When in his foundational Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (1627), Gabriel Naudé insisted on the importance of transcribing and collecting the catalogues of public and private libraries, historic and contemporary, large and small, local and foreign, he provided several reasons to justify this advice.* Naudé, who would later serve as librarian to Cardinal Mazarin, First Minister of France, posited that catalogues of (pre-)existing collections were indispensable instruments for those who wanted to build a library, since they not only provided useful models, but could also serve as bibliographic aids.1 In fact, the idea of collecting and preserving catalogues of library collections was not as surprising as Naudé seemingly believed his readers would find it to be. Already in the mid-sixteenth century, polymath Conrad Gessner had amply demonstrated the usefulness of catalogues for all kinds of bibliographic purposes in his Bibliotheca Universalis (1545) and made a plea for their preservation.2 Yet, it seems that it was only in the decades following the publication of Naudéâs Advis, a period which coincided with further expansion of the European book market and the rapid development of private book collecting practices, that a widerâless exclusively scholarlyâpublic began to take an interest in the contents and the catalogues of private libraries, all across the continent. The second edition of the Advis appeared in 1644, coincidentally giving rise to the publication of a treatise consecrated entirely to discussion of the finest libraries in the worldâboth past and present.3 Its author, the Carmelite scholar and librarian to the Cardinal de Retz, Louis Jacob, was in fact a friend of Naudéâs and had been asked to help prepare the augmented edition of the Advis. Jacob had agreed, but, having received such enthusiastic responses from the correspondents whom he had asked to send him detailed information on sizeable collections (of at least 3,000 volumes), the handful of pages he had set out to write expanded into a full-blown book. In the preface, Jacob noted that while the subject of fine libraries had been discussed before, the focus had been on libraries of the past. His work dealt primarily with libraries of the present, so that his contemporaries, and especially those willing to travel, could benefit in a practical way from the information on the âriches Tresors des Musesâ [rich treasures of the Muses] that he had gathered.
From the second half of the seventeenth century onwards, a growing number of reference works on (private) book collections, their cataloguing and their management appeared on the European market. Several of them, such as Johann Heinrich Hottingerâs Bibliothecarius quadripartitus (1664) and Johannes Lomeierâs De Bibliothecis (1669), combined a practical approach with an overview of historical and extant libraries. At the same time, the catalogues of private collections increasingly took the form of a printed book, especially when they appeared in conjunction with a public auction organised by a bookseller, a practice that developed in the Low Countries and that, from the end of the seventeenth century onwards, had been adopted in several other countries.4 Both manuscript and printed catalogues from this period show that by this time, library owners were taking Naudéâs advice: besides booksellersâ and public library catalogues, many of them contain numerous catalogues of other private libraries. Some of these were the catalogues from auctions that these owners had attended themselves, whereas others had been collected for different reasons. The renowned physician and collector Hans Sloane for example, who owned an impressive assortment of various types of catalogues from all over Europe, purchased fourteen sale catalogues from auctioneer Edward Millington in 1706/1707. He already owned copies of some of them, having been present at most of the sales himself, but Millingtonâs copies were annotated with prices and the names of the buyers.5 Whatever the reason for collecting and preserving private catalogues, whether for the information on prices and buyers they contained, for use as bibliographic reference works, library manuals, reading or shopping lists, or to honour the memoryâand the booksâof a deceased relative or a famous collector, the end result was the same.6 This documentation on early modern private libraries, which in principle should have been of an even more transitory nature than the collections themselves, was thereby preserved well after the dispersal of the collections described, sometimes until the present day. This was especially true when the catalogues were kept in large aristocratic libraries or entered collections that were later bequeathed to public institutions.7
The paradigms and practices that underlay Naudéâs advice and the collections formed by those whoâdeliberately or notâfollowed it, reflect the book culture of their time. Yet the habits that were at the heart of his work seem to be deeply rooted in human nature: the impulse to collect, the urge to document and categorise the objects collected, and also sheer curiosity. Today, the handwritten and printed catalogues of early modern collections remain valuable tools for those interested in the history of the book. In retrospect then, one can add to Naudéâs list another justification for collecting, copying, studying and preserving private library catalogues: materials documenting the contents and the use of private libraries are an invaluable source for the study of intellectual and cultural history.
Twentieth-Century Developments in the Academic Study of Private Libraries
Scholars have long acknowledged the importance of studying private libraries and their documentation to understand intellectual and cultural history, especially for the period prior to the rise of public libraries and the mechanisation of book production. Private library catalogues and other book lists have indeed proven to be an essential resource for academic research at least since Daniel Mornet published his seminal article on âLes enseignements des bibliothèques privées (1750â1780)â.8 In his study, Mornet demonstrated that the analysis of private libraries of the past can reveal more about the âinfluenceâ of canonised authors on their contemporaries than a comparative analysis of the production side of the book market (the number of editions a title went through). To substantiate this thesis, he pointed to lacunae in bibliographic research, the lack of information on early modern print runs, and insisted on the fact that a book published is not necessarily a book bought.
Following the publication of Mornetâs work, the importance of this type of material has been increasingly acknowledged by researchers and bibliographers from around the world.9 At first, book lists documenting the contents of private libraries were used primarily as sources for the study of the history of ideas, then in the 1960s and 1970s, when book history had earned its lettres de noblesse as an academic discipline, the focus shifted to social history and the history of mentalities. At this point, researchers turned to archival material, notably probate inventories, and away from the printed catalogues that, according to some, overrepresented social elites. Michel Marion, for example, examined some 4,000 probate inventories in order to document the presence of books and the constitution of libraries in Parisian households from various socio-economic strata between 1750 and 1759.10 This was followed in the 1980s and 1990s by a tendency to study book collections and book lists as part of a communication circuit involving authors and readers, but also publishers, printers, transporters, book sellers, binders and others actors who have an influence on the message and on the medium that conveys it. By foregrounding questions related to the materiality of the book and libraries, print and reading culture, the book trade, and reception studies, research over the last decades has significantly broadened the perspective on the constitution and use of private libraries in the past. Among other aspects, the role of book auctions inâprimarily North-WesternâEurope has received ample attention.11 Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the possibilities afforded by the âdigital ageâ have led to the development of projects and resources that open new avenues for macro-scale research and renewed interest in quantitative lines of inquiry.12 An inverse approach focuses on the trajectory of individual books that have been preserved and that contain ownership marks.
Throughout these developments, the scholarship concerned with private libraries and their documentation can roughly be divided into two strands of research that have steadily developed alongside one another since the publication of Mornetâs work. The first concentrates on the contents and uses of historical libraries as well as on the background of their owners. The second consists of bibliographic or analytical overviews of specific types of sources that could be exploited by those interested in library history and the history of book ownership and reading.13 These two strands of research, which are
evidently intertwined, have each received considerable critical attention and led to the publication of impressive databases and syntheses such as Book Sales Catalogues Online (BSCO), David Pearsonâs English Book Owners Online (BOO) and the Histoire des bibliothèques françaises.14
The academic study of both the source material itself and the book collections it documents is however hampered by a number of factors. These include the great variety of source types, the permeable boundaries between them, and as a result, the difficult task of distinguishing them, let alone applying clear terminology to identify them. Other complicating factors include difficulties in locating and accessing sources, as well as the nationally oriented focus of many studies. It is these issues that this volume seeks to address, first by foregrounding them and then by proposing ways to move forward, as a form of agenda-setting for future research. The individual contributions in this volume, which revolve on the one hand around the owners, users and contents of early modern private book collections, and on the other, around the book lists and other sources used to document and study these collections, all engage with the problems identified above. Read together, they offer a broad comparative view and substantial insights that can function as stepping-stones for further research.
The initial chronological scope envisaged was the long eighteenth century: 1665â1830. This time frame was set in consideration of the rapid development of printed private library catalogues in North-Western Europe towards the end of the seventeenth century, and the end of the hand press era at the beginning of the nineteenth century. While several of the chapters in this volume show that this range is indeed relevant for certain types of private libraries and book lists, others reveal it to be a less appropriate fit, thus illustrating one of the complexities this book aims to bring to the fore: the different temporalities of the contexts in which private collections and the materials documenting them evolved.
âPrivateâ âLibraryâ âCataloguesâ: The Challenge of Terminology
In everyday speech, the terms âprivate libraryâ and âcatalogueâ seem clear enough. Yet, when applied to research on historical libraries, they prove to be less unambiguous, since they can be used to designate different types of documents and collections. What, indeed, is a library and under what conditions can we speak of a âprivateâ library? And what exactly is a book catalogue? Is it a specific type of list or can any enumeration of books be called a catalogue? This may sound like academic hair-splitting, but asking these questions is in fact essential. Without a clear definition of the object and the scope of studies in this field, communicating about results risks leading to confusion and misunderstandings or to unjustified generalisations in which practices or sources that predominate in regions that have received ample international attention are erroneously presented as typical.
To start with the first element, qualifying a library as âprivateâ tends to imply that the collection was (primarily) for personal use, distinguishing it from institutional and public libraries. In doing so, however, one risks creating a false dichotomy, as if ownership and use of âprivateâ collections were limited to a single individual. A private library was generally shared and used by the whole family or household of the supposed owner, if only because reading with others was an important social activity in the early modern period.15 Private libraries also fulfilled essential functions within broader reading communities, through family and professional networks, and through other networks of informal, interpersonal book lending. Thus, in a time when scholarsâespecially those in peripheral regionsâwere largely dependent on their own libraries and those of other private book collectors, the Republic of Letters could indeed not have worked if its affluent citizens had not been willing to share their books with others.16 In addition, the distinction between âprivateâ libraries on the one hand, and the collections of institutional and âpublicâ libraries, including circulating and subscription libraries, on the other, is less obvious when one considers the various ways in which they could be connected.17 In many cases, private libraries laid the foundations for public libraries or institutional libraries.18 Consequently, it is sometimes possible to work backwards from the documentation around the collections of public institutions to arrive at the foundational private collections. Those connections merit all the more attention as they can reveal historical private collections not otherwise known. The opposite is also true: institutional libraries regularly sold the doubles in their collections and these books often ended up in private hands again.19
Books from âprivateâ collections not only circulated from a geographical point of view, they also travelled in time. Entire book collections could pass from one collector to another, thereby blurring the lines demarcating separate âprivateâ collections. This was not seldom the case with large aristocratic libraries, which sometimes stayed in the family for decades or even centuries. In some regions, library owners could easily resort to the institution of a fideicommissum or a family entail.20 Besides, the fact that a library was offered for sale after the death of its owner did not necessarily mean that the collection was broken up. As shown by the announcements in several sale catalogues printed in seventeenth-century France, the heirs often first tried to sell the library âen blocâ and there are several examples of early modern French bibliophiles who acquired large parts of the collections of their former friends and/or rivals. Sometimes the names of former possessors lived on in the catalogues of those who acquired some of their books.21
The second element of the term âprivate libraryâ poses similar problems: in which circumstances can we call a gathering of books a library? Does this require numerous books or does a small number, or even one, suffice? Do books belonging to one owner, but housed in different properties form one library, or do they represent different libraries? To return to Naudé, according to him, it was the orderly disposition that set a library apart from a random
heap of books, but his expert opinion likely differed from that of many of his contemporaries.22 The contributors in this volume who paused to ask this question in so many words also came up with divergent answers, according to the focus of their research, its geographical context and the nature of the source material.23
In addition, the diverse nature of materials documenting private book collections is such that it is not always easy to distinguish between the different categories of early modern sources recording privately owned books. Hidden under the apparent unity of a type of text generally referred to as a âcatalogueâ exists an intricate web of documents in different sizes and shapes, which all claim to list privately owned books. The purposes for which they were compiled vary just as widely; they range from a handwritten list of a meagre handful of titles for personal use, to the multi-volume printed catalogue of a library offered for sale, to a probate inventory listing only the selected titles of a few valuable items. Each type of document has its own conventions, partly dictated by the reasons for which it was drawn up, whether domestic, legal, or commercial, for example. Yet a single list could serve multiple purposes at once, or at subsequent moments, a fact that blurs not only the boundaries between different types of lists, but also our interpretation of what they represent.24
For example, the owners of larger libraries often maintained records of the books they possessed in order to have an overview of their collection, and these could double as an instrument to locate titles on the shelves. After an ownerâs death, such lists could moreover serve as the basis for a probate inventory, a book sale catalogue or even the catalogue of a public library.25 As the latter possibilities indicate, documents recording the contents of private libraries fit into a wider corpus of early modern book lists that similarly resist stable characterisation.
The complexity of distinguishing specific categories within this larger corpus becomes evident when one compares typologies developed by specialists within the field. Graham Pollard and Albert Ehrmanâs influential The Distribution of Books by Catalogue for example differentiates between personal library catalogues, manuscript inventories, printed inventories, inventory sale catalogues, and auction sale catalogues. The main division underlying their study is not between private and publicâor institutionalâuse and ownership of the books, but between lists of books intended to stay in the collection, and lists compiled in a context of transferring books from one owner to another.26 From that perspective, inventory and auction sale catalogues of private collections fit naturally with different types of lists of books advertised by booksellers and publishers, while personal library catalogues, in the sense of catalogues drawn up for the use of the owner, are closer to catalogues of institutional libraries. This could explain why the typology of early modern book lists designed more recently by Malcolm Walsby groups personal library catalogues and institutional library catalogues together under the heading âprivate cataloguesâ. As far as lists emanating from the members of the book trade are concerned, Walsby makes a distinction between âbooktrade listsâ, offering insight on the stocks and publications of printers and booksellers, and âsales cataloguesâ that focus on the second-hand book trade.27 The latter category encompasses Graham and Pollardâs inventory sales and auction sales catalogues. The authors of these studies, who were primarily interested in the book trade rather than in private collectors and collections, note the difficulty of coming up with a clear typology of book lists that does justice to the continuity and entanglement between the different categories. This lack of clarity has led to the elaboration of numerous custom-made typologies in response to different research interests.28
The ensuing ambiguity in the vocabulary used to describe source materials further contributes to the complexity of the situation. Yann Sordet has given an insightful overview of the array of partly overlapping terms used to designate lists recording private (and other) book collections, both partial and whole, such as âcatalogueâ, âinventoryâ, ârepertoryâ, âindexâ, ârollâ, âlistâ or âmemorandumâ.29 Although these terms are all connected through the fact that they refer to lists of books and that they were used in the early modern period, each has different connotations associated with the context in which it originated and functioned. Without clear definitions of the vocabulary used to describe the source material, discussions on the documentation of early modern private libraries risk degenerating into a Babylonian confusion of tongues. This is the reason why, in this introduction, we have preferred the use of the term âbook listâ, which serves as an umbrella term for all the different types of documentation one encounters while searching for tangible traces of early modern private libraries. Used in this sense, book lists are documents that record a number of (privately owned) books. They do not necessarily have to be in the shape of a bibliographically descriptive list, but can take many forms, from handwritten domestic notes to sale catalogues, through descriptions in letters, clerical reports and probate inventories. They can be recorded by the owner, an associate, a third party, or reconstructed at a later stage. The term âbook listâ has the advantage that it is broader than terms such as âcatalogueâ or âinventoryâ. Apart from the fact that their definition can also be problematic, these are such prolific sub-categories of book lists, that the use of these terms can unintentionally skew the understanding of the materials referenced or confine their interpretation to the specific characteristics they are traditionally associated with. Rather than impose definitions of what a âprivate libraryâ or a âcatalogueâ is or should be, we have left these terms open to the interpretation of each author, thereby allowing for a broad exploration of potential sources and actorsâ categories.
Finding and Interpreting Early Modern Lists of Privately Owned Books
In addition to the difficulty characterising private libraries and the documents that list their contents, there are several further pitfalls to be wary of in the use of book lists to study book ownership and the circulation of ideas. As a book historical source, they provide a partial approach since the different types of lists documenting private collections were not designed to provide an overview of all the books read by the former owner. It is also important to emphasise that, even if they claim to, these lists do not always give a reliable account of all the books possessed by the owner. While they represent at best âan image of the library frozen in timeâ, often compiled âat a turning point in the life of a collectionâ, several of themânotably auction cataloguesâomit titles that were in the collection or, on the contrary, add titles that were not.30 For this reason, some book historians have turned away from printed catalogues, instead making probate inventories their preferred source for studying early modern book ownership.31 However, probate inventories also have particular features that complicate their use; they generally only list the most valuable books and the descriptions of even those titles are sometimes too succinct to be of great help. In fact, both printed auction and sale catalogues and probate inventories were drawn up in the context of a financial evaluation of the goods of the owner and probate inventories were regularly used as a basis for the printed sale catalogues. The catalogue compiled for the sale of the library of French lawyer Pierre Mariot in September 1751, for instance, closely follows the list contained in the inventaire après décès drawn up three months earlier. In some respects, the description of the books in the catalogue is more complete than in the inventory and indeed the last three entries in the catalogue contain books that are signalled as not having been described in the inventory. On the other hand, certain inventory numbers are skipped in the catalogue, indicating that not all books were offered for sale.32 Instead of preferring one source over another, aggregating them, whenever possible, is likely to be the most rewarding strategy. An in-depth comparative analysis of multiple lists recording books from the same collection could also deepen our understanding of the similarities and differences between different types of lists.
Admittedly, taking such an approach has historically been hampered by a lack of overviews of relevant sources. This results in part from the fact that there are so many different types of sources, and that these are scattered among libraries and archives both public and institutional, as well as in private collections. Even for the best-documented of these source-types, auction catalogues, there are still important bibliographical lacunae and reliable estimates of the surviving numbers are difficult to come by.33 Nor is it always easy to locate or access the extant materialâeven in the digital age. Many sources have travelled from one location to another and are now kept well beyond their original place of production. Furthermore, surviving documents are often of a fragmentary nature, may be dispersed in different collections, and their access may be complicated for material, historical and linguistic reasons. The massive destruction and the relocation of archives during periods of political instability and war in the distant and recent past, represent a major impediment.34
By bringing together a selection of overviews of extant material in different regions, this volume contributes to the identification and localisation of a rich array of documents that are indispensable for a broad understanding of early modern book culture.35
The Predominance of Nationally Oriented Case Studies
Despite the fact that reading and owning books is a widespread and fundamentally transnational phenomenon, the study of early modern readership tends to be nationally oriented; scholars have rarely researched readership outside of their own cultural and linguistic borders. This is not altogether surprising, as there are pragmatic reasons for focussing on locally available sources, the most notable being accessibility, and familiarity with the language as well as the local archival traditions. This approach has resulted in a wealth of perceptive and nuanced research into reading and book collecting practices within specific regional contexts. Unfortunately, the dissemination of findings has often remained restricted to the linguistic sphere in question, resulting in accessibility issuesâboth linguistic and practicalâfor a wider audience.
The reverse implication is equally problematic, as historians rely on previous research published in languages that they are able to read. Whereas national, regional or even local traditions with regard to documenting private book collecting differed widely during the early modern period, our understanding of sources and practices is often shaped by a limited number of specific contexts, all the more particular since so many publications concerning private libraries of the past take the form of case studies. Local, regional and national traditions could vary with respect to what people considered to be a âlibraryâ, the way collectors organised their books on bookshelves and in catalogues, or how books from private libraries were sold. Without knowledge of other contexts, the commonalities and specificities of any one tradition remain unappreciated. This is all the more problematic when one considers that the early modern book trade was fundamentally international andâdespite various attempts to do soânever limited by national borders.36
In order to gain insight into national and cultural differences and convergences in sources documenting private book ownership, libraries and reading practices, it is therefore not only essential to gather hard-to-find publications and sources and provide access to them, but first and foremost to adopt a comparative perspective. While the ongoing digitisation of various print and archival materialsâand their increasing use in linked digital humanities projectsâbrings the first goal within reach, the issue of language and communication continues to represent an important obstacle. Yet, the only road to a truly transnational approach is communication between specialists of different regions, countries and continents.
Besides drawing attention to libraries, archives, repositories and other collections containing substantial documentation on early modern private libraries, the aim of this volume is to offer a state of the art of scholarship on lists of privately owned books in various linguistic and geographical regions as well as to make this information accessible for an audience that does not master the languages in which this scholarship predominantly exists.
Shifting Boundaries
The chapters collected in this volume serve as a guide to sources and resources in different parts of the world as well as to state-of the-art methods and interpretational approaches. Our aspiration is for their juxtaposition here to open comparative and transnational perspectives on the study of private libraries and their documentation. This is all the more important because the form and contents of early modern book lists vary according to the geographical, cultural and chronological contexts in which they were composed and preserved. Reading the chapters together encourages the detection of specificities, patterns and developments, such as the role of the Inquisition in documenting private collections in the Spanish Empire, the presence of non-book items, the influence of different inheritance law systems, the timeline of the spread of book auctions in urban, especially academic, environments, or the dichotomy between northern and southern Europe with regard to the publication of printed (sale) catalogues. It also helps historians to consider collecting and cataloguing practices from specific regions and eras in a broader perspective. Although subject categorisation developed in parallel in different parts of the world, resulting in a rich array of region-specific models, categorisation systems used in early modern book lists also testify to the fact that the Republic of Letters was above all a community without borders. International students brought home books from foreign countries and continued to rely on the networks they had established abroad for further supply. The rise of national libraries based on private collections in the nineteenth century was an almost pan-European phenomenon. The practices of Leuven booksellers who squeezed in their own stock when drawing up auction catalogues of private collections were also not limited to this particular region. It is however not yet clear how common this modus operandi was among booksellers outside of the Southern Netherlands. The documented occurrences of âingestoken boekenâ [added books] in auctions of private book collections held in certain cities in the Dutch Republic, for example, seem to imply far lower percentages of books than in Leuven. They also show that, with respect to these auctions, professional jealously led booksellers to keep a sharp eye on each other.37 On the other hand, eighteenth-century French booksellers are known for presenting the stocks they wanted to dispose of quickly in the form of an auction or a sale catalogue advertising an anonymous private library rather than as a booksellerâs catalogue.38 These examples once more show the importance of distinguishing between different types of catalogues as well as the need for additional and comparative research on primary sources regarding the early modern book trade and its regulations.
Juxtaposition of the chapters also makes visible the biases towards certain types of sources, collections, or contexts that have shaped the historiography of the field. Partly thanks to the number of preserved copies and their accessibility, printed catalogues used for the book auctions that dominated the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century second-hand book market in parts of Europe are by far the best-researched type of book list and therefore tend to colour our understanding of early modern book culture.
If there is any overall conclusion to be drawn from this volume, it is that the material and the questions it covers cannot yet be organised into one all-encompassing typology or other organisational structure. Not only are typologies of sources highly dependent on cultural, religious, educational, legal, regional, political and historical contexts, as well as on the goal for which the typology is designed, but several of those sources remain understudied. When we take a closer look at early modern book lists, libraries, their owners and the way in which their collections were built and used, patterns that seemed clear from a distance tend to fade and what we see is fragmentary and coloured by who we are as individual researchers, our particular background and our specific research questions. To overcome these limitations, the challenge is to further identify, locate and aggregate various types of book lists, and to combine local, regional and transnational perspectives, for example by collaborating with colleagues from different language areas. This collected volume aims to give an impetus toward that end.
The contributions are grouped into four interrelated sections that take the reader from large-scale projects on the history of book ownership and reading to micro-level research conducted on individual private libraries, and from analyses of specific types of underutilised primary sources to general typologies as well as overviews and bibliographies per period and per region. The question of what a âprivate libraryâ is, is central to the first section: âPrivate Libraries in Useâ. The chapters here present case studies of private and communal libraries from different perspectives: collecting practices; composition, management and use of the libraries; their fate after the death of the collector; background and networks of owners, users, buyers and sellers. Although they concentrate on specific libraries and owners, which might not always be typical of contemporary collections and collectors, the observations of the authors provide insights that can be used as a point of entry into the study of a larger corpus. The second section, âUncovering Private Libraries in Archival Sourcesâ, addresses issues related to locating, accessing and interpreting archival evidence relating to private libraries within specific geographical and socio-political contexts. The third section, âPrivate Library Research in Regional Contextsâ presents overviews of sources and the state of the art of research for a number of countries or geographical entities, with a focus on regions and historiographies outside north-western Europe. Lastly, âBuilding a Field of Studyâ, brings together examples of several projects that collect and utilise documentation on private libraries to study the history of the book trade, book ownership, the history of ideas and readership. The authors look back at the creation of project databases that document early modern private libraries. They reflect on the choices made, while also contemplating future research. The respective focuses of these projects demonstrate the wide range of possibilities that the study of book lists and other documentation on private libraries has to offer.
The preparation of this volume has been supported by funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Unionâs Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 682022, as well as by the Stichting Ammodo Science Award 2017 for Humanities. See the MEDIATE project website, available online at <www .mediate18.nl>.
Gabriel Naudé, Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (Paris: François Targa, 1627), pp. 27â30 (USTC 6019927).
Conrad Gessner, Bibliotheca Universalis (Zürich: Christoph Froschauer, 1545) (USTC 616753). On Gessnerâs approach to catalogues see Ann Blair, Too Much to Know. Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), p. 163.
Louis Jacob, Traicté des plus belles bibliothèques publiques et particulières, qui ont esté, & qui sont à présent dans le monde (Paris: Rolet le Duc, 1644) (USTC 6035314).
Bert van Selm, Een menighte treffelijcke boecken. Nederlandse boekhandelscatalogi in het begin van de zeventiende eeuw (Utrecht: Hes Uitgevers, 1987). For an overview of recent scholarship, see Arthur der Weduwen, Andrew Pettegree, and Graeme Kemp (eds.), Book Trade Catalogues in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2021).
Giles Mandelbrote, âLes catalogues de libraires dans les collections de Sir Hans Sloane (1660â1753): provenance et transmissionâ, in Annie Charon, Claire Lesage, Ãve Netchine (eds.), Le livre entre le commerce et lâhistoire des idées. Les catalogues de libraires (XVeâXIXe siècle) (Paris: Ãcole nationale des Chartes, 2011), pp. 203â242. On Sloaneâs catalogues and inspiration in Naudé and others works on bibliography, see Alexandra Ortolja-Baird, âSir Hans Sloaneâs Collection of Books and Manuscripts: An Enlightenment Library?â, in Arthur der Weduwen and Ann-Marie Hansen (eds.), Publishers, Censors and Collectors in the European book trade, 1650â1750 (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).
In 1772, the Leeuwarden bookseller Abraham Ferwerda published his attempt at a Catalogus universalis: Algemeene naam-lyst van boeken met de pryzen [General list of the names of books with their prices]. He based his information on collections of auction catalogues from 1701â1772 and the handwritten auction proceedings. Abraham Ferwerda, Algemeene naam-lyst van boeken met de pryzen (Leeuwarden: Abraham Ferwerda and Gerrit Tresling, 1772), STCN: 157192660. See Everhard Hofland, âPrijzen van boeken van Weyerman in de Naam-lyst van Ferwerdaâ, Mededelingen van de Stichting Jacob Campo Weyerman, 15 (1992), pp. 58â61; Hans Gruys, âRijklof Michael van Goens. Het mysterie van de 24.200 verdwenen catalogiâ, in Ton van Uchelen and Hannie van Goinga (eds.), Van pen tot laser: 31 opstellen over boek en schrift (Amsterdam: De Buitenkant, 1996), pp. 150â156, here p. 153.
To give but one example, hundreds of Dutch book sales catalogues have survived the test of time in the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel thanks to the collecting of Augustus II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1579â1666). Marika Keblusek, âGekocht in Den Haag. Hertog August van Wolfenbüttel en de Haagse Elzeviersâ, in Berry Dongelmans, Paul Hoftijzer and Otto Lankhorst (eds.), Boekverkopers van Europa: het 17de-eeuwse Nederlandse uitgevershuis Elzevier (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2000), pp. 211â224.
âThe teachings of private librariesâ were gleaned from Mornetâs analysis of the contents of some 500 printed private library catalogues held by the Bibliothèque municipale de Toulouse. Daniel Mornet, âLes enseignements des bibliothèques privées (1750â1780)â, Revue dâhistoire littéraire de la France, 17 (1910), pp. 449â496.
See for example: Sophie A. Krijn, âFranse lektuur in Nederland in het begin van de 18e eeuwâ, De nieuwe taalgids, 11 (1917), pp. 161â178; George L. McKay, American Book Auction Catalogues, 1713â1934 (New York: New York Public Library, 1937). For a recent overview of the changing use of printed private library catalogues as a historical source, see Helwi Blom, Rindert Jagersma and Juliette Reboul, âPrinted Private Library Catalogues as a Source for the History of Reading in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Europeâ, in Mary Hammond (ed.), Edinburgh History of Reading. Early Readers (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), pp. 249â269.
Michel Marion, Recherches sur les bibliothèques privées à Paris au milieu du XVIIIe siècle (Paris: BnF, 1978).
Hans Dieter Gebauer, Bücherauktionen in Deutschland im 17. Jahrhundert (Bonn: Bouvier, 1981); Van Selm, Een menighte treffelijcke boecken; Françoise Bléchet, Les ventes publiques de livres en France, 1630â1750: répertoire des catalogues conservés à la Bibliothèque Nationale (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation 1991); Robin Myers, Michael Harris and Giles Mandelbrote (eds.), Under the hammer: Book auctions since the seventeenth century. Papers originally presented at the conference âUnder the hammerâ held in London, Nov. 25â26 2000 (London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 2001); Lis Byberg, Brukte bøker til bymann og bonde: bokauksjonen i den norske litterære offentlighet 1750â1815 (Oslo: Det Humanistiske Fakultet, Universitetet i Oslo, 2007); Iwona Imánska, Per medium auctionis: aukcje ksiÄ Å¼ek w Rzeczypospolitej (XVIIâXVIII w.) [Per medium auctionis: Book Auctions in the Polish Commonwealth (17thâ18th Centuries] (Torún: Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2013).
The MEDIATE project is just such a case, as are several of the digital projects figuring in the contributions in the present volume.
Multiple examples of both of these approaches are cited in Blom, Jagersma and Reboul, âPrinted Private Library Catalogues as a Sourceâ.
BSCO is available online at <https://primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/book-sales-catalogues-online>. On the history of the Book Sales Catalogues of the Dutch Republic project, see chapter 19 by Otto S. Lankhorst in this volume. For BOO, see <https://www.bookowners.online>; Histoire des bibliothèques françaises (4 vols., Paris: Promodis-Ãditions du Cercle de la librairie, 1988â1992).
See Abigail Williams, The Social Life of Books. Reading Together in the Eighteenth-Century Home (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017); Alicia C. Montoya and Rindert Jagersma, âMarketing Maria Sibylla Merian, 1720â1800. Book Auctions, Gender, and Reading Culture in the Dutch Republicâ, Book History, 21 (2018), pp. 56â88; Rindert Jagersma and Joanna Rozendaal, âFemale Book Ownership in the Eighteenth-Century Dutch Republic. The Book Collection of Paper-Cutting Artist Joanna Koerten (1650â1715)â, Quaerendo, 50:1â2 (2020), pp. 109â140.
On the willingness to share personal libraries with others, see for example chapter 3 by Paul Hoftijzer and chapter 4 by Laurence Brockliss in this volume.
See chapter 2 by Anders Toftgaard on the collection of Otto Thott (1703â1785), Denmarkâs greatest private book collector. See also chapter 12 by MichaÅ Bajer, below, and Mark Towsey and Kyle B. Roberts (eds.), Before the Public Library: Reading, Community, and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1650â1850 (Leiden: Brill, 2018).
See chapter 6 by Róbert Oláh and chapter 7 by Giliola Barbero, below.
See for example, Yves Jocteur-Montrozier, âLes Jésuites lyonnais et la bibliothèque municipale de Lyonâ, in Ãtienne Fouilloux and Bernard Hours (eds.), Les Jésuites à Lyon XVIeâ XXe siècle (Lyon: ENS, 2005), pp. 95â109. See also chapter 12 by Bajer, below.
See chapter 1 by Alex Alsemgeest on the Leufstabruk Library in Sweden, owned by the Dutch eighteenth-century industrialist and entomologist Charles De Geer (1720â1778), below.
See for example Bibliotheca Colbertina: seu catalogus librorum bibliothecæ, quæ fuit primum Ill. V.D.J.B. Colbert, regni administri, deinde Ill. D.J.B. Colbert, march. de Seignelay; postea Rev. et Ill. D.J. Nic. Colbert, Rothomagenis Archiepiscopi; ac demum Ill. D. Caroli-Leonorii Colbert, comitis de Seignelay (Paris: Gabriel Martin, 1728) and Catalogue des livres provenant de la bibliothèque de Mr le duc de Choiseul, ancien Ministre, et par suite de M. Laborde, ancien Banquier de la Cour (Paris: Méquignon, 1820). On books travelling from one owner to another, also see chapter 18 by Marieke van Delft, below.
Naudé, Advis, p. 130: âsans cet ordre & disposition tel amas de livres que ce peust estre ⦠ne meriteroit pas le nom de Bibliothequeâ [without this order and disposition a collection of books, however large it might be, does not deserve the name âlibraryâ].
See in this volume, chapter 16 by Joseph L. Black, chapter 8 by Federica Dallasta, and chapter 13 by István Monok.
See chapter 10 by Idalia GarcÃa Aguilar and Alberto José Campillo Pardo, and chapter 8 by Dallasta, below.
An example for each of these types can be found in the following: the Catalogue des livres de feu M. Bellanger, trésorier général du Sceau de France (Paris: Gabriel & Claude Martin, 1740) compiled on the basis of Bellangerâs domestic catalogue; Christian Coppens, âA Post-Mortem Inventory Turned into a Sales Catalogue: a Screening of the Auction Catalogue of the Library of Charles Duke of Croy, Brussels 1614â, Quaerendo, 38:4 (2008), pp. 359â380; and the Bibliotheca Prustelliana, sive Catalogus librorum bibliothecae viri clarissimi D.D. Guillelmi Prousteau ⦠Aurelianis depositae in Monasterio Beatae Mariae de Bono Nuntio, Ordinis Benedictini ⦠Ad usum studiosorum omnium (Orléans: typis Francisci Rouzeau, 1721).
Cf. Graham Pollard and Albert Ehrman, The Distribution of Books by Catalogue from the Invention of Printing to A.D. 1800: Based on Material in the Broxbourne Library (Cambridge: printed for presentation to the members of the Roxburghe Club, 1965), p. 249.
Malcolm Walsby, âBook Lists and their Meaningâ, in Malcolm Walsby and Natasha Constantinidou (eds.), Documenting the Early Modern Book World. Catalogues and Inventories in Manuscript and Print (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 1â24.
On typologies, see in this volume, chapter 13 by Monok, chapter 16 by Black, chapter 9 by Andrea Reyes Elizondo, chapter 17 by Giovanna Granata, and chapter 15 by Fan Wang. Chapter 11 by Pedro Rueda RamÃrez and LluÃs AgustÃ, and chapter 10 by GarcÃa Aguilar and Campillo Pardo provide examples of the difficulties in defining a multifaceted and unstable corpus.
Yann Sordet, âPour une histoire des catalogues de livres: matérialités, formes, usagesâ, in Frédéric Barbier, Thierry Dubois and Yann Sordet (eds.), De lâargile au nuage: une archéologie des catalogues (IIe millénaire av. J.-C.âXXIe siècle) (Paris: Bibliothèque Mazarine/Bibliothèque de Genève, Ãditions des Cendres, 2015), pp. 15â46. Sordetâs analysis also discusses the question of typology.
Blom, Jagersma and Reboul, âPrinted Private Library Catalogues as a Sourceâ, p. 254. See also below chapter 5 by Pierre Delsaerdt, and chapter 17 by Granata.
See for example, José de Kruif, Liefhebbers en gewoontelezers. Leescultuur in Den Haag in de achttiende eeuw (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1999), p. 59; and Dominique Varry, âSous la main de la nationâ. Les bibliothèques de lâEure confisquées sous la Révolution française (Ferney-Voltaire: Centre international dâétude du XVIIIe siècle, 2005), p. 32.
See Catalogue des livres de feu monsieur Mariot, avocat aux conseils du Roy (Paris: Gabriel Martin, 1751), and Archives nationales (Paris), MC/ET/XXVI/458, inventory dated 18 June 1751. For further discussion, see Helwi Blom, âPhilosophie ou Commerce? Lâévolution des systèmes de classement bibliographique dans les catalogues de bibliothèques privées publiés en France au XVIIIe siècleâ, in Frédéric Barbier, István Monok and Andrea Seidler (eds.), Les bibliothèques et lâéconomie des connaissances/Bibliotheken und die Ãkonomie des Wissens 1450â1850 ⦠(Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Könyvtár és Információs Központ, 2020), pp. 203â234.
Rindert Jagersma, âDutch Printed Private Library Sales Catalogues 1599â1800. A Bibliometric Overviewâ, in Arthur der Weduwen, Andrew Pettegree and Graeme Kemp (eds.), Book Trade Catalogues in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2021), pp. 87â117.
See in this volume, chapter 7 by Barbero, and chapter 9 by Reyes Elizondo, respectively.
See, among others, in this volume, chapter 14 by Jonas Thorup Thomsen, chapter 15 by Fan Wang, chapter 11 by Rueda RamÃrez and AgustÃ, chapter 12 by Bajer, and chapter 13 by Monok.
See for example chapter 12 by Bajer on private collections in the early modern Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: the majority of the extant seventeenth- and the eighteenth-century auction catalogues were published in Royal Prussia, a border region that was heavily influenced by the German book market.
See, for example, Hannie van Goinga, âAlom te bekomenâ. Veranderingen in de boekdistributie in de Republiek 1720â1800 (Amsterdam: De Buitenkant, 1999), pp. 125, 127, 142â143. See also, above, the observation on the completeness of Pierre Mariotâs auction catalogue, and the private library sale catalogue stating explicitly that some books do not belong to the collection, mentioned in chapter 11 by Rueda RamÃrez and AgustÃ.
See for example in Claire Lesage, Ãve Netchine and Véronique Sarrazin, Catalogues de libraires 1473â1810 (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2006), no. 1422â1424, 1769, 2430, 2432.