THE NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS 'OF THE THOMAS FISHER RARE BOOK LIBRARY

ISSUE No. 21, June 1998 ISSN 0840-5565

Tennis Anyone?

For the past several years the beginning of sani i corpi nostri, per rendere i giovani piu important work by Simon Pierre Foumier the "gifts" year was always the same. Early gagliardi & piu robusti" (to keep ourselves on printing, which he had just seen in a in the New Year I would be asked to meet healthy, to make our young men stronger bookdealer's catalogue. There was no a donor in the Reference area. I knew what and more robust). In the work, he de- money available at the time and we had to that meant. I would see a tall man with a scribes a large court where one plays the refuse. But Richard Landon was optimistic. military bearing, carrying a somewhat game with a racquet, an innovation that A copy would turn up in a gift, he was battered brief case. From this case, each had only just come into common usage, sure. Several months later, I was unpack- visit, he would, slowly and carefully, draw and a small court for the hand-game. There ing a collection in the basement and there, out a few items he had specially selected are many similarities to the modem in my hand, appeared Fournier's Manual for the collections of the Fisher Library. version: a racquet is spun to decide the first typographique utile awegens de lettres Since 1990 John Cambridge has been the server, the scoring is by "15, 30, 40, game", (Paris, 1764-17661, as well as his Trait& fust donor of each new year and, for me, and the terms "volley", "deuce" and historiques et critiques sur l'origine et les his visit meant that people were recovering "vantage" are known. The work explains progrk de I'imprimerie (Paris, 1758-1763) from the festive season and beginning to the game in great detail and is filled with and his Discours sur l'imprimae (Paris, think about the new year's charitable illustrations of various courts, racquets, 1767). I think my exclamation of delight donations. Mr. Cambridge loved his books balls and instruments for pumping up the could be heard in the workroom two and he delighted in telling me how and leather ball. It is a wonderful reminder of floors above. Richard just smiled. There where he had obtained each volume and the length of time this game has been were many other treasures discovered that why he had selected it for the Fisher popular, and the Fisher Library was pleased day: a 1498 edition of Sebastian Brant's Library. Mr. Cambridge died on January to be able to add it to its collections, where Stultifera Navis (The Ship of Fools) being 19th, 1998, and this January was just not this work will be for me a reminder of a just another of them. Brant is now best the same. So it seems appropriate that I very special donor. known for this famous and important begin this year's report by describing one Some time ago a member of the faculty satire, although at the time it was his Latin of his 1997 donations. Trattato del Giuoco asked if we could afford to purchase a very poetry that brought him to the attention of della Palla was printed .in Venice in 1555 humanistic circles. The work is in the form by the famous printer, Gabriel Giolito. It Below left: Tennis racquets, pump and ball of an allegory (a ship laden with fools and was the first work written by the lay from Antonio Scaino's Trattato del Giuoco steered by fools is on its way to the fools' preacher, philosopher and poet, Antonio della Palla, 1555 (8tft of John Cambridge). paradise of Narragonia) and Brant uses Scaino, and contains the earliest bibliogra- Below centre and right: Two facingpages this form to point out the weaknesses and phy of writers on tennis. He begins with a from Sebastian Brant's Stultifera Navis, vices he saw around him. Although known justification for the game: {'Perconservar 1498 (giftof Ronald Peters). as a conservative, he was most vehemently opposed to the way the Church was Right: Front cover of Cicero 's Epistolae ad abusing its privileges, and this popular T. Pomponium Atticum, 1582 (gift ofJan book p