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  • Recent Books
  • John L. Flood, Nicolas Bell, and David McKitterick
Albrecht Dürer: Documentary Biography. By Jeffrey Ashcroft. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2017. 2 vols. xviii + 1180 pp. £95. isbn 978 0 300 21084 2.

While not primarily of bibliographical interest, this superb study will prove to be an essential aid to anyone concerned with the life and writings of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and his contempraries. Based chiefly on the material assembled and published by Hans Rupprich in Albrecht Dürer: Schriftlicher Nachlass (Berlin, 1956–69), but augmented by subequent discoveries, Ashcroft’s study arranges Dürer’s writings (letters, notes, woodcut inscriptions, etc.) in chronological order to form a documentary biography, supplying an English translation of, and expert commentary on, more than six hundred German and Latin texts by Dürer or by his contemporaries concerning him. As such, it at last replaces the books by Mrs Charles Heaton, Life of Albrecht Dürer of Nürnberg (1881) and William Conway’s biography of 1889, reprinted in 1958, with their inadequate English translations.

Ancient Libraries and Renaissance Humanism: The ‘De Bibliothecis’ of Justus Lipsius. By Thomas G. Hendrickson. (Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History, 265; Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History, 20.) Leiden: Brill. 2017. xiv + 336 pp. €137. isbn 978 90 043 3816 6.

A critical edition of Lipsius’s De bibliothecis (1602), the first self-contained monograph on library history, with introductory studies, Latin text, English translation, and a substantial historical commentary. Of particular interest is Hendrickson’s survey of library historiography before Lipsius and his study of Lipsius and his sources.

John L. Flood
London

Les Labyrinthes de l’esprit: Collections et bibliothèques à la Renaissance / Renaissance Libraries and Collections. Ed. by Rosanna Gorris Camos and Alexandre Vanautgaerden. (Travaux d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 551.) Geneva: Droz. 2015. xxx + 673 pp. €46.45. isbn 978 2 600 01909 5.

A collection of essays arising from two conferences organized by the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés et Instituts pour l’Étude de la Renaissance (FISIER) in Montreal in 2011 and Cambridge in 2012, on the history of libraries and book collecting in the Renaissance, especially the libraries of Rabelais and Montaigne. Includes: A. Vanautgaerden, ‘La bibliothèque écartelée’; P. Delsaerdt, ‘À l’ombre de l’Ambrosienne: les débuts de la bibliothèque publique d’Anvers en 1608 et 1609’; H. Hendrix, ‘Italian Humanists at Home: Villas, Libraries, and Collections’; C. La Charité, ‘La bibliothèque hippocratique de Rabelais dans Gargantua, l’Almanach de 1535, le Tiers livre et le Cinquiesme livre’; J. Céard, ‘Rabelais antiquaire: les Lectiones antiquæ de Coelius Rhodiginus et le Tiers livre’; R. Menini, ‘Le dernier Plutarque de Rabelais’; R. Cappellen, ‘Rabelais lecteur des Epigrammatum Græcorum libri VII commentés par Jean Brodeau (1549)’; M.-L. Demonet, ‘Éphémérides de la bibliothèque de Montaigne’; A. Legros, ‘À la recherche des premiers livres de Montaigne’; M. Sgattoni, ‘Les libri prohibiti de Montaigne’; B. Pistilli, ‘Dai “grecs” [End Page 365] a gli essais: un lessico greco-latino ignorato della “librairie” di Montaigne’; A. M. Raugei, ‘Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535–1601): ses livres, ses amis’; I. A. R. De Smet, ‘Des livres pour de Thou (et Pinelli): collectionneurs, livres clandestins et sillons confessionnels’; K. Limper-Herz, ‘Bindings from the Library of Jacques Auguste de Thou in the Bibliotheca Grenvilliana’; D. A. Lines, ‘A Library for Teaching and Study: Ulisse Aldrovandi’s Aristotelian Texts’; F. Rouget, ‘Éléments nouveaux pour la reconstruction de la bibliothèque de Philippe Desportes’; D. Bjaï, ‘La bibliothèque d’Étienne Pasquier au miroir de sa correspondance’; F. Rouget, ‘Le chirurgien et ses livres: complément d’enquête sur la bibliothèque de François Rasse des Neux (ca. 1525–1587)’; E. Del Soldato, ‘In pulvere, quasi neglecta: The Libraries of Simone Porzio and Benedetto Varchi’; R. Gorris Camos, ‘Una notte d’inferno: autour de l’incendie de la Bibliothèque nationale de Turin, livres détruits, livres rescapés’.

‘Moments of Vision’: The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy. By Deborah Dearlove. Toronto: Thomas Fisher Rare Book...

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