Catalogue de la Bibliothèque ancienne du Mont Sainte-Odile: Incunables, seizième, dix-septièmesiècles by Jean-Marie Le MinorReview by: Yves LabergeThe Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Winter, 2004), pp. 1189-1190Published by: The Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20477192 .

Accessed: 12/06/2014 22:21

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

The Sixteenth Century Journal is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to TheSixteenth Century Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.72.154 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:21:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Book Reviews 1189

to the Low Countries, and particularly matters of religion.The fate of individuals whose par ticular theological scruples had led them into peril, as well as the fortunes of the different confessional tribes, was evidently of considerable interest. A number of letters, exchanged with correspondents such as the physicians Thaddaeus Hagecius, Johannes Crato, and Thomas Erastus, are concerned, in whole or in part, with the nature and significance of comets. Indeed, two of Dudith's letters on this subject were published in 1579 and 1580 in collections that included works by other members of this circle, and some of Dudith's views, particularly his antagonism towards what he considered to be "astrological and superstitious prophesying from comets," were criticized in another letter published by Hagecius. In this and other respects, the collection amply testifies to the existence of a lively and multilayered intellectual community whose debates moved in and out of the overlapping media of manu script and print. Other topics which were considered by Dudith and his correspondents include the medicinal properties of rhubarb, the question of whether teetotalers could receive water in place of wine when celebrating the Eucharist, recent work in anatomy, and the qualities of natural water sources such as springs and thermal baths. And, as is typical of the period, many of the letters are concerned with the identification and acquisition of texts, both ancient and modern: particularly printed books, but also manuscript works such as Dudith's own critique of clerical celibacy.

This brings me to my one regret about this volume; scholars wishing to make use of this material may find the edition very difficult to obtain. But those who succeed, whether they be historians of religion, of east central Europe, of science and medicine, or of the book will find their persistence rewarded.

'1-w;i: ,\ -, _ . ';- @ ' ; i -,- , j <

Catalogue de la Bibliotheque ancienne du Mont Sainte-Odile: Incunables, sei zieme, dix-septieme siecles. Jean-Marie Le Minor. Bibliotheca Bibliographica Aureliana, 189. Baden-Baden:Valentin Koerner, 2002. n.p. 199 pp. ISBN 3-87320 189-5.

REVIEWED BY: Yves Laberge, Institut quebecois des hautes etudes internationales, Quebec

This "catalogue of the ancient library" includes three lists of ancient and rare books at the convent of Mont Sainte-Odile in Alsace, France. Since Alsace was ruled by Germany for various periods during the past centuries, the library received attention from many quarters.

The library's books were published during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries; they include only ten titles from the fifteenth century, 153 titles from the sixteenth century (39-99), and many entries from the seventeenth century (101-72). As indicated, these works come from various collections and are mostly in Latin, while some are bilingual (Latin and Greek).

This is not an art book; it offers no color illustrations or glossy paper, just a few black and white sketches of book covers. It is rather a collection of documents and references. Each entry provides information about the complete title, author, reference number, format, date of printing, number of pages, details of binding, the names of other French libraries (when known) where a similar edition can be found (specifically the Bibliotheque du Grand Semi naire in Strasbourg), and the names of previous owners of the copy. Sometimes a book could combine two separate titles from two different authors (in some cases works from different centuries).

This content downloaded from 62.122.72.154 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:21:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1190 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXV/4 (2004)

Jean-Marie Le Minor's concise comments about books, plus marginalia and other insights constitute the most interesting parts of the catalogue (7-24).

Three indexes cross-reference authors, book owners, and the towns where books were published (such as Antwerp, Basel, Cologne, Strasbourg). Among those, one can find Aris totle, Cicero, Erasmus, and many editions of the Holy Bible (mostly in Latin).

This catalogue of the Mont Sainte-Odile collection will be useful for specialized librar ians and scholars looking for archives in Latin and Greek.Jean-Marie Le Minor has produced an important research tool.

Essayes in Divinity: Being Several Disquisitions Interwoven with Meditations and Prayers. John Donne. Ed. Anthony Raspa. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001. 209 pp. $75.00. ISBN 0-7735-2300-6.

REVIEWED BY: Byron Nelson, WestVirginia University

The Essayes in Divinity has never attracted the number of readers that it deserves, but Anthony Raspa makes an eloquent case for its significance amongJohn Donne's prose works. In her 1952 edition of the Essayes (Oxford: Clarendon), Evelyn Simpson depicted the Essayes as tentative and unsure. Finding no regular structure in the Essayes, she compared the book's organization unfavorably to the tightly structured Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624). Raspa rejects Simpson's view of the book as an unpolished, tentative document; far from being fragmentary or unfinished, the Essayes in his view is an ambitious attempt, within the tradition of humanist biblical exegesis, to ponder time and eternity.The use of typology links the work to the magnificent body of sermons which followed after Donne's ordination in January 1615.

Raspa puts the blame for the blandness of the misleading title on the shoulders ofJohn Donne Jr., who finally pubhshed the Essayes in 1651, although the book had been written in ca. 1614-15. In his preface, Donne Jr. claimed that his father "had many debates betwixt God and himself whether ... to enter into holy orders."Yet 1651 was scarcely a good year for a publication to meditate on anxieties about ordination into the Anglican clergy. Raspa views Donne's approach as "Erasmian," in the sense that Donne relied heavily on both Cath olic and Protestant sources, and drew most often on the Catholic Vulgate and the Geneva Bible.

Raspa comments that part of the problem of the Essayes, for modern readers, is that it fails to conform to the popular image of Donne as the "witty poet-sinner." Raspa suggests that Donne's ordination into the Anglican priesthood was "excruciating," but happily he resists repeatingJohn Carey's contentious view of Donne as an "apostate" who "betrayed his faith." Despite its title, Essayes in Divinity has little in common with the essay genre as it had developed under Montaigne and Bacon. At one point in the text, Donne explains, "I pro ceed in these sermons" (42). The modern reader will notice clear similarities to lines in the sermons. "Truly, the Creation and the lastJudgment, are the Diluculum and Crepusculum, the Morning and the Evening twi-lights of the long day of this world" (221). One sentence strik ingly anticipates the theme of Sir Thomas Browne's Urn Burial: "The very places of the Obe liscs, and Pyramides are forgotten, and the purpose why they were erected" (Browne, 314).

Raspa's commentary and index are diligent, thorough, and helpful. This edition is a welcome addition to the Donne shelf and a needed corrective to the Simpson edition.

This content downloaded from 62.122.72.154 on Thu, 12 Jun 2014 22:21:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions