Registered Charity No. SC 009009 Spring/Summer 2017 INSIDE THIS ISSUE Cover Stories: What bindings say about books Cover Stories Exhibition.................1-3 An exhibition at The Gallery, The Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen 2016 SCC Visiting Scholar Awards: Reports....................4-8 Book Acquisition.........9 King’s College Archive.................10-11 Aberdeen Bestiary................12-14 Collections Highlight..............15-17 Exhibitions at the King’s This beautifully presented exhibition of bookbindings Museum.........18 from the University of Aberdeen’s Special Collections FAUL AGM................19 includes examples of rare books with the finest luxury coverings through to others that were purely utilitarian. Siobhan Convery......20 Many of the books were bound for, or belonged to, persons of note. Included in the display is a fine leather FAUL Committee......20 volume with lions stamped in gold, a binding that was commissioned in 1610 by King James VI and I for his adored son Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales. There is also a group of fifteenth-century textbooks wrapped in 400-year-old waste manuscripts that were used by the Renaissance scholar Duncan Liddel. A bible belonging to Bishop Elphinstone and a book of poetry owned and inscribed by Thomas Cranmer continue an impressive list in the category “these books belonged to”. The Friends of Aberdeen University Library A book cover can tell its own story. During the early history of book production, the manner in which a book was bound was unique. Each handcrafted binding revealed information about the individuals who owned the books, their social status and professions, and how they valued the texts within. The type of covering also demonstrated the skill of the binder and the fashion of the times in which it was made. The exhibition’s information panels present an overview of bookbinding processes and illustrate the anatomy of a book to help the visitor identify types of coverings and their decorative features. The exhibition also presents covers that illustrate the moment in the mid-1800s when the art of bookbinding changed from being the means of customising a text for an individual into a new graphic art of book design aimed at the mass market. Examples from this period include a book that was both written and designed by William Morris and wrapped in his Arts & Crafts “Tulip and Honeysuckle” chintz, a binding designed by Thomas Sturge Moore for his friend the poet WB Yeats and a case showing the colourful cover illustrations that were created to appeal to the blossoming children’s market. It is not just the exterior bindings that are featured in “Cover Stories”. One of the great surprises hidden inside these books are the beautiful endpapers that were inserted by the binder to protect the text block. Early endpapers were made from plain or waste papers but from the seventeenth century on they became a decorative feature. Six examples of Dutch gilt and marbled endpapers taken from books on display in the exhibition adorn the walls of the exhibition space, giving it a gloriously colourful and glittering atmosphere. 2 Cover Stories Talks: February to May 2017 As part of the exhibition, the Special Collections Centre is hosting a series of five talks that focus on some of the individuals behind the bookbindings: the commissioners, book owners and book cover designers. Professor William Naphy gave a fascinating insight into the life of Duncan Liddel (1561-1613), the Scottish mathematician, physician and astronomer who left his library to the University. Dr Alastair Mann (Stirling University) traced the career of Andrew Hart, the most successful Scottish book printer and publisher before the Restoration. The cornerstone of Dr Mann’s talk was the 1633 Hart Bible – an emblem of the Hart Press’s renowned quality and sharp practice. Duncan Chappell (Glasgow School of Art) gave a talk on the early twentieth-century cover designs created by Talwin Morris, a friend and contemporary of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Jane Pirie, Rare Books Cataloguer in the Special Collections Centre and Curator of “Cover Stories”, spoke about the stories behind her selection. The series concludes with Dr Andrew Gordon telling the story of Henry Stuart (1594-1612), the Lost Prince who died shortly after his father presented him with an exquisite library of bound volumes, a single volume of which is included in the display. For further information on the exhibition and the talks, please visit the website at: http:// www.abdn.ac.uk/library/events/10790/ The exhibition continues until 28 May 2017. Regular Gallery Opening Times: Mon to Wed: 10am - 5pm Thurs: 10am - 7pm Fri to Sat: 10am - 5pm Sundays: 11am - 4pm Jen Shaw 3 Special Collections Centre Visiting Scholars Awards: Reports by 2016 Recipients The three recipients of the awards in 2016 concluded their visits to Aberdeen. Here we are presenting the updates on their projects, which we introduced in the previous issue of the Friends’ News. “Photographs, Sites, Monuments: The emergence of public histories 1850-1950” by Elizabeth Edwards Postcard from the George Washington Wilson Collection, MS 3792/F0964. I spent two enormously productive add to my understanding of the “pace” of weeks in Aberdeen in October 2016. the recording of ancient monuments and I worked largely on the George their dissemination. Piecing together Washington Wilson (GWW) collection. small traces within the GWW collection, I examined extant business records, such as stationers’ labels, negative research notes, and the photographs mark-ups, successive catalogues and themselves as both images and material GWW publications, is leading to more objects, using the archives and than the sum of its parts, showing the digital resources as exactly how the production and integrated tools. I was able to circulation of images was managed. I 4 also found some important the larger project. I feel my visit was a “archaeological” information in GWW’s satisfying object lesson in how much can photographs themselves, notably a be achieved with modest funds. I am corner of a photograph of Kirkcaldy High most grateful to the Friends of the Street c1885 which almost incidentally Aberdeen University Library and the includes a shop window crammed with Special Collections Centre for giving me photographs. The intensive engagement this wonderful opportunity. with the material over two weeks has Beyond my research in the library, I gave also enabled me to develop some of the a formal seminar in the Anthropology framing concepts of my project more department of the University and a small clearly and firmly, as well as integrating informal seminar for the Visual Culture GWW into my larger dataset. What has group. I also took the opportunity to been interesting is the number of points discuss my research with colleagues of connection with other strands of my from various departments at the project, substantiating my sense of the University of Aberdeen, including way in which “heritage” was produced Anthropology, French, and History. through networks and actions. The research undertaken in the Special At the end of my visit I also discovered Collections Centre will be central to the the Simpson Collection. This includes a development of my planned monograph. mass of “heritage ephemera” – In the meantime I shall also be postcards, photographs, souvenirs – from presenting the material in seminars at ancient monuments. This is a treasure other universities, including Cambridge, trove of material that rarely survives and Bristol, and Loughborough. Finally I again feeds into my larger project in would like to thank the wonderful Special important ways, notably the part that Collections Centre staff for their looks at the visualising strategies of the knowledge, professionalism and good Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments in the humour. mid-twentieth century. The points of connection and data potential of the Special Collections in relation to my Elizabeth Edwards is Emeritus wider project proved very much greater Professor of Photographic History at than I had hoped. I have come away with De Montfort University, Leicester (UK). nearly 60 pages of notes – extensively annotated with points of connection to 5 “The Scots Community in the Eternal City: A new assessment” by Matteo Binasco During the month of November 2016, I had the privilege to use the resources of the Special Collections Centre of the Sir Duncan Rice Library as a visiting scholar. During my stay, my research focused on the material contained in the collection of the Scottish Catholic Archives. I focused in particular on sections that contain parts of the correspondence written and exchanged by William Leslie, who since the second half of the seventeenth century acted as procurator of the Scottish Catholic clergy in Rome and as first official archivist of the Sacred Congregation “de Propaganda Fide”, the Roman ministry founded in 1622 to oversee missionary activities in Protestant and non-Christian Page from lists of students at Scots College of countries. Rome (1601-1790), SCA CA/3/6. With acknowledgement to Trustees of the Scottish The series that I examined contains only Catholic Heritage Collections Museum. a small part of Leslie’s correspondence, consisting of more than 300 letters. However, the letters that I was able to interest to defend and preserve consult are illuminating in the sense that Catholicism in his native country. they reveal the complex web of networks Furthermore, his letters demonstrate that through which Leslie succeeded to be in he was considered a key figure by the contact with his fellow countrymen in most prominent members of the papal continental Europe and in Scotland. curia like – to name just one – the Although the handwriting is sometimes almighty cardinal Carlo Barberini. difficult to read, the correspondence of Beyond the correspondence of Leslie, I Leslie also allowed me to get a glimpse also consulted a section that contains of his exceptional personality.