoza’s Web’-project: spinozaweb.org), has especially greatly benefited from the work of my dear Utrecht research colleagues: Prof. Dr Piet Steenbakkers (principal investigator) and Dr Albert Gootjes (postdoctoral researcher).
This bibliography could never have been compiled without their solid research, critical questions, comments, suggestions, their unflaggingly strong support along the way, and, most importantly their friendship. They as well as other Dutch Spinoza scholars, like my Rotterdam colleagues Prof. Dr Wiep van Bunge and Prof. Dr Henri Krop, have always encouraged my work at various stages and I am grateful for their support and for sharing their thoughts with me. I would also like to thank some of my international colleagues, in particular Edwin Curley (Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, The University of Michigan) and Steven Nadler (William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy and Evjue-Bascom Professor in Humanities, The University of Wisconsin, Madison). Edwin Curley kindly provided me with the then still unpublished drafts of the second volume of his The Collected Works; a landmark in Spinoza scholarship.
Especially Piet Steenbakkers still is and always has been a great source of inspiration and a faithful guide in Spinoza scholarship during many years. He read and commented on the draft of this bibliography and together we discussed numerous topics regarding Spinoza’s seventeenth-century printed works and aspects of printing in the handpress period. Piet also provided me with drafts of his and Dr Fokke Akkerman’s new Ethica edition (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2020), comprising in it a French translation by Pierre-François Moreau. Piet also accepted the invitation to compose the foreword to my bibliography. Albert Gootjes too has been also of great help, particularly by discussing topics in my descriptive bibliography in embryo when I started sorting out the many printing flaws in Spinoza’s seventeenth-century works and getting grip on specific printing mistakes in the Latin and the Hebrew language.
During the NWO project on Spinoza, both Piet and Albert were my loyal fellow travellers, particularly when we started solving complex questions centring around the historical backgrounds of the Utrecht Cartesians’ attack on Spinoza’s 1670 Tractatus theologico-politicus and his still vexed trip to Utrecht in the late summer of 1673 together. Together, we were able to shed more light on these conundrums, although some intricate details of these puzzles are unfortunately still at dusk.
Thanks are also due to Rik Wassenaar. During my research, he brought many times several unknown archival documents to my attention and was supportive all the way through. Lucas van der Deijl was kind enough to share the draft version of his paper studying the automatic collation of the extant Dutch translations of the Tractatus theologico-politicus.
Furthermore, I am also much indebted to my former assistants, Dick Timmer, Samuel van Bruchem, and Ward Huetink, for their invaluable help, energy, and devotion in bombarding staff members in international libraries with bibliographical questions and requests on my behalf. I would especially thank Dick for his energetic and loyal support during my preparations when he took care of collecting the many illustrations included this book.
At the University of St Andrews, Prof. Dr Andrew Pettegree (founding member of Brill’s monograph series ‘The Library of the Written Word’) has been an enthusiastic and supportive editor all the way through. I would further like to express my thanks to his second readers and to the Leiden team of Brill publishers, especially to Arjan van Dijk and Francis Knikker, who were always helpful and kindly replied to my queries. I am also much indebted to Ester Lels, my desk editor at Brill. Thanks are also due to Dr Bart Leeuwenburgh, Prof. Dr Han van Ruler and Prof. Dr Jonathan I. Israel for their unflagging support.
In the last place, I would express my gratitude to Jim Gibbons (USA) who edited the completed draft of this bibliography. I thank him for his attentiveness to the English language and for his efficiency. With Dr Erik-Jan Bos, my friend and former colleague, I discussed many topics and vexed issues in the history of seventeenth-century philosophy. Over the years, I enjoyed our many vibrant discussions and also those debates with the Utrecht Emeritus Professor Dr Theo Verbeek which often made me rethink many scholarly issues in this study.
Along the way, I would like to point out to readers that from Fokke Akkerman’s scholarly works I have learned a great deal about Spinoza’s printed seventeenth-century writings. Regrettably, during preparations of this bibliography, in 2017, he passed away. Akkerman would have embraced this study wholeheartedly. In a certain way, with his work on Spinoza he ‘contributed’ to this bibliography, too.
Institutions which have always offered me their kindest support are the following: KB. National Library of the Netherlands (The Hague), Amsterdam Stadsarchief, Universiteit van Amsterdam (University Library), Leiden University Library, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Universitäts-und Forschungsbibliothek Erfurt/Gotha, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek – Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek (Hanover), Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt (Halle), Universität Bern (University Library), Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel), Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Vienna), Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Bibliothèque nationale de France (Paris), National Library of the Czech Republic, Utrecht University Library, Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), The Royal Society (London), Younes & Soraya Nazarian Library, University of Haifa.
I would like to extend my gratitude to numerous staff members in international libraries who have kindly provided me and my team with helpful information about copies and with scans, as well as with photographs of extant seventeenth-century printed editions of Spinoza’s works in their holdings. Without their outstanding help my contribution to Spinoza scholarship and bibliography would have been an unthinkable enterprise in its own right. As the Dutch philosopher points out in the last proposition of the Ethica: ‘But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.’ (E5p42s).
Jeroen M.M. van de Ven
9 May 2021