This Swiss digitization project has made quite a splash in the last week or so. If you are interested in rare 16th century works published in Switzerland, you really must check out www.e-rara.ch. This represents a digitization project among the following Swiss institutions at the moment: the Bibliothèque de Genève, ETH-Library Zürich, Basel University Library, University of Bern, and the Zürich Central Library. The images of rare works are publicly available for free, in high quality, for download in PDF, and the site is multi-lingual. At the moment there are well over 800 works ranging from16th - 19th c. works, but the project leader at ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Dr. Franziska Geisser, states that more than 10k works should be available by the end of 2011. That’s about 2.5 million pages of rare Swiss books! The original announcements were posted on the E-lib.ch blog  in French and German, for a news article from a Zürich news outlet (NZZ) try here.

In addition to the normal search options, it is possible to search by publisher. This is quite a helpful feature when tracking down rare editions in a certain time frame. Overall, the site is exceptionally well done and easy to use. Enjoy! I have found such treasures as Sadoleto’s 1540 letter to the council of Geneva, Calvin’s 1547 comments on the Council of Trent, Calvin’s 1550 Institutio, Bullinger’s 1532 commentary on Hebrews, Daneau’s Ethices Christianae (1582), and Zwingli’s 1530 De Vera et Falsa Religione.

I must say I would not have known of this site without the reference from a good friend in Geneva and fellow doctoral student. Thanks Albert!

For yet another 19th century Latin Dictionary, Try this one. It is roughly 950 pages, and is primarily geared towards Classical Latin (i.e. pre-Augustan/Imperial Latin) based on the 2 volume German-Latin dictionary of Karl Ernst Georges Ausfuhrliches Latinisch-Deutsches Handworterbuch (Leipzig: Siebente Auflage) vol 1 | vol 2. By the way here is another 19th c. Latin-English dictionary published in the UK based on an earlier edition of Georges.

Right. I don’t speak Basque either, but thanks to a comment on the post-Reformation Digital Library site I was able to download a copy of Theodore Beza’s 1559 Confession de la foy Christienne from the Bizkaiko Foru Librutegia. I also downloaded a very rare copy of Alfonso Salmeron’s commentary, such as it is, on the whole New Testament (Mastricht - a 17th c. Reformed theologian and exegete at Utrecht - goes after Salmeron - a 16th c. Jesuit exegete - in a few places, so I needed to reference this). I also found quite a bit of other Spanish theologians from the 16th and 17th century, including a 1689 work against Reformed Theology by a Jesuit theologian, Didaco de la Fuente Hurtado (If you want this work search by author name Fuente due to old Spanish nobility cognomens and such, even though Voetius frequently seems to cite him as simply Hurtado).

There is a trick to downloading though since it does not save directly to PDF. So if you want a highly compressed but good quality PDF, you need to “print” to file. If you have Adobe Acrobat Standard or better, this is no problem. If you have some other PDF print driver, it may work I haven’t tried. I will say that if you “save” rather than print, you may run into problems as I did the first time around as it is a non-descript “FILE” extension that Adobe reader and acrobat do not like.

If you are feeling adventuresome, here is your phrase book for searches: AUTOREA = author; IZENBURUA = title; ARG. DATUAK = (perhaps) Place, Publication, Date as it appears in the language of the work; GAIA = topic; SIGNATURA = shelfmark. Make sure that under Katalogoa you select: Librutegi Digitala.

If you are not feeling adventuresome, here is the English version of the site.

As far as the shelf mark is concerned, you can browse the works around it. So when I found Hurtado’s work, I also found a few other works in a Jesuit and Molinist vein such as Francisco Palanco’s Tractatus de Providentia Dei concordata cum humana libertate, et sanctitate diuina. That is quite a helpful layout for a digital library.

Enjoy!

Meeter Center Launches New Web-based Resource for Reformation and Post-Reformation Studies

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (November 5, 2009) — A newly-available research tool, sponsored by the H. Henry Meeter Center for Calvin Studies and the Hekman Library at Calvin College and Seminary, promises to aid the work of scholars from around the world. The Post-Reformation Digital Library (PRDL) is a select bibliography of primary source documents focusing on early modern theology and philosophy, spanning publicly-accessible collections from major research libraries, independent scholarly initiatives, and corporate documentation projects.

The core of the PRDL project involves the organization of thousands of documents available in digital form from sources including Google Books and the Internet Archive. Also included are the offerings of select libraries from Europe and North America, which are beginning to make digitized forms of their holdings available to the public. The project covers the work of hundreds of authors from a wide variety of theological, philosophical, and ecclesiastical traditions, from figures like John Calvin and Martin Luther to the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) and Jacob Arminius (1560-1609).

According to David Sytsma, moderator of the PRDL editorial board, the current availability of a vast array of materials is unprecedented in academic history. “The opportunity presented by this kind of digital access is matched by the challenge to the individual researcher to deal responsibly and comprehensively with a broad cross-section of source material,” observes Sytsma, a doctoral student in historical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. “The PRDL is one way to help ensure that the reach of technical digitalization does not exceed the grasp of the scholar,” he says.

The first stage of the PRDL project involved the collaboration of dozens of scholars from around the world on a privately editable website, or wiki. Once a standard level of comprehensiveness was achieved, the wiki was transitioned to a publicly available bibliography hosted by the Meeter Center. The site will continue to be updated and users will be able to suggest revisions via interactive web forms.

Dr. Richard A. Muller, P. J. Zondervan Professor of Historical Theology at Calvin Seminary and current chair of the Meeter Center Governing Board, notes the potential of the PRDL to advance research in a variety of disciplines. “The Post-Reformation Digital Library will be a boon to both students and professional researchers alike,” he says. Muller also serves as a member of the PRDL editorial board, as does Lugene Schemper, theological librarian at Calvin College and Seminary, who oversaw the migration of the resource to Hekman Library’s LibGuides system.

Members of the PRDL editorial board represent institutions from across North America and Europe. In addition to Muller and Schemper, the PRDL editorial board includes: Jordan J. Ballor (University of Zurich/Calvin Theological Seminary); Albert Gootjes (Calvin Theological Seminary/Institut d’histoire de la Réformation, Geneva); Todd Rester (Calvin Theological Seminary); and moderator David Sytsma (Princeton Theological Seminary).

Schemper led a roundtable discussion of the PRDL and other digital research tools at the Fall meeting of the Chicago Area Theological Library Association earlier this month. Board members Jordan J. Ballor, David Sytsma, and Todd Rester are scheduled to present on the PRDL at a “New Technologies” session at next year’s annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, to be held in Venice, Italy (April 8-10).

Access the Post-Reformation Digital Library:
http://libguides.calvin.edu/prdl

Contact Jordan J. Ballor at (616) 617-7669 or jballor1@calvinseminary.edu for more information.

About the Meeter Center:

http://www.calvin.edu/meeter/about/

For those of you who like to access your docs, pdfs, and pics on the go, life just got a little more wired. As of yesterday, there is a new Dropbox app for the iPhone. And I have to say, having access to files on three of my computers (work, home, laptop) was already a nice taste of cyberbliss, but the ability to be in conversation with someone at a research conference, remember that you have a document or file on that in your Dropbox account, and e-mail a link to it on the spot, that is quite worth it. Not to mention all the other happy file streaming possibilities for your music, quicktime podcasts, etc. etc. Also, it does have most forms of file support including MS Word documents, pdfs, and a score of others. If you absolutely have to have a snapshot of something, you can upload pics to your dropbox account straight from the phone without, I believe, using local memory on the phone. For a more technical CNET review of the app, gohere.

For those of you unfamiliar with Dropbox, it is a computer syncing service (free::up to 5 GB; paid::up to 100GB) that allows you cross-platform file sharing (do you have a mac, a PC, and Linux and would like to share files easily? This is one option for you). It also is nice for collaboration among authors, editors, etc.

If you want a period dictionary that was expanded upon from its publication in 1502 through its eleven language rendition in the 1590 Basil edition, you need to check out this Latin Lexicon. Alas, this is only the 1534 edition and not the 11 language edition, but it is a good humanist dictionary of the period tracing words back to their Greek and Latin roots as well as noting the specific passages in the primary source material. This dictionary, for example, went through 18 editions from one printer alone. Calepino’s name became almost synonymous with the phrase Latin Lexicon during this period. It was published in polyglot form as late as 1752. It is also noteworthy that the 1752 edition listed below was used in the seminary of Patavia and was intended for theological studies as well.

It is also extremely helpful on Latin phrases  and figures of speech in philosophy and theology as well.

The Bayerische StaatsBibliothek has several editions here. I believe the 1516 is a polyglot edition.

By the way, if your institutional library is so fortunate to have them tucked away in their rare book room, you might look for these: (more…)

This is an ongoing digitalization project of the library of King Matthias I of Hungary or Hunyadi Mátyás (1443-1490). From a brief scan of the holdings here (by the way click on the orange dot for the images and the blue one for the bibliographic information), there are quite a bit of early printed books and illuminated texts of patristic and medieval theologians, philosophers, and poets in Greek, Latin, and medieval Hungarian. It is well done, but at the current time it does not have the option to download in full pdf. At the present time they only have roughly 50 works scanned, but don’t despise the day of small beginnings there are still some gems available like Jerome’s Commentary on Galatians, which is pictured at the left.

Of course you could go at it one right click at a time …

By the way, if you want to try your hand at a little bit of Latin Paleography on this text just for kicks, try this.

The Italian humanist Niccolo Perotti was one of the most influential Latinists of the Renaissance era for his editions of classical texts as well as the grammatical commentary. Even into the modern era, his work is greatly appreciated among scholars of the period for its insight into humanist neo-Latin grammar. For any serious scholar of the era, I would encourage you to find a copy (however, be warned - one of the volumes of the 3rd edition Aldus printing - the Cornucopia - is priced at roughly $13k US in a rare book store).

Also, for those interested here is a 1608 Perotti edition of the text of Polybius with no less than Wolfgang Musculus’ interpretation included.

Although not a complete set, Google books has the following and the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek has others:

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I ran across this little plug-in for Microsof Word the other day and thought I would pass it along. There is also one for Open Office. And it does what it says. Check it out.

Or … an Italian site dedicated to a biographical and conceptual dictionary of non-Roman Catholic Christian thought. I ran across this when I found an entry referring to Voetius as a heretic. Needless to say I was curious, but not surprised (its web address is www.eresie.it). However, it is a little odd (for me at least) to see Protestantism classed with other heresies like donatism and adoptionism. The typical entry has a brief overview of the person’s life and major controversies as well as the doctrinal contributions. It is not limited to the Reformation but takes a diachronic approach since the apostles.

As to the Reformation in Italy, it was helpful to note several relatively unknown Italian reformers/martyrs who were classed as “calvinisti” due to either their training under Calvin or Beza at Geneva or their dissemination of Reformed thought in Italy. For example, Bartolomeo Bartoccio, Francesco da Bassano Negri, Alessandro Trissino, and Marcantonio Varotta. To read more go here.

ciao.