Old books are fascinating, both due
\nto their vulnerability to the passage of time, and to the craftmanship of those
\nwho have illustrated them. The fragility of old paper, the language in which
\nthe texts have been written, often even a dead language, the unusual typefaces,
\nare as many challenges to the contemporary reader. But it is precisely these
\nbarriers that attract, challenge and fuel our curiosity for these objects of
\nthe past, revered by those who thirst for knowledge.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The National Archives of Romania and
\nthe Museum of Romanian Literature have joined efforts in organising an
\nexhibition of rare old books from the Archives. The organisers put on display
\noriginal items dating back as many as 600 years, to the times of the great
\ninventor Johannes Gutenberg. Fifty-two highly valuable books from the
\ninstitution’s collections are included. They were published in major European printing
\ncentres in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium in the 15th
\n– 17th Centuries, while the ones published in the Romanian
\nPrincipalities date back to the 17th – 19th Centuries. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Most of them are religious books, atlases
\nof the world, history books, books in Latin, Greek, German, French and Italian.
\nThe names of the authors are no less impressive: Terentius, Ammianus
\nMarcellinus, Lucian of Samosata, Theodore Spandugino, Erasmus of Rotterdam,
\nNicolaus Olahus. Among the authors we also find the early 18th
\nCentury prince of Moldavia Dimitrie Cantemir, one of the most significant
\nfigures of early Enlightenment, featured in this exhibition with the English,
\nGerman and Romanian editions of his History of the Ottoman Empire. Other Romanian
\nbooks on display are a 1767 mineralogy book published in Cluj, the \u0218erban
\nCantacuzino Bible, the Romanian Book of Learning by Metropolitan Varlaam and
\nthe Romanian Psalter in verse by Metropolitan Dosoftei. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Archivist \u0218erban Marin, a medieval
\nstudies specialist and the curator of the exhibition, says we cannot talk about
\ndistinctions between Romanian and foreign books:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\u0218erban Marin: These are old books, both Romanian and foreign, although this
\ndistinction is not the most appropriate. Especially in this globalisation era,
\nwe cannot draw a line between foreign books and Romanian books. We have
\nselected a number of books, among the oldest in our collection, including four incunabula,
\nwhich are books published before the year 1500, which are exceptionally
\nvaluable. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\u0218erban Marin also told us the not so
\npleasant story of how some of these books came into the possession of the
\nNational Archives: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\u0218erban Marin: On the one hand, there
\nwere donations from various personalities, first and foremost Bogdan Petriceicu
\nHa\u0219deu who was the director of the Archives for a long time. He donated a lot
\nto the National Archives, including some of these books. But there are also
\nbooks acquired more recently, namely in the communist decades, and this is a
\ndifferent story. These books were virtually stolen from their owners, who were
\nthrown into prisons like Gherla, Aiud and so on, and died there. So we are
\nbasically talking about a theft by the Romanian government, against private
\nproperty, against common people who valued books. Moreover, a small percentage
\nof these books no longer have their title pages and their back pages, and I dare
\nmake the assumption that this is because on the title page, the name of the former
\nowner appeared, whether a politician or an industrialist. So the brave members
\nof our political police were fighting not only particular persons, but also the
\ninnocent books that those people owned. They tore that title page so that
\nnobody could see the name of the former owner. This is an assumption I’m
\nmaking, but it is worth considering.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
We also asked \u0218erban Marin about the
\nfour incunabula:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\u0218erban Marin: First we have
\nGerardus de Vliederhoven, a 14th Century author, whose books were
\npublished in 1492, with a religious book entitled Quattuor nouissima. Then
\nthere is the second edition, the 1497 one, of Liber Chronicarum by Herman
\nSchedel. This could be described as an extensive encyclopaedia, but also as a
\nvery interesting tourist guide. Schedel was for the 15th Century
\ntraveller what Michelin is for us today. The third incunabulum is Pomponio Leto’s
\nwork on the life of Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus. He was born in
\nLazio-Latium region, and he also wrote a history of Venice. And last but not
\nleast, we have a late edition of Gesta Romanorum, the famous work about the
\ndeeds of the Romans published in 1497.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The spectacular exhibition of Rare
\nold books in the National Archives of Romania hosted by the Museum of Romanian
\nLiterature, takes us on a journey back in time. (AMP)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An exhibition organised jointly with the Museum of Romanian Literature<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":131477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45210],"tags":[45703,29545,32349,45704,45702,35395],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-170026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rri-encyclopaedia","tag-archives","tag-books","tag-exhibition","tag-incunabula","tag-old","tag-rare"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n