Hooke's Micrographia makes multiple appearances

The copy in Special Collections of Robert Hooke's influential Micrographia: Or some physiological descriptions of minute bodies made by magnifying glasses [that is, microscopes] (1665) has made multiple appearances of late.

This copy is part of the Daniel and Eleanor Albert Collection on optics and ophthalmology.

A view through the microscope in Micrographia of a cross-section of cork figures, for example, in the case on cells in our new exhibit “Parts and wholes,” alongside a volume of Ledermüller's Amusement microscopique of a century later. Look for more on that exhibit in a subsequent post.

Illustrations from the Albert copy appear as well in Meghan Doherty's prize-winning study, “Discovering the “true form:” Hooke’s Micrographia and the visual vocabulary of engraved portraits,” in Notes and records of the Royal Society, 66:3 (September 2012), 211-234. Shown here: the fly eye, as viewed through Hooke's microscope,

and the “stinging points of Nettles.”

We add our congratulations to Doherty on her Notes and records prize. She also served as guest exhibit curator for “Under the Medicean stars: Medici patronage of science and natural history, 1537-1737” in Special Collections in 2007.

Special Collections is also fortunate to hold, as part of the Thordarson Collection, a copy of the Micrographia with a title page that reads “Printed for John Martyn...” with a publication date of 1667.

This is probably the same edition as the Allestry printing but for the new title page. The page facing the title page in the Thordarson copy reads “Ordered, That the Book ... Be Printed by John Martyn, and James Allestry, Printers to the said [Royal] Society. Novem. 23. 1664.”

The University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center has produced a digital version of the Thordarson copy.

Holiday cookery from the Peter Pauper Press

One of the mainstays of the Peter Pauper Press was the slim cookbook, attractively designed, and usually running to 60-some pages. From the extensive Special Collections holdings of the Peter Pauper Press, we feature here examples of holiday cookbooks from the 1950s: Holiday party casseroles (1956), Holiday cookies (1954), and Holiday party desserts (1956). Titles in this collection are gifts to the Library from steadfast friends James and Nancy Dast.

The volume entitled Holiday cookies, compiled by Edna Beilenson and drawn by Vee Guthrie (1954), featured cheery “Greetings!”:

     Mix your batter gaily,
     Choose a colored bowl;
     Make a cheerful clatter,
     Whistle as you roll!

     The cookies will be better,
     The afternoon less long,
     If you do your baking
     To a tuneful song!

These volumes are but three in our collection of some 400 works published by the Peter Pauper Press. In 1928 the Peter Pauper Press began issuing works of prose and poetry — often in small format and always carefully designed — at “prices even a pauper could afford.” We exhibited many of them in 2011, in an exhibit entitled “Peter Pauper Press: Highlighting the gifts of James and Nancy Dast.” For more information about the collection, see “Peter Pauper Press Collection: Gift of James and Nancy Dast,” page 27, and  Beth Kubly's article, “The Peter Pauper Press,” pages 21-25, both in The Friends of the Libraries Magazine (2011).

Edna Beilenson, wife of  Press founder Peter Beilenson, was responsible for compiling and/or producing numerous cookbooks issued by the Press. Our collection includes such seasonal favorites as The holiday cook book (1950), Holiday goodies (1952), Holiday punches, party bowls, and soft drinks (1953), Holiday candies (1954), The Merrie Christmas cook book (1955), and Merrie Christmas drink book (1955).

Holiday greetings from all of us in the Department of Special Collections!

Geographies

For this year’s annual meeting of the History of Science Society, Meridith Beck Sayre and Nicolas Jacobson, graduate students in history of science here at UW-Madison, organized a session entitled "Spiritual Geographies." In it they presented a joint paper, “A Place Where No Men Dwell, Nor Souls Pass Away: Defining Spiritual Landscapes in Giambattista Riccioli’s Selenography." They made use of our copy of Riccioli's Astronomia reformata (Bologna, 1665), 

paying particular attention to Riccioli's moon map, both in its full extent, occupying two facing pages, 

and in such details as the position of the names of Riccioli and his Jesuit colleague Grimaldi (near the left edge of this image) 

Riccioli's book figured in the exhibit "Jesuits and the Construction of Knowledge, 1540-1773," which Beck Sayre co-curated in 2011 along with Florence Hsia, James Lattis, and Robin Rider. Beck Sayre has also selected titles for a larger digital humanities project on early modern Jesuit iconography pertaining to scholarship and travel. A prototype of that image database is available through the UW Digital Collections.

For his part, while a student in Rider's history of science course in 2009, Jacobson attended to another sort of geography. His exhibit case for the class-curated exhibit “Science Circa 1859: On the Eve of Darwin's Origin of Species,” focused on the relationship of taxonomy and classification to philology, including geographical considerations in Josiah Clark Nott's Types of mankind (Philadelphia, 1854) and Friedrich Max Mueller's The languages of the seat of war in the East, 2nd ed. (London, 1855).  More about that course and exhibit: http://www.news.wisc.edu/17388.

Willughby's turkey

In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, we offer here the turkey from The ornithology of Francis Willughby, as edited for publication by John Ray (London: Printed by A.C. for John Martyn, printer to the Royal Society, 1678). This title is part of the Thordarson Collection, among the strong holdings of history of science in the Department of Special Collections. The Department also has the Latin edition of 1676.

From another hotly contested election

As the nation watches election returns, we call your attention to an example of political print culture from an another hotly contested election eighty years ago. This small "Presidential Puzzle" from 1932, with printed wooden pieces housed in a printed cardboard box, highlighted campaign issues and claims from the incumbent, Herbert Hoover, and the challenger, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Presidential puzzle of 1932, showing box and wooden puzzle pieces.

The inside of the box presents the challenge: "Bet you can't get your candidate into White House corner." 

We were able to acquire this unusual puzzle, in its original box, through the generosity of the Shirley E.  Cherkasky and Jessie M. Christensen Special Collections Fund.    

Little books of secrets

Alerted by a reference in William Eamon’s Science and the secrets of nature: Books of secrets in medieval and early modern culture (Princeton University Press, 1994), a scholar in France recently inquired about one of the little books of secrets in the Duveen Alchemy and Chemistry Collection here in Special Collections. In response, we have made available a digital facsimile of I maravigliosi et occulti secreti naturali by Benedetto, il Persiano, from 1613. This 8-page pamphlet (only 15 cm. tall) is one of 42 such works of Secreti italiani (1580-ca. 1640) in the Duveen Collection.

Essay on flower painting (1810) now on exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art

A book from Special Collections entitled A practical essay on flower painting in water colours by Edward Pretty (London: For S. and J. Fuller 1810) is currently on exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, as part of The Golden Age of British Watercolors, 1790–1910 (http://www.chazen.wisc.edu/visit/events-calendar/event/british-watercolors/). 

As Pretty explained, “Flower Painting has at length become a particular study; and when we consider the immense field laid open to us, what can be more gratifying than an opportunity of copying nature in her gayest and most fanciful decorations! The variety and abundance of the Vegetable part of the Creation has engaged the attention and called forth the pencils of many Artists. The necessity of an Improved Essay on Flower Painting is obvious.” To demonstrate how colors "may be produced by a judicious mixture” of three basic colors, his “Tablet of Colours” showed degrees of shading with Indian ink and laid out both “Primitive Colours” and “Tints & Compounds [sic] Tints.” 

The final version of the engraving chosen for the exhibition at the Chazen depicts three roses in fully-colored form; to make clear the progression, we show here all three versions (without color, with some color, and with full color) as included in our copy of the book: 

Pretty envisaged more entrepreneurial opportunity, “should this Essay meet with encouragement from a generous and discerning Public.” He proposed to publish a supplement containing “highly-finished Groups of Flowers” for those who had completed study of A practical essay, promoting the project by exhibiting his original drawings “at the Publishers, for the receiving of Names of Subscribers.” WorldCat shows no copy of that supplement, however. 

The Department of Special Collections was able to acquire Pretty’s Essay through the generosity of the Reeder Family Fund. 

The exhibition at the Chazen Museum also includes three other books from the Department of Special Collections:

• Sir John Barrow, Travels in China, 2^nd ed. (London: Printed for T. Cadell and W. Davies), 1806.
• George Brookshaw, A new treatise on flower painting, or, Every lady her own drawing master [etc.]. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown [etc.], 1818) from the Thordarson Collection.  A digital facsimile made possible by the Chipstone Foundation is also available through UW Digital Collections (http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/DLDecArts.BrookFloPai). 
• In fairy land: A series of pictures from the elf-world  by Richard Doyle; with a poem by William Allingham (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, & Dyer, 1870), gift of Ada Margaret Stoflet.

For more on the The Golden Age of British Watercolors, 1790–1910, see http://www.arthistory.wisc.edu/exhibitions/victorian-watercolors/index.html.

Gallery Talk, 4 p.m., September 14, 2012

It is a pleasure to launch the Special Collections blog with the announcement of a gallery talk by Rachel Melis at 4 p.m. on September 14, 2012, in the Department of Special Collections, 976 Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 728 State Street. 

Melis, a book artist and UW-Madison Art Department alumna, will point out highlights in the exhibit she created and curated:

Expanding the Home Circle:
An exhibit of artists books
paired with illustrated books
from the Cairns Collection
of American Women Writers

September 14 also marks the closing date for the exhibit. Those without UW-Madison ID will need to show a photo ID with current address to obtain a day pass at the entrance to Memorial Library.

Melis has been engraving and letterpress-printing contemporary versions of texts by 19th-century women authors — focusing on those who sought to expand the domestic sphere in response to what they witnessed on the American frontier. This exhibit pairs 19th-century illustrations and caricatures of women and nature with Melis’ surreal combinations of women and birds.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to examine copy 1 of Melis’ artist's book, Unsexed & unsphered. Volume I: A chapter from A new home & an essay from A book for the home circle  by Mrs. Caroline Kirkland, which Melis has generously donated to Special Collections.  

The Cairns Collection of American Women Writers, 1650-1940, which now numbers over 10,000 titles by some 2500 writers, is available for use in the Special Collections Reading Room.