Recent Books

Caterpillars and Cathedrals: The Art of Wenceslaus Hollar. Exhibition and Catalogue by Anne Thackray. Toronto: The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. 2010. 112 pp. $20. isbn 978 0 7727 6071 5.

Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, 25 January–30 April 2010. The library has a very substantial collection of Hollar etchings, formed by Sidney Fisher of Montreal and presented to the University in 1972. In addition to this catalogue, typeset with customary elegance, the complete collection has been made available online at http://link.library.utoronto.ca/hollar.

Nicolas Bell
London

Dimensiuni ale culturii moderne în Ţara Silvaniei (secolele XVII–XIX). Cărţi şi proprietari [Dimensions of Modern Culture in the County of Silvania (Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries): Books and Owners]. By Ioan Maria Oros. (Bibliotheca Musei Porolissensis, 12.) Cluj-Napoca: Editura Mega; Zalău: Editura Porolissum a Muzeului Judeţean de Istorie şi Artă Zalău. 2010. 553 pp. isbn 978 606 543 060 0; 978 973 88250 3 1.

This valuable volume opens new directions in Romanian historiography in the domain of marginal annotations. The principal themes of the fourteen chapters are: the old County of Silvania (situated in the north-western part of Romania, in Transyl vania) as a historical entity; the circulation of old Romanian books in this area and the appearance of libraries; and collective mentalities and social identities as shown from the perspective of annotations in books. Of great importance are the fifty appendices that complement the theoretical evidence in each chapter: facsimiles, tables, cartograms, maps, the corpus of inscriptions, and the indexes of manuscripts and of the names of scribes.

Olimpia Mitric
Suceava

Les Faictz de Jesus Christ et du pape. Fac-similé de l'édition de 1533 et présentation par Reinhard Bodenmann. (Cahiers d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 90.) Geneva: Droz. 2009. 80 pp., 45 illus. CHF 40,95. isbn 978 2 600 01304 8.

Facsimile of, and commentary on, a French polemical text critical of the papacy in which illustrations of the life of Christ contrast with images of contemporary popes. Bodenmann's commentary discusses the booklet's roots in German Reformation polemics (such as the 1521 Passional Christi und Antichristi by Lucas Cranach with texts by Philipp Melanchthon) and its context in the Francophone world, and sketches its subsequent literary influence.

John L. Flood
London

I libri dell'Abbazia di S. Vincenzo al Volturno nella loro storia, vol. i: Gli antenati. By Mother Agnes Shaw o.s.b. (Quaderni dell'Associazione 'Amici di S. Vincenzo al Volturno', 2.) Cerro al Volturno (Isernia): Volturnia Edizioni. 2009. 81 + [43] pp. isbn 978 88 96092 08 8.

The monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno is best known for the remarkable survival of its crypt chapel with an important series of frescoes thought to have been commissioned by Abbot Epiphanius (824–842). In 1990 a group of nuns from the Abbey of Regina Laudis, Connecticut, took up residence in the restored buildings, under the care of the Abbey of Monte Cassino. In this book, which includes a complete English transla tion, Mother Agnes Shaw seeks to connect three important Beneventan manu scripts of the eighth and ninth centuries with the monastery: the Gospel book British Library, Add. MS 5463, the commentary on the Apocalypse by St Ambrose Autpertus (now Benevento, Biblioteca Capitolare, MS 9), and a copy of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. lat. 7817. An appendix displays examples of the author's work as a craft bookbinder.

Leaves of Enchantment, Bones of Inspiration: The Dawn of Chinese Studies in Canada. An Exhibition of Chinese Rare Books by the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum. By Stephen Qiao and George Zhao. Toronto: The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. 2010. 110 pp. $20. isbn 978 0 7727 6028 1.

Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 25 May–17 September 2010. Most exhibits are taken from the library...