BOOKS FROM THE BEGINNING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 452, 20 February 1948, Page 23

BOOKS FROM THE BEGINNING

HE _ surprising number of rare old books and valuable manuscripts which have found a refuge in New Zealand libraries and museums, and in particular some recent acquisitions of the

Otago University Library in the way of ancient texts and incunabula, will be described in a broadcast from 4ZB at 9.30 p.m. on Sunday, February 29, John Harris, Otago University librarian, who will be interviewed by Jessie McLennan, will discuss these treasures and explain the different categories in which they are classified by the bibliophile. The main groups which he will describe (and illustrate by reference to specific items in New Zealand collections) will be cuneiform inscriptions, medieval manuscripts, incunabula, 16th Century printing, and finally 17th and 18th Century printing. Inscribed clay tablets of Assyrian or Babylonian origin are the earliest written records which will be discusssed, These come within the category of cuneiform. writing-so-called from the

wedge-shaped characters of these old scripts, Among the medieval MSS, two very fine examples dealing with the Franciscan Order, and two illuminated Books of the Hours, also ecclesiastical work, will be described, along with a page from a manuscript Bible dating from the 14th Century. Incunabula is the generic name given to the earliest products of the printingpress and is usually taken to apply only to printing done before 1500, Mr. Harris will describe examples of incunabula from Nuremberg, Rome, and Venice. Venice is also represented among the 16th Century texts which listeners will hear about, in the work of Aldus Manutius, who was famous for the artistry of his type-a form now known as Aldine. A less pretentious but none the less interesting example of 16th Century printing which will be described is a small, well-thumbed law book printed in "Flete Strete" in 1588, the year of the Armada, Kepler’s famous Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae (1618) which aroused strong ecclesiastical .opposition at the time and was burned by order of the Pope, is one example of the final (17th and 18th Century) category which will be discussed in the talk.