A Seventeenth-century View of European Libraries: Lomeier’s De Bibliothecis, Chapter X trans. by John Warwick Montgomery (review)

7O TIlE CANADIAN !tlSTORICAL lIEVIEW Students oftheFlorentine Quattrocento .,will begrateful toProfessor Bayley for hisedition andinterpretation of Bruni s De militia,andfor hiscompact account oftheconstitutional andmilitary history oftherepublic. Thebook marks another attem.•t toelucidate the"civic htunanism" ofBruni and tolink the ideas of thefifteenre-century humanists withtheactual political events anddevelopmentsof theirtime.Although I amconvinced thatthisconstitutes onlyoneof many facetsthat characterize Italian and even Florentinehtunanism, this is surely a fruitfulapproach thatshould beexplored in allitspossibilities. PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER Columbia University A Seventeenth-century View of European Libraries: Lomeier's De Bibliothecis, Chapter X. Translated, withan Introduction andNotes, by JoI•_• WARW•½•c MONT½OM•.RY. Universityof CaliforniaPublications in Librarianship, 3. Berkeley andLosAngeles: University of California Press. 1962.Pp.x, 181. $3.50. FIRST PUBLISHED IN'1669,Johannes Lomeier's De bibliothecis libersingularis was a broadsurvey of the development of libraries, intended for that educated Dutchman's contemporaries. It is fromthe second editionof 1680that Montgomery hastranslated thesection onEuropean libraries fromtheRenaissance to thelateseventeenth century. Montgomery hashoped toreach tworather disparate groups through histranslatiomstudents oflibrary science andcultural historians. Unfortunately, hiswork is largelyan academic exercise, for Lomeier's treatmentof his subiect was extremely unsystematic andsu erficialThe readerwill learnsomething of the p . founding andfinancing of libraries, butlittleof theircontents. Thehistorian will alsowishthat Lomeierhad beenmorebiasedin hisdiscussion; it wouldbeuseful to discover whataneducated manofhisdaythought ofthelibrary resources and facilities available to seventeenth-century man.Librarians will probably also ues on Mont ome s dec,stun not to •nclude m his translation the author's q g ry important catalo in s stem(De bibliothecis, eha ter xxv) gu g y p . The editor's translation is quiteaccurate, but stiffandliteral.Thisis offset somewhat b the massive œootnotes (seven -el ht a esin small e for a text y ty g pg typ of fiftypages). However, Montgomery hasinsisted onrelying heavily ondirect quotations fromtheworksof others, evenwhenhecouldhaveadded muchmore toLomeier's description byhisown commentary. The omission ofany detailed discussion of Lomeier s sources isirritating, in viewof theeditor's careful study of thesubject. AndwhiletheIntroduction isuseful, it suffers fromunduepraise of theauthor's thoroughness (lacking)andimpartiality (lamentable). A. LLOYD MOOTE University ofSouthern California FrenchProfiles: Prophets and Pioneers. By G. P. COOCH. London:Longmarts, (green & Co. [Toronto: Longmans Canada Limited].1961.Pp.viii,291.$6.75. ITERE IS A COLLECTION OF TVFENTY ESSAYSmainl about some famous French Y thinkers oftheeighteenth andnineteenth centuries. Eachofthemstands byitself ...