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  • A Catalogue of the Junius Spencer Morgan Collection of Virgil in the Princeton University Library
  • Ward Briggs
Craig Kallendorf. A Catalogue of the Junius Spencer Morgan Collection of Virgil in the Princeton University Library. New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2009. Pp ix, 529. $95.00. ISBN 978-1-58456-2634.

Many blessings enriched the life of Junius Spencer Morgan (1867–1932): he had the good fortune to share in the great fortune of his uncle, J. Pierpont Morgan; he read Virgil at the feet of Andrew Fleming West at Princeton; the hefty remuneration and flexible schedule afforded by his career in finance allowed him to spend a decade working for the Princeton library as he united his love of the Mantuan bard and the beautiful book as he built one of the finest public or private collections of early (chiefly pre-1800) [End Page 262] printed editions and translations of Virgil. The collection now numbers over 900 volumes (over 700 titles), ranging from the first printed edition by G. Bussi in 1469 to enhancements from the twenty-first century. Morgan could never have hoped to come near completion, since the number of editions seems to approach infinity (there has never been anything like a complete catalogue of known Virgil texts), but his collection is the match of any that have accrued over many centuries in the great European libraries.

To these blessings may be added his cataloguer, Craig Kallendorf, our most scrupulous bibliographer of Virgil and knowledgeable historian of his Renaissance reception. He has fitted out each item with a transcription of its title page, and descriptions of the physical state of the book, its contents, ancient commentators used by its editor, illustrations, owner’s notes, provenance, binding and identification (where possible) of the binder, references in other catalogues, copy-specific notes, and a shelf mark (usually the old Richardson system). To my knowledge, this is the first scientific bibliographical catalogue of Virgilian editions and it has been worthily set in sumptuous form with 48 plates by the renowned Oak Knoll Press, who should be paid in gold.

The chief value of this work will be for librarians, collectors, and bibliophiles, but it is also a testament, as Kallendorf notes in his introduction, to the centrality of Virgil in Western culture during the centuries preceding Romanticism. A lesser figure would not have his work among the first books set in moveable type, nor the first secular book in octavo format set in italics, nor the first book whose roman type was cut specifically to resemble a Latin manuscript (1741; Aldus Manutius had earlier designed a Greek font to look like a scribal hand), nor one of the earliest books with photographs (1858 Didot). The landmark editions of Heinsius, Heyne, and the amazing Juan Luis de la Cerda (1608) show the level to which avid readers wished to take their understanding of the poet’s world. Annotated copies attest to the quality and level of school instruction; marginalia reveal the level of professional scholarship. Prize copies give evidence of a devotion to the poet among the instructing classes. Even the travesties and parodies of those who left their communion with the poet disgruntled have found a wide and sympathetic audience. What commercial publisher would have any interest in a Virgilian parody today?

As many of these princely books were owned (and partially funded) by the ruling classes in an age of empires, Virgil for them was the currently politically incorrect (see Kallendorf, The Other Virgil, 2007) supporter of empires, charismatic leaders, and war as a political tool. Kallendorf notes Pierre Perrin’s dedication to his translation prepared for Cardinal Mazarin (1664): “As Virgil had served and supported Augustus, so the new Virgil will also serve and support his ideological successor.” The illustrations enhance the relevance: from the Middle Ages through the Augustan Age, the setting of Dido’s court or burning Troy or the battles on the Latian plain involve recognizable buildings and costumes of the illustrator’s period. Kallendorf tracks the oscillations in the struggle by mannerists to deny the idealism of neo-classicists, but the message to readers who saw the architecture, costumes, and implements of...

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