Rooms of Wonder Debuts in Chapel Hill

ROW_flyerA record-breaking number of people arrived at Wilson Library last night to view Rooms of Wonder: From Wunderkammer to Museum, 1565-1865 , an exhibition from the collection of alumna Florence Fearrington (A.B. 1958). The extraordinary assemblage of books, prints, and objects captivated an audience of over 200 students, faculty, and friends, who came from near and far. Exhibition goers had the opportunity to examine a range of important items that document the cabinets of curiosities phenomenon, from the first book to illustrate a specimen cabinet (1565) to a P. T. Barnum show bill advertising living wonders (1863).

Also on display were objects from the North Carolina Collection Gallery’s natural history holdings and the Rare Book Collection’s own Curiosities Cabinet (mostly non-codex examples from the history of the book), all of which recall the contents of Wunderkammers past and greatly enhanced the exhibition experience.

Looking at Mercati, Valentini, and a chicken skeleton
Looking at Mercati, Valentini, and a chicken skeleton
Hervey Martin enjoying the "Science & Specialization" section
Hervey Martin enjoys the “Science & Specialization” section
Blowfish
Blowfish

After the viewing and reception, people headed down to the Pleasants Family Assembly Room to hear a lecture entitled “The Cabinet of Curiosities in Word and Image: 500 Years of Representation (and Misrepresentation),” delivered by the leading scholar on Wunderkammers and the origins of museums, Arthur MacGregor, former curator of antiquities at Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum.

Florence Fearrington, second from the right, in purple, with FOFs (Friends of Florence) outside Pleasants Family Assembly Room
Florence Fearrington, in purple, second from right, with FOFs (Friends of Florence) outside Pleasants Family Assembly Room

 

Arthur MacGregor addresses the audience
Arthur MacGregor addresses the audience

 The overflowing crowd was also accommodated in a room on the other side of Wilson’s lobby, where a live audio-video stream enabled those seated there to follow the speaker’s every word and projected image. 

MacGregor gave a sweeping survey of cabinets of curiosities, analyzing the degree to which many of the arresting renderings of Wunderkammers matchedor failed to matchtheir textual descriptions. It was an expert exploration of the topic, and appreciated by all in attendance. UNC is grateful to Mr. MacGregor, and, of course, to Ms. Fearrington for such a special evening.

The show will be up for the next two months, and we suspect that we’ll see many of you in the Saltarelli Exhibit Room again and again, as this is an exhibition that repays revisiting. Also, mark your calendars for a future Rooms of Wonder lecture on Saturday, April 5, by Prof. Pamela Smith of Columbia University.

The Half-Time Show: Books & Beasts of the RBC

Book-loving sports fans were pleasantly surprised last night watching the UNC-Miami football game on the ESPN network. Although Chapel Hill was not victorious in the competition, its Rare Book Collection scored big, with a break segment featuring footage of the curator and a splendid folio in Wilson Library’s Grand Reading Room.

Crocodile
Folio 2 QH41 .S4 v.1, plate 106

The book in question was the first volume of four constituting Albertus Seba’s Locupletissimi Rerum Naturalium Thesauri Accurata Descriptio, et Iconibus Artificiosissimis Expressio (Amsterdam, 1734-1765). A marvelous compendium illustrating the Dutch pharmacist’s collection of natural history specimens, it includes this print of a crocodile, which was used as the signature image of the Grolier Club exhibition Rooms of Wonder. We blogged about the exhibition in January, and now we’re delighted to announce that a version of it will be coming to Chapel Hill in February 2014, courtesy of collector/alumna Florence Fearrington.

The RBC copy of Seba had been out for an instructional session with Prof. Beth Grabowski’s printmaking students, who were seeking inspiration to execute linocuts for a bestiary. Just after that class, an ESPN cameraman–on campus for the big game–visited Wilson, eager to film. Although the videographer now works in sports, he told us he began his career in public broadcasting and was fond of shooting ” historical” segments to air during breaks and half-time. He had firm fantasies about a librarian pushing a book truck and turning pages of a rare tome. We were able to accommodate.

So you weren’t hallucinating while tuned in to the tube last night. Books and beasts in the middle of a sporting event, it was real, if also somewhat surreal.

Wilson Library’s Grand Reading Room is truly its own Room of Wonder.

On the Road: Armenian Exercises

Spitakavor Monastery, Armenia
Spitakavor Monastery, Armenia

A month ago, this blogger found herself in the spectacular landscape of Armenia, deep in the Trans-Caucasus, skirting the borders of Georgia, Turkey, Iran, and Azerbaijan.

Armenia is well known for being the first country to establish Christianity as its official religion, having certainly done so before 314 AD. Unsurprisingly, the nation has a rich architectural heritage of ancient Christian churches and monasteries, such as Spitakavor (left). It also has a remarkable scribal tradition, which produced tens of thousands of manuscript books.

In 405 AD, a unique alphabet was invented for the Armenian language, which constitutes its own distinctive branch of the Indo-European language family. The alphabet consisted of thirty-six letters, and it is still in use today, with the addition of three more letters for a total of thirty-nine. The monk Mesrop Mashtots is credited with the invention, which was promptly employed to write Armenian translations of the holy scriptures.

Located at the end of Mesrop Mashtots Avenue in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, is the Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts and the Matenadaran, or “manuscripts repository.” This public building houses over 17,300 manuscripts, 450,000 archival documents, and 3,000 printed books. Most of the manuscripts are in Armenian, although there are also examples written in Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Old Slavonic, and other languages.

An impressive selection of that large collection is on display. Many are beautifully illuminated and illustrated, including a number of medicinal manuscripts. The one below, a veterinary text, was particularly arresting, even though–or perhaps, because–I could not read a single word of it.

Horse medicine manuscript, Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia
Horse medicine manuscript, Matenadaran, Yerevan, Armenia

When seeing books while traveling, I always think about the Rare Book Collection. Regrettably, we have no ancient Armenian manuscripts. But Armenian-language texts do lurk in RBC, among its fine Byron Collection, one of our British Romantic author collections (along with Keats and Wordsworth).

Page from Byron, ???
Beauties of English poets = Tsaghkakʻagh kʻyrtʻoghatsʻ Angilyatsʻwotsʻ (S. Lazzaro, Venice, 1852). / Byron PR1179 .A7 B43 1852 / William A. Whitaker Fund

While resident in Venice, Lord Byron sought out the company of the Mekhitarist fathers on the island of San Lazzaro.  The Mekhitarists were a Roman Catholic order founded in the early 18th century by an Armenian monk who had left the Armenian Apostolic Church. Byron was fascinated by Armenian culture and boated across the Venetian lagoon to learn the language at the monastery.

Note the reproduction at left of Byron’s English and Armenian signatures in a bilingual book, Beauties of English Poets = Tsaghkakʻagh kʻyrtʻoghatsʻ Angilyatsʻwotsʻ, published by the press on the island after the author’s death. This volume features mainly Byron’s own poetry, but also his translations of Alexander Pope, John Milton, and Thomas Gray. See below the latter’s “Elegy in a Country Church-Yard.”

Beauties / Byron PR1179 A7 B43 1852
Beauties of English Poets, p.150-151 / Byron PR1179 A7 B43 1852

 

The San Lazzaro connection led to Byron becoming one of the most widely read English poets among Armenians. The island monastery published other Byron writings in the 19th century, including Armenian Exercises, which contains his English translations of Armenian historical and biblical writings, as well as anonymous Armenian translations of Byron’s letters and poetry, accompanied by their original English texts. The RBC holds the 1870 edition of this work.

Armenian travels, Armenian exercises. On the road, all roads lead home–even the Silk Road–to the Rare Book Collection.

Moonrise at the Selim Pass Caravanserai along the Silk Road, Armenia
Moonrise at the Selim Pass Caravanserai along the Silk Road, Armenia

The Magic Mushrooms of Chapel Hill

Descourtilz, Des champignons comestibles, suspects et vénéneux (Paris, 1827) / Folio-2 QK617 .D47 atlas
Descourtilz, Des champignons comestibles, suspects et vénéneux (Paris, 1827) / Folio-2 QK617 .D47 atlas

This past summer, Chapel Hill has experienced extremely heavy rainfall. Every day, it seems, the clouds shower down, making it even greener than usual. But other vivid colors are also present, the moisture having nourished an amazing array of fungi.

Chapel Hill and the Piedmont are indeed an excellent area for mushroom foraging. To aid one in this potentially dangerous activity, the Rare Book Collection has an outstanding collection of rare mycological books, many donated by late UNC Professor William C. Coker, and still others by R. Philip Hanes in honor of John N. Couch.

Among the most visually spectacular of the RBC’s mushroom books is Michel Etienne Descourtilz’s Des champignons comestibles, suspects et vénéneux— On Mushrooms, Edible, Suspicious, and Poisonous—(Paris, 1827). It is actually one of the over 10,000 books of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Societiesthe oldest UNC student organization (founded in 1795)which helped to establish the University Library.

The hand-colored lithograph shown above is from the Descourtilz atlas volume and one of four plates devoted to suspicious mushrooms. However, the edible and poisonous are no less fantastic and scarey looking! And so we invoke these words of caution as we wish you happy hunting: “There are bold mushroom hunters. And there are old mushroom hunters. But there are no old, bold mushroom hunters.”

A Fabulous 14th Hanes Lecture

A standing-room-only crowd assembled last evening in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room at Wilson Library to hear eminent art historian Prof. David Freedberg deliver the 14th Hanes Lecture, presented by the Hanes Foundation for the Study of the Origin and Development of the Book.

The audience was rapt as Prof. Freedberg spoke eloquently on “Pictures, Books, and Science: From Description to Diagram in the Circle of Galileo.” The lecture was long, but attention never wavered! The 17th- century quest to record the natural world by descriptive book illustrations vs. schematic diagrams and charts had all eyes focused on the projected images, and all ears following the speaker’s every well-chosen word.

Indeed, the lively evening fulfilled the Chapel Hill Rare Book Collection’s mission to promote rigorous intellectual thought – and joy. Everyone was smiling as Prof. Freedberg finished his lecture with the famous telescopic moon renderings. Of course – the moon belongs to everyone, the best things in life are free!

With this resounding success, the Rare Book Collection looks forward to continuing the distinguished Hanes Lecture series on the history of the book in the years ahead.