November 2002 (No. 55)
Who was A.J. Bell?
by Kim Yates, Assistant to the Director
The plaque and the portrait are at our front door. If one ever orders an early Erasmus edition up from the Rare Books room, chances are good that it will contain a bookplate identifying it as a part of the Bell collection. Students who work at the Centre are taught that Bell donated a large collection of Erasmus texts, the beginning and focus of our collection. But who was he?
Andrew James Bell (1856-1932) was a professor of Latin and Comparative Philology at Victoria College. He started teaching there when Vic was still located in Cobourg, in 1881; and he earned his Ph.D. in Breslau in 1889. He could read in a spectacular variety of languages and was, by all accounts, as intensely interested in words as in ideas. His great study, The Latin Dual and Poetic Diction (1923), is about words and their inter-relationships. His interests ranged widely through the literatures of many places and times, but he was especially passionate about Virgil. His passion for literature led quite naturally into a passion for collecting books; he is said not only to have been justifiably proud of his unusually large collection, but to have actually read every one of them.
Bell's library lived in tottering stacks and overstuffed shelves in his home at 17 Avenue Road until his death in 1932, when there were about 30,000 volumes. Acting on his expressed desire, Mrs. Bell donated the library to Victoria College; by May 1934 it was listed and packed. The Erasmus collection of about 350 volumes was catalogued by Marie Tremaine of the Toronto Public Library and housed in the Victoria College library along with about 2,650 others. Another 4,500 were housed in two reading rooms known as the Bell Library in a separate house at 131 Bloor St. West. The rest, about 23,000 volumes, were stored in the basement of Victoria College for the next 30 years. In 1966, the Bell Library was closed and the stored books were sorted. The rare volumes were saved and the rest were auctioned off. This pared-down collection of Erasmus and other neo-classical texts published between 1450 and 1650 is the heart of the collection of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, a glowing fragment of the great library he assembled.
Bell was fondly described by Professor Douglas Bush in 1929 as an inspirational teacher:
... simply by being himself, he has made young men want to be like him... in his immense acquisitiveness, his honesty and sincerity, his downright and yet courtly manner, his devotion to literature, his freedom from all cant and humbug, his generous interest in aspiring youth, his stout prejudices and his hearty laughter. Such rich and mellow personalities have never been very numerous in universities ... and successors are hard to find. Scholars, old and young, all over America, re-kindle the memory of some of their happiest undergraduate hours when they think of that majestic figure.
Celebrating our past
by William R. Bowen, Director
On returning to the CRRS after my research leave, I was reminded by the rapid changes in our facilities and personnel that we are in danger of forgetting the details of our past. We do have detailed annual reports, but they are not widely circulated, or readily available.
I am therefore committing CRRS resources to a dual initiative: to create a proper archive for all documents pertaining to the institutional life of the CRRS, and to develop a document which outlines the history of the CRRS, records the names of all of the individuals who have contributed to the CRRS, and provides a venue for faculty, staff, and students to share their particular viewpoints and recollections.
I invite you to contact me directly if you have ideas for these projects or would like to participate in their realization.
Two 'New' Erasmus Rare Books
by Mark Crane, CRRS Graduate Fellow
The first is a funeral oration by Fredericus Nausea of Waischenfeld. A devoted Erasmian, Nausea had written an oration on Erasmus in 1524. According to the Contemporaries of Erasmus, after Erasmus’ death Nausea, “vented his grief and likewise his enthusiasm for Erasmus’ work in his In magnum Erasmum Roterodamum nuper vita defunctum monodia, attributing to him a divine mission and Christ-like features. Dedicated to Ferdinand, the pamphlet is an early indication of the growing influence of the Erasmian group at the Court of Vienna.” The second is a collection of Erasmus’ letters, some of them published for the first time in this edition, printed in Antwerp shortly after his death.
The full titles are listed below:
Friderici Nauseae Blancicampiani Sacrae Theologiae & LL. Imp. Doctoris, inuictissimi Romano[rum], Hungariae, Boemiae[que] &c. Regis & Archiducis Austri[a]e &c. Ferdinandi à sacris studijs & consilijs ad uniuersos Christianae pietatis professores In magnum illum laudatae felicisq[ue] memoriae Erasmum Roterodamum, nuper uita functum monodia. Coloniae : Apud Ioan. Gymnicum, anno 1536.
D. Erasmi Roterodami, Epistolarum floridaru[m] liber vnus : ante hac hunquam excusus. Antuerpiae : Apud Ioan. Steelsium ..., anno 1537.
CRRS hosts Christiane Klapisch-Zuber
by William R. Bowen, Director
The 2003 recipient of the Paul Oskar Kristeller Lifetime Achievement Award, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, is coming to Toronto to receive her award from the Renaissance Society of America during its upcoming meeting in Toronto. To celebrate this event, the CRRS is hosting a lecture by Klapisch-Zuber, one of the leading social historians of Renaissance Italy, to be given on Thursday, March 27, the opening evening of the conference. [Editor's note: For more information on this event, see our Local Events web page.]
This major event, including a reception, is being supported by many organizations. Thus far, at the University of Toronto they include the Centre for Comparative Literature, the Humanities Centre, the Division of Humanities (UTSC), many departments within the Faculty of Arts and Science (i.e. Fine Art, English, French, German, History, Italian Studies, and Spanish & Portuguese), and the Faculty of Information Science and the Faculty of Music. Additional sponsors incude Iter, the University of Toronto Libraries, the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium, and Victoria College.
CRRS Announcements
Calling Undergraduates!
In March, 2003, CRRS will offer its first Early Modern Senior Undergraduate Seminar, 'The Bible in the Renaissance and Reformation'. This day-long event will include lectures, a rare-book display, and group discussion, led by the centre's Graduate fellow Mark Crane. Application instructions and more details are available on the seminar's web page. The seminar is open to senior undergraduate students in Ontario Universities. Please encourage your students to apply.
Extended Hours for Christmas 2002This year, for the first time, the CRRS will be running an experimental period of extended hours. Rare book and microfilm service will not be available during these times, but the modern collection will be open and computer and study space will be available. The Centre will add the following hours:
Monday - Friday 5 – 9 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.We will be open for extended hours from November 1 to December 17, 2002.
"The Fall of Troy" at the CRRS
by Konrad Eisenbichler, Past Director
On 4-5 October, the CRRS hosted a conference titled "The Fall of Troy in the Renaissance Imagination." The event brought over two dozen speakers to Victoria from across Canada and the USA, and from as far as the UK, France, and Italy. This was truly an international conference, and it was interdisciplinary in the best CRRS tradition, with presentations from many disciplines and on many national cultures, not to mention from across a variety of traditional boundaries. The conference was generously supported by a number of units at the University of Toronto, first and foremost by the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies, which has been a munificent patron of several past CRRS events. It also received top support and ranking from SSHRC. In fact, it received the maximum funding available from the SSHRC for such events and was ranked first out of 89 applications for conference support from across Canada. This is a wonderful recognition of the kind of work that goes on at the CRRS and of the national importance of the CRRS in Canada. We often speak of the CRRS as an internationally recognized research centre, which it is, but in doing so we may forget its profound importance within the Canadian context and the fact that it is the leading research centre in Renaissance or Reformation studies here.
For those interested in the conference programme and abstracts, they are available on the conference web site. Selected proceedings (with the addition of invited contributions) will be edited by Prof. Alan Shepard (U of Guelph) and published (we hope in 2003) through the CRRS Essays and Studies Series. The organizing committee for the conference consisted of Konrad Eisenbichler (Chair), three current CRRS graduate assistants - Jess Paehlke, Jamie Smith, and Michael Ullyot - and the past Curator, Margaret Reeves.
Early Modern Resources at the University of Toronto
by Mark Crane, CRRS Graduate Fellow
It is well-known thatToronto offers a wealth of resources in the early modern period. So many resources, in fact, that even seasoned scholars must rely on word-of-mouth or chance discoveries to locate quarry scattered in a number of libraries and special collections. There are also many people in a variety of disciplines who are not aware that their colleagues in other departments work on similar topics or with complementary source material.
In an effort to make these resources more accessible, the CRRS has compiled Early Modern Resources at the University of Toronto. Now, for the first time, scholars can access a list of early modern resources in one easy-to-use guide. It is a modest first step towards what we hope will grow into a comprehensive listing of human and material resources for the study of the early modern period not only at the University of Toronto, but in the Greater Toronto area as well.
The guide is meant to be useful to both newcomers and experienced researchers in theUniversity of Toronto collections. It is divided into four parts. The first gives an overview of eleven libraries with holdings and special collections pertaining to the early modern period. The second provides a listing of sixty-one microfilm and microfiche collections on various early modern topics available in University of Toronto libraries. A topical and geographical index of the holdings is included. Part three gives an overview of major research projects on the early modern period already underway at the University of Toronto. Part four is a list of faculty in early modern studies at the University of Toronto.
The guide is available in paper format, free of charge at the CRRS. Future plans include mounting an electronic version of the guide on the World Wide Web, and updating entries that were either missed in the first edition or have been added to the collection.
If you notice any errors or omissions in the guide, or have suggestions on how to improve it, or would like your own free copy, please write to Kim Yates at crrs.vic@utoronto.ca.
New Faces at the CRRS
by Kim Yates, Assistant to the Director
Greetings to all of our friends! I started work as the Assistant to the Director in August, and I come to the CRRS with a Ph.D. in English and several years of teaching and administration experience. I am thrilled to be working in such a dynamic and supportive environment, and I look forward to growing into, and along with the Centre.
I am pleased to introduce several new positions: Kelli Carr joins us as Administrative Assistant, Publications; Deb Smith joins us as Administrative Assistant, Programmes and Finance, and Mark Crane is this year's Graduate Fellow. Therese Forgacs (Fine Art) and Travis DeCook (English) are new Robson Fellows this year and you may meet them working at our front desk.
Finally, there are also a few fond farewells: to Margaret Reeves, who pulled order from chaos during her time as Curator, and to Professor Nick Terpstra, who was Acting Director last year. Thank you for all of your hard work, and best wishes in all your endeavours.
Ad Fontes: How's your Latin?
by Jess Paehlke, Iter Fellow
Ad fontes, the Toronto Neo-Latin Workshop affiliated with the CRRS, has embarked on its second year of operations. The name is derived from the Renaissance humanist mantra to "return to the sources" -- and to do so in the language that remained the vehicle for intellectual discourse well into the 17th century. The group's first year was highly successful: a monthly slate of sessions was offered in which translations of a wide variety of Latin texts from the Renaissance and Reformation were shared and discussed. A loyal core of graduate students was joined over the year by current as well as retired faculty, visiting researchers at the Centre, and occasionally by members of the public. Anyone with an interest in reading Latin is welcome to attend the meetings, normally held on the last Friday of every month; the group is also actively on the lookout for presenters who are engaged in research in Latin sources to share their work.
For more information, visit the Ad Fontes website, or email Jess Paehlke at jpaehlke@chass.utoronto.ca
Watch this web-space: The Centre's Online Presence
by Michael Ullyot, Robson Graduate Research Assistant
The Centre's web site is set to undergo a number of changes, rendering information more accessible and introducing a new aesthetic. The newly-formed Technology Working Group is now reviewing its structure and content with the hope that a redesigned site will be available in the coming months.
The current site serves many purposes, all of which are worth developing. The Local Events page provides information on activities in the region -- conferences, workshops, lectures, colloquia -- related to the Renaissance and Reformation. The Publication pages promote our books and series, our online publications, and affiliated journals: Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme, Early Theatre, and Confraternitas. There are descriptions of our Fellowships and Assistantships, and of our primary and secondary collections, all designed to encourage scholars to use the Centre in their research.
The new site will retain these three priorities, and add a fourth: we will expand the present site's brief history of the Centre into a larger project of writing our institutional history, which will include listings of past Directors, Curators, Fellows, Assistants, and other members of the CRRS community. This history will also include historical documents such as our past annual reports. Another significant change will be to facilitate access to our catalogue of rare books, beginning with Scott Schofield's catalogue of English STC holdings in our collection.
The new site will also contain expanded listings of events, including links to sponsoring organizations such as the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium, and the Ad Fontes workshops. Descriptions of the Erasmus Lecture series and Distinguished Visiting Scholar program will be expanded. Users will be able to read more about our Fellowships and Assistantships, and download application forms. We also hope to create an online version of the recently-published Early Modern Resources at the University of Toronto. We will also continue to maintain our online catalogue and are considering ways to facilitate online ordering.
The Technology Working Group welcomes suggestions from the CRRS community for changes or additions to the site; send them to Michael Ullyot at crrs.webmaster@utoronto.ca.
Publications at the CRRS
by Kelli Carr, Publications Manager
In addition to housing an impressive library, the CRRS proudly publishes scholarly texts and journals. Now in its 23rd year of publishing, we have published twenty-one titles. The most recent, The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society 1150–1650, is a collection of seventeen essays on the nature of adolescence from the High Middle Ages to the end of the Renaissance. This volume marks the inauguration of a new series titled Essays and Studies; five more books in the series are in the publication process. CRRS also publishes three scholarly journals: Renaissance and Reformation, Early Theatre, and Confraternitas.
These books and journals are available for purchase online, or by phone or fax. Payment can be made by cheque or credit card; we accept Visa and Mastercard. Cash is accepted for walk-in orders at the Centre. To access our publications online, visit the CRRS Publications web pages, where you can order the books via e-mail or download an order form to be mailed. Contact Kelli Carr for more information, or to place an order. Orders can also be submitted by phone or fax; our numbers are:
Telephone: 416-585-4465
Fax: 416-585-4430Please indicate your name, mailing address, and phone number, as well as the title of the requested book, and you will be invoiced. Payment is accepted in Canadian or U.S. funds. For credit card orders, please include your name—exactly as it appears on your credit card—and the expiry date.
Descriptions of our books and journals are available at our website. Be sure to check back frequently for new publications.
From the Vaults: Treasures of the CRRS
by Scott Schofield, Robson Graduate Research Assistant
The CRRS rare book collection continues to grow, thanks to Professor D. Hoeniger who has recently donated a number of new titles. We have just catalogued four legal manuscripts, three of which are from the seventeenth-century, and three early printed books. The fourth is a seventy-eight page French document, on paper, dated 1516. Of the three books donated, Johnannes De Gersons's Parisienis Doctoris Opera – Tomus III (1489) is the earliest. The other two books include a facsimile of Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies (1664), and John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments (1631-2), 3 vols.
This last, usually referred to as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is an encyclopaedic chronology of the reformed church in Europe, written in exile by John Foxe and other Protestant sympathizers during the reign of Queen Mary. Our copy, the seventh edition, was expanded to include material from the reigns of both Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and James I (1603-1625). The growing scholarly attention given to Foxe and his work in recent years makes it a particularly timely gift. Since 1993, there have been numerous conferences on Foxe, a series of festschrifts, and most importantly the unveiling of The British Academy John Foxe Project at the University of Sheffield.
In addition to its size (over two million words), the most noticeable feature of Acts and Monuments is the abundance of woodcuts. No English book of the sixteenth-century offered its reader more images per page. While many copies of Foxe survive (David Newcombe lists forty known copies of the seventh edition in his 1997 finding-list), in most, the illustrations have been torn out or defaced. This copy is of particular merit since the many illustrations, even the fold-out plates, are present.
News from Past Fellows
by Konrad Eisenbichler, Past Director
Stephen Pender is in his third year teaching early modern literature, intellectual history, and literary theory at the University of Windsor, Department of English. He has work appearing on rhetoric and medicine and was recently awarded a major three-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council in Canada for a monograph on emotion in early modern England.
After working for two years at various Northern California software companies, the economy and Laura Hunt mutually decided that she should go back to school. Laura is currently at the U of Maryland, where she is pursuing a Master of Library Science and specializing in archives and records management (clearly a by-product of her years at the CRRS!). Laura writes that it's a great program and she is loving every minute of it -- this fall she even got to intern at the Smithsonian!
Alan Shepard has just published Marlowe's Soldiers (Ashgate, 2002), a study of the rhetoric of national security in wartime in Marlowe's plays. He has also just moved from TCU (TX), where he was chair of the department of English, to the University of Guelph, where he is Director of the School for Literature and Performance Studies in English (SLAPSIE, for short). We welcome Alan to Southern Ontario and look forward to his continued involvement with the CRRS.
Ken Borris writes from McGill to say that his prospective book Same-sex Love in the English Renaissance: A Handbook and Annotated Anthology of Contemporary Documents is now in press at Routledge, and anticipated in print in 2003.
Congratulations are in order for Paul Budra (Simon Fraser University) who has just finished a six-year stint as president of the Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society. While in office, Paul welcomed and played host to the RSA annual meeting (Vancouver, 1997). He is also just back from a six-month faculty exchange to the National University of Ireland.
Janice Liedl is now an Associate Professor of History at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. She coordinates the department's M.A. programme where they are basking in a recordbreaking entry class of ten new graduate students. Janice is mother to two grade school girls and is currently researching Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII.
Michael Milway is Visiting Assistant Professor at Wellesley College for a year where he teaches medieval and early modern history. This is a full time replacement job at one of the finest (and most expensive) liberal arts colleges in the United States.
In 2002, Dylan Reid was appointed to a permanent, part-time staff position at the University of Toronto, as web master for the law school - which conveniently puts him across the street from the CRRS! Dylan also published three articles, one in the 'Sixteenth Century Journal' and two in collections of essays.
Chris Nighman is currently teaching on limited-term contract at Wilfrid Laurier. In connection with the further development of his on-line project: "The Electronic Manipulus florum" (http://www.manipulusflorum.com), Chris has recently re-connected with the U of T as a fellow with the McLuhan Programme in Culture and Technology, with residency planned for next spring and summer.
Are you a CRRS alumnus? We'd love to hear from you. Please send your news to <konrade@chass.utoronto.ca>
CRRS News`letter
Editor: Kim Yates, Assistant to the Director
Online Editor: Michael Ullyot, Webmaster
Phone: (416) 585-4484
Fax: (416) 585-4579
E-mail: crrs.vic@utoronto.caTo be placed on the mailing list or to submit notices for inclusion in the Newsletter, write to:
Kim Yates
Items will be considered for inclusion based on available space, and are subject to editing.
Editor, CRRS Newsletter
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Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7, Canada
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about the CRRS, contact our Assistant to the Director, Dr.
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