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/

On October 15, 2009, Dr. R. A. Muller lectured on this topic in a presentation: Was Calvin a Calvinist? Or, Did Calvin (or Anyone Else in the Early Modern Era) Plant the “TULIP”? at the Meeter Center at Calvin College, Hekman Library. Dr. Muller engages with several lines of scholarship in a winsome, thought provoking look at Calvin’s place and impact in the trajectory and development of Reformed Protestantism. The Meeter Center has made the text of that lecture publicly available here. This is a similar presentation to Dr. Muller’s lectures this past year at the University of Geneva as well as at the Calvin Conference at Dordrecht, Netherlands.