Ricerca
Risultati della ricerca
-
Journal article
A new English keyboard manuscript of the seventeenth century: autograph music by Draghi and Purcell
MILLENNIAL fever seems to have infected even the sober arena of musicology and music manuscripts. We have heard the cry of 'Musicological Event of the Century' too frequently in recent years, trumpeting everything from the discovery of the autograph of Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor (K. 457 and...Hogwood, Christopher
-
Journal article
From Purcell to Wardour Street: a brief account of music manuscripts from the Library of Vincent Novello now in the British Library
In 1986 and 1987 Novello and Company presented to the British Library a substantial collection of scores written or collected by Novello, which had remained in the possession of the company, perhaps since its foundation. These scores joined an already large collection of Novello's material which had found its way...Banks, Chris
-
Journal article
John Field: the 'hidden manuscripts' and other sources in the British Library
JOHN Field's manuscripts, both epistolary and musical, are rare, a dozen letters, of which two are in the British Library, and twenty-two autograph manuscripts, of which only the Pastorale in A H.14, Nocturnes nos. 5, 6, and 14, and Concerto no. 7, are complete.Langley, Robin
-
Journal article
A supplementary list of Judaeo-Persian manuscripts
THE field of Judaeo-Persian studies is still underdeveloped, as most Judaeo-Persian texts continue to lie buried in uncatalogued collections of manuscripts scattered throughout the world. Although their importance was already recognized at the end of the nineteenth century, and despite the fact that they constitute one of the largest untapped...Moreen, Vera Basch
-
Journal article
Mátyás Seiber's collaboration in Adorno's jazz project, 1936
IN 1982 the British Library acquired the papers of the Hungarian-born composer Matyas Seiber (1905-60) through the generosity of his widow, Mrs Lilla Seiber. This large collection contains not only sketches and scores of Seiber's musical works but also scripts for lectures and broadcast talks on a variety of musical...Chadwick, Nick
-
Journal article
An early eighteenth-century manuscript of harpsichord music: William Babell and Handel's 'Vo' far guerra'
ON 29 and 31 January 1717, the London music publishers John Walsh and John Hare advertised the Suits of the most Celebrated Lessons Collected and Fitted to the Harpsicord or Spinnet by Mr. Wm. Babell. As far as is known, the appearance of this imposing volume attracted no published comment...Pont, Graham
-
Journal article
C. D. Ginsburg and the Shapira Affair: a nineteenth-century Dead Sea Scroll controversy
IN July 1883, Moses Wilhelm Shapira, a well-known Jerusalem dealer in antiquities and ancient manuscripts, offered to sell a scroll of Deuteronomy to the British Museum, one of his regular customers. Thus began one of the most celebrated incidents in the history of biblical scholarship, a saga that continues more...Reiner, Fred N.
-
Journal article
A Hebrew manuscript of Clavicula Salomonis, Part II
NOWADAYS it is almost a truism to say that there are more and deeper marks of mutual influences between many Christian and Jewish religious traditions of the medieval and early modern period than have long been acknowledged. This is especially true where magic is involved, a branch of knowledge whose...Rohrbacher-Sticker, Claudia
-
Journal article
The India Office manuscript of Maimonides's Guide: the earliest complete copy in the Judaeo-Arabic original
AMONG the rich holdings of the India Office Library there exists but a single manuscript in Hebrew characters, I.O.M. MS. 3679. However, this manuscript, a beautifully executed copy of Moses Maimonides's Dalalat al-Ha'irin (Guide of the Perplexed), is both aesthetically remarkable and of no little scholarly interest. It is the...Langermann, V. Tzvi
-
Journal article
Further notes on Samaritan typography
IN my recent study of Samaritan typefaces I was able to trace the history and development of some of the more important of these on the basis of the evidence then available to me. That study stimulated some interest among both historians of typography and librarians. Through the kindness of...Crown, Alan D.
-
Journal article
Charles II's Hebrew books
THE collection of Hebrew books in the British Library (formerly the Library of the British Museum) is acknowledged to be one of the greatest in the world, and I do not have to expand on its importance, or on the wealth and variety of its manuscripts and printed books. I...Goldstein, David
-
Journal article
The story of my library
The distinguished Romanian Jewish linguist, literary historian and folklorist Moses Gaster (Bucharest, 1856-London, 1939) assembled an enormous library in his fields of interest and specialization: Hebraica and Judaica, Samaritana, and Romanian and related studies. Gaster's library was divided between a number of institutions over the course of nearly forty years,...Gaster, Moses
-
Journal article
A book of cantatas and arias bought in Florence, 1723
THE music manuscript recently acquired by the British Library and now held as Add. S . 71535 is a most valuable specimen of the Italian Baroque tradition so well represented in collections of this country. It could almost be considered an 'English music book'. On the front flyleaf (f. i),...Strohm, Reinhard
-
Journal article
Music Library: notable acquisitions 1985-1994
THE previous report of notable acquisitions of printed music, published in 1985, covered some twenty-two years, from 1964 to early 1985. The present survey covers a period of less than half this extent. Nevertheless it demonstrates that the Music Library, far from resting on its laurels, has continued to maintain...Turner, M.
-
Journal article
'The art of dancing, demonstrated by characters and figures': French and English sources for court and theatre dance, 1700-1750
IN 1700 Raoul Auger Feuillet published in Paris Choregraphie ou Part de de'crire la dance, and revolutionized the art of dancing. His treatise made available, for the first time, a system of notation whereby dances could be recorded in symbols - allowing them to be recreated at other times and...Goff, Moira
-
Journal article
The role of the wax tablet in medieval literacy: a reconstruction in light of a recent find from York
MOST scholars are aware of the major role played by writing tablets as a vehicle for informal composition, learning exercises, note-taking, correspondence, accounting and document-production during Antiquity. Fewer, perhaps, are familiar with the extension and modification of their use throughout the Middle Ages (and indeed even until the nineteenth century...Brown, Michelle P.
-
Journal article
The Apocalypse, British Library, Royal MS. 19 B. XV: a reassessment of its artistic context in early fourteenth century English manuscript illumination
THE Apocalypse, British Library, Royal MS. 19 B. XV, is traditionally attributed to the workshop which produced Queen Mary's Psalter, BL, Royal MS. 2 B. VII; indeed, the first sixteen folios have been assigned to the Queen Mary Artist himself. For example, Sandier has recently written that 'the gatherings by...Dennison, Lynda
-
Journal article
Public revisions or private responses? The oddities of BL, Arundel MS. 197, with special reference to Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God
ARUNDEL 197 is a curious manuscript. Dating from the third quarter of the fifteenth century, it is a small volume of seventy-three folios, measuring 192 x 132 mm, very plain, without decoration, and showing no signs of ownership from the medieval period. The volume once belonged to Henry Howard, Duke...Connolly, Margaret
-
Journal article
William Trumbull and art collecting in Jacobean England
THIS article is concerned with some of the papers of William Trumbull the Elder in the British Library, which relate to the visual arts in Jacobean England. As was suggested by Sonia Anderson and Leonard Forster in a recent issue of this journal, the Trumbull archive is remarkably rich for...Howarth, David
-
Journal article
A fragment of Ephraem the Syrian and the rare word asiantos vindicated
ADDITIONAL MS. 39583 is a miscellany of fragments collected by Robert Curzon, the writer of Travels to Monasteries in the Levant. One of the fragments, f. 14, is a single leaf written in Greek in about the tenth century in upright so-called 'Slavonic' uncials. On the facing page Curzon made...Pattie, T. S.
-
Journal article
Public relations, Panizzi-style
IN a collection of letters by and to Sir Anthony Panizzi, chiefly relating to the history of the British Museum, assembled and recently presented by the author to the British Library (Add. MSS. 70839-70854), are two letters written by Sir Anthony to the Irish essayist and politician John Wilson Croker...McCrimmon, Barbara
-
Journal article
Dry-point compilation notes in the Benedictional of St Æthelwold
THE Benedictional of St Æthelwold (Add. MS. 49598) is one of the great treasures of the British Library. Produced between 971 and 973 expressly at the request of Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, by his chaplain Godeman, as the dedicatory poem near the beginning of the book makes clear, the manuscript...Schipper, W.
-
Journal article
Recent acquisitions: incunabula
IN the selection of incunabula - in the happy days when this was a fairly regular activity - the first and uppermost reason for acquisition was typographical. The British Library collection aims to represent the work of all printers who produced books in the fifteenth century, and to have samples...Hellinga, Lotte ; Davies, Martin
-
Journal article
Robert Beale and the Queen of Scots
IN 1953 the British Museum acquired the Yelverton manuscripts, now Add. MSS.48000-48196, from Brigadier R. H. Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe and his trustees. The papers of Robert Beale (1541-1601), Clerk to the Council of Elizabeth I, form the core of this collection of historical papers, which never left the custody of Beale's descendants,...Basing, Patricia
-
Journal article
New light on Malta during the Peace of Amiens, 1801-1803
SIR Charles William Pasley (1780-1861) is remembered today as a general in the British Army who earned distinction as a military engineer, writing manuals about field fortification, telegraphy, sapping, mining, pontooning, and how best to explode gunpowder under water for the salvage of wrecks. Pasley's distinction was recognized beyond the...Allen, D. F.
-
Journal article
Jaspar Gryffyth and his books
THE great collectors of manuscripts in Britain during the century following the dissolution of the monasteries, men such as Parker, Dee, Cotton, and Lumley, were figures, by and large, of some standing in church or state, with the means and opportunity to amass large numbers of manuscript books and other...Ovenden, Richard
-
Journal article
Some drafts by Richard Steele for The Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian
WITH the transfer of the Blenheim Papers to the British Library in 1978, a large body of Sir Richard Steele's letters and literary manuscripts became more easily available for examination by scholars. They are now bound as Add. MSS. 61686-61688, most of the literary material being gathered in the last...Lindsay, Alexander
-
Journal article
The Kubla Khan manuscript and its first collector
COLERIDGE'S Kubla Khan, Or, A Vision in a Dream, first printed with Christabel and The Pains of-Sleep in 1816, has long been regarded as one of the great literary icons of the Romantic movement. Coleridge's famous account of its conception in the summer or autumn of 1797 - the lonely...Kelliher, Hilton
-
Journal article
Recent acquisitions: manuscripts: eighteenth-century papers
THIS article seeks to draw attention to three valuable collections recently acquired by the British Library. Each contains correspondence that throws much light on a prominent individual, in the first case William Pitt the Elder, first Earl of Chatham, in the other two George III. Taking these collections in chronological...Black, Jeremy
-
Book
Mormon Americana: A Bibliographical Guide to Printed Material in the British Library relating to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
This guide explores works concerning the Mormon church in America, including sacred texts, histories and cultural topics.Whittaker, David J.
-
Journal article
Art Libraries in a city: present and possible co-operation in Leeds
In addition to an art library which is part of the public library service, the city of Leeds, in the north of England, is the home of two universities and an art college, and of the Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture, in each of which significant art...Coombes, Rebecca
-
Journal article
Two unrecorded incunables: Rouen, circa 1497, and Lyons, circa 1500
FOR a number of years, I have been re-examining the British Library's books printed in France between 1501 and 1520 for a typographical catalogue of the Library's French post-incunables. This catalogue is a revision of the unpublished manuscript of Col. Frank Isaac's Index to the British [Museum] Library's books printed...Shaw, David J.
-
Journal article
British foreign policy and international affairs during Sir William Trumbull's career
SIR William Trumbull served as envoy, and subsequently as Secretary of State, during a period of major change in Britain's international position. He was Ambassador Extraordinary to Louis XIV of France from 2 September 1685 to 12 October 1686, and then Resident Ambassador at Constantinople from November 1686 to October...Black, Jeremy
-
Journal article
Paine's Rights of Man, Swedenborgianism and freedom of the press in Sweden: a publishing enigma of 1792
A copy of the earliest Swedish translation of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, recently acquired by the British Library, illustrates the old tag that 'books have their fates'. The item is a slim octavo volume in plain grey board covers entitled Menniskans rattigheter and bearing the imprint Stockholm, tryckte hos...Hogg, Peter C.
-
Journal article
The Weckherlin Papers
THE Weckherlin Papers are part of the vast archive of the Trumbull family, which passed through the female line to the Marquesses of Downshire. It was kept at Easthampstead Park in Berkshire until it was deposited on loan with the Berkshire County Record Office at Reading in 1954. A large...Forster, Leonard
-
Journal article
The works of Paolo Angelo
NOTHING seems to be recorded about the life of Paolo Angelo, except for the meagre scraps of information which his own books reveal. He was a humble priest of Venice, apparently a member of the Dominican Order, and he had a fanatical hatred of Luther and his doctrines, which he...Rhodes, Dennis E.
-
Journal article
'The honourable sisterhood': Queen Anne's maids of honour
WHEN Sir Charles Sedley asked a new arrival among the maids of honour at the Restoration court whether she intended to set up as 'a Beauty, a Miss [mistress], a Wit or a Politician', he was acknowledging, in his unregenerate way, that these posts could offer considerable scope for a...Harris, Frances
-
Journal article
The elder William Trumbull: a biographical sketch
THE papers of William Trumbull the elder (d. 1635) are celebrated among readers of this journal as the most expensive section of the most expensive archive purchased up to that time by the British Library. Their historical value is equally well known. A glance at the catalogue prepared by Peter...Anderson, Sonia P.
-
Journal article
'Party rage and faction' - the view from Fulham, Scotland Yard and the Temple: parliament in the letters of Thomas Bateman and John and Ralph Bridges to Sir William Trumbull, 1710-1714
NOT until as late as 1909, with the inauguration of the fifth series of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, did Parliament employ its own staif to produce the daily reports of its proceedings. Before that date the work had been contracted out to various printers, who employed their own staff or shared...Jones, Clyve
-
Journal article
Sir William Trumbull and the Marquis of Halifax
'I burn your letters at your request', wrote George Savile, the first Marquis of Halifax, to Sir William Trumbull on 22 March 1685/6. Indeed, the only letters between them to have survived are six from Halifax, written between 1686 and 1695, which are merely complimentary or deal with matters affecting...Brown, Mark N.
-
Journal article
A letter from Cerrāḥ Muṣṭafā Pasha, Vālī of Tunis, to Sir William Trumbull (A.H. 1099/A.D. 1688)
THIRTY years ago, when I first studied the papers of Sir William Trumbull in the Berkshire County Record Office, it was a particular pleasure to discover that amongst the Downshire Manuscripts which derived from his years as English ambassador at the Porte were a number of Turkish documents. Through the...Heywood, Colin
-
Journal article
The picture of the Crucifixion in the Floreffe Bible (London, BL, ADD. MS. 17738, f. 187r): typology as an expression of the history of salvation
THE stylistic and iconographic avant garde of the second half of the twelfth century is represented by the art of the Rhineland and Maasland regions. The imitation of classical antiquity by Nicholas of Verdun originated there, as did the application of the typological method that was so significant in the...Telesko, Werner
-
Journal article
The Swiss Civil War of 1712 in contemporary sources
IN 1991 the British Library mounted an exhibition, 'Switzerland 700', to coincide with the seventh centenary celebrations of the Swiss Confederation. One of the items on display was Die edle Friedens-Lust ('The noble joys of peace'), a poem commemorating the conclusion of a formal peace between the Abbot of St...Nattrass, Graham
-
Journal article
'The collection of Marat's bibliographer' at the British Library
'TELL me what you do and I shall tell you who you are.' We are reminded of this saying when considering the personality of Francois Chevremont, an enthusiastic collector, a scholar and the author of two works on Jean-Paul Marat. From 1845 onwards throughout fifty years of patient research, Chevremont...Cock, Jacques de
-
Journal article
Three early Cavafy items in the British Library
THOUGH the British Library holdings of early Cavafy literature are meagre, the Library has recently had the good fortune to acquire, by donation, a copy of G. Vrisimitzakes, (To ergo tou K. P. Kavaphe, 'The Work of C.. P. Cavafy'). Published in Alexandria in 1917, this slim and unassuming volume...Michaelides, Chris
-
Journal article
Ramon Miquel y Planas and his Biblioteca catalana: medievalism, publishing and bibliophilia in early twentieth-century Barcelona
RAMON Miquel y Planas (1874-1950) was the complete bookman. He published on the history of texts, binding, printing and bookplates; folklore and criticism of contemporary literature; preceptive works on publishing; and on the normalization of Catalan. His most enduring works, however, are his editions of medieval and Renaissance texts in...Taylor, Barry
-
Book
Microforms in Libraries: the Untapped Resource? Papers given at the National Preservation Office Conference held 13-15 October 1992 in Birmingham
Why hold a national conference on microfonns in libraries? (It was not, many told us, the most exciting subject for a two day debate). Since the late eighties, the National Preservation Office has been coordinating a national microfilming programme generously funded by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation of New York....British Library National Preservation Office