Collection highlights, news about acquisitions, events and exhibits, and behind-the-scenes looks at the work and services of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) at Notre Dame.
The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
The current spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September–December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September–December 2024).
RBSC will be closed during the University of Notre Dame’s Christmas and New Year’s Celebrations, December 21, 2024 – January 1, 2025.
This Thanksgiving Rare Books and Special Collections features Truman Capote’s short story, “The Thanksgiving Visitor.” It first appeared in the November 1967 issue of McCall’s magazine; as seen here, it was republished with two other holiday stories in 1996 by Random House in its Modern Library series. “The Thanksgiving Visitor” is one of the few stories about Thanksgiving by a major American author.1 Capote wrote it soon after he had achieved professional success and widespread recognition for his nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, published in 1965.
“The Thanksgiving Visitor” is loosely autobiographical, based on Capote’s childhood in early 1930s Alabama. Told in the first person by nine year-old Buddy, it recounts his bullying at school by an older boy, Odd Henderson. While Buddy’s family is relatively prosperous during the depths of the Great Depression, Odd’s family is struggling.
When Buddy’s older cousin, Miss Sook, learns of Buddy’s troubles with Odd, she invites him to Thanksgiving dinner, a grand and sprawling affair of family members, friends, and neighbors. At Buddy’s objection to his cousin’s generosity, Miss Sook reminds him, “when all around us we see people who can’t satisfy the plainest needs, I feel ashamed. . . . The shame I feel is for all of us who have anything extra when other people have nothing.” (p. 78)
When the gathering sits down to eat Buddy believes his moment for revenge has come. He announces that he had just seen Odd steal Miss Sook’s prized cameo pin. Miss Sook counters Buddy’s claim, clearing Odd of blame, at which point the boy confesses that he had stolen the pin, returns it, and leaves. Buddy feels betrayed by Miss Sook for having sided with his nemesis.
Later, Miss Sook explains to Buddy that however wrong, Odd’s action had not been calculated, while Buddy had set out deliberately to humiliate Odd in front of everyone at the table. “There is only one unpardonable sin,” Miss Sook tells Buddy, “deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven. That, never.” (p. 104)
1. Michael P. Bibler, “How to Love Your Local Homophobe: Southern Hospitality and the Unremarkable Queerness of Truman Capote’s ‘The Thanksgiving Visitor’,” MFS Modern Fiction Studies, Vol. 58, no. 2 (Summer 2012): 284.
The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.
Curators Gregory Bond and Elizabeth Hogan will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on November 8 and November 15. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30pm and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:15pm.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
The current spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September – December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September – November 2024).
RBSC will be closed during the University of Notre Dame’s Thanksgiving Break, November 28 – 29.
The exhibition Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924 is now open and will run through the end of January 2025.
Curators Gregory Bond and Elizabeth Hogan will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on October 11, November 8, and November 15. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30pm and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:30pm in October and 3:15pm in November.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
The October spotlight exhibits are Wollstonecraft: Revolution & Textual Evidence (September–December 2024) and A Fourteenth-Century Chanson de Geste Fragment (September–November 2024).
RBSC will be open regular hours (9:30am–4:30pm) during the University of Notre Dame’s Fall Break, October 19 – 27.
Hesburgh Libraries has been able to recently acquire a rare 18th-century monograph about Divine Revelation authored by an Irish Franciscan residing in Prague, now in the Czech Republic. Anthony O’Brien lived and taught at the College of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary of the Irish Franciscans of the Stricter Observance when he wrote De Divina Revelatione: seu Naturali ac Revelata Religione Tractatus Primus (Vetero-Pragae, 1762).
Following Elizabeth I’s expulsion of the Franciscans from Ireland at the end of the 16th century, a number of friars established themselves first in Louvain and then, from 1629, in Prague where the College flourished for 150 years until its dissolution under the Habsburg monarch (and Holy Roman Emperor) Joseph II in 1786.
As Brendan Jennings has noted, “While doing its important work for the education of the Bohemian clergy, the college did not neglect its primary purpose of educating priests for Ireland. It is not possible to give precise statistics for the early years of its existence, but in all probability Prague supplied the Irish Franciscan Province with a much greater number of missionaries than either of their colleges at Louvain and Rome. It was a much larger institution and often housed, from the middle of the seventeenth century, between sixty and eighty members.” (Jennings, “The Irish Franciscans in Prague,” Studies: an Irish Quarterly Review, v. 28 (1939), p. 221)
Supplementing the texts which had already appeared in the “dissertation” versions of O’Brien’s work, printed between 1759-1762, we find here Quaestio IV (on miracles) extended by a further 40 pages. An entirely new Quaestio V addresses the problem of whether divine revelation is truly limited only to the Christian religion, including an extensive discussion on Islam (p. 473-499) and an even longer treatment of Judaism (p. 500-597). Although the title-page mentions “Tomus Primus” (“first book”), no further volumes were published.
We have found only two other North American library holdings of this edition.
Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Fall ’24! We want to let you know about a variety of things to watch for in the coming semester.
Fall 2024 Exhibition: Notre Dame Football Kills Prejudice: Citizenship and Faith in 1924
“Notre Dame football is a new crusade: it kills prejudice and stimulates faith.” — Rev. John F. O’Hara, C.S.C., Prefect of Religion, Religious Bulletin, November 17, 1924
In the fall of 1924, the University of Notre Dame found great success on the football field and confronted a dangerous and divisive political moment. The undefeated Fighting Irish football team, cemented forever in national memory by Grantland Rice’s legendary “Four Horsemen” column, beat the best opponents from all regions of the country and won the Rose Bowl to claim a consensus national championship. Off the field, Notre Dame battled a reactionary nativist political environment that, in its most extreme manifestation, birthed the second version of the Ku Klux Klan. Sympathizers of this “100% Americanism” movement celebrated white, male, Protestant citizenship and attacked other groups—including Catholics and immigrants—who challenged this restrictive understanding of American identity.
In the national spotlight, Notre Dame leaders unabashedly embraced their Catholic identity. They consciously leveraged the unprecedented visibility and acclaim of the football team to promote—within the very real political constraints of the era—a more inclusive and welcoming standard of citizenship. Attracting a broad and diverse fan base, the 1924 national champion Fighting Irish discredited nativist politics and helped stake the claim of Notre Dame—and Catholics and immigrants—to full citizenship and undisputed Americanness.
Curators will host exhibit open houses on select Friday afternoons before Notre Dame home football games, including on September 6, September 27, and October 11. The drop-in open houses will run from 3:00–4:30 and will feature brief remarks by the curators at 3:30.
Other curator-led tours open to the public will be announced soon. Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting Greg Bond at gbond2@nd.edu.
This exhibition is curated by Gregory Bond (Curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections) and Elizabeth Hogan (Senior Archivist for Photographs and Graphic Materials, University Archives).
Stop in regularly to see our Collections Spotlights
Currently on Display: Making Books Count: Early Modern Books in the History of Mathematics
Discover how books shaped science and our understanding of nature. The history of mathematics guides our understanding of astronomy, as revealed in works by Galileo, Copernicus, and others. Through ancient texts tracing the evolution of mathematical thought, visitors can explore the dialogue between mathematics and nature.
The last public spotlight tour is scheduled for August 28 at 1:30 pm.
This dual case spotlight is curated by Caterina Agostini (Indiana University Bloomington, Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine). She previously served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Reilly Center for Science, Technology, and Values and the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship. She is Co-PI in the Harriot Papers project.
Opening Soon: September Spotlights
RBSC spotlight exhibits will switch over for the fall during September. Two new exhibits will feature recently acquired editions of books by Mary Wollstonecraft and two manuscript fragments of French poetry. Stay tuned for more information!
These and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops
Throughout the semester, curators will lead instructional sessions related to our holdings to undergraduate and graduate students from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. Curators may also be available to show special collections materials to visiting classes, from preschool through adults. If you would like to arrange a group visit and class with a curator, please contact Special Collections.
Events
These programs are free and open to the public.
Thursday, October 3 at 5:00pm | The Fall 2024 Italian Research Seminar and Lectures will begin with a lecture by Giovanna Corazza (Università Ca’ Foscari), “Dante’s Chorographies: From the Territory to the Comedy.”
National Women’s Football League CollectionA Revised Martyrology for 16th Century German CatholicsWomen in Irish Prisons: Autographs of Prisoners in 1923Influencing Opinion by Mapping the Early American Civil WarSome of the recent acquisitions highlighted on the blog in the past year.
Anticipated Closures
Rare Books and Special Collections is regularly open 9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday. The department will be closed for the following holidays and events:
September 2, for Labor Day (Monday) September 13, for Rev. Robert A. Dowd, C.S.C., Presidential Inauguration Events (Friday, afternoon only) November 28-29, for Thanksgiving (Thursday and Friday)
Our last day open before the campus closure for Christmas Celebration will be December 20 (the Friday of final exams week).
Jeanne de Jussie (1503-1561) was a French-Swiss nun who recounts her experiences living in Switzerland during the early years of the Swiss Reformation in this extremely rare work. Having entered the Convent of the Poor Clares in Geneva in 1521, Jeanne was appointed secretary of the Convent in 1530 and was responsible for its correspondence. Around the year 1535, she began writing in manuscript form what is now known as her “Short Chronicle,” intended to pass on current events and observations to future nuns, and which provides the basis for the book published here; an English translation of the manuscript (The Short Chronicle: a Poor Clare’s Account of the Reformation of Geneva, edited and translated by Carrie F. Klaus) was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2006.
The year 1535 also proved to be an important year in Jeanne’s life for another reason: religious opponents broke into the Convent and the sisters were threatened for weeks before obtaining permission to leave Geneva peacefully, and then moving to Annecy, where they lived in the Monastery of the Holy Cross. This and many other contemporary events are described in this work, one of the few efforts to offer a detailed look into life in the city of Geneva during this tumultuous period. Jeanne’s narrative has continued to interest scholars not only for its contemporary description of key events, but also for its female perspective; the author is clear in noting that female Catholics were often subjected to more abuse concerning their beliefs than men.
This is the first of two issues published in 1611 (ours lacks the printing date, while the second issue includes it and is four pages longer); we have found no other North American holdings of this true first edition.
Borromeo (1538-1584) is well known as one of the administrative leaders of the Catholic Reformation. Following his appointment as archbishop of the diocese of Milan (Italy) in 1564, he worked tirelessly to implement in his archdiocese the decrees of the Council of Trent, which had concluded the year before the beginning of his episcopal tenure. His reforms largely centered on the revitalization of education for both clergy and laity. He convened a series of synods beginning in 1568, and by the time of his death in 1584 it appears that 11 such meetings were held.
Apparently, not all of the synods’ decrees were published, and we have identified printed collections for only the first and fourth; the present work represents the work of the latter gathering, held in Milan in November 1574.
We have identified no other copies held by any other institution worldwide.
The current spotlight exhibits are Scripts and Geographies of Byzantine Book Culture (February – May 2023) and The Book Beautiful: A Selection from the Arts & Crafts Movement (April – May 2024). Towards the end of May, we will install a double case spotlight exhibit highlighting Special Collections items relating to the early modern history of mathematics.
Rare Books and Special Collections is open regular hours during the summer — 9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday.
RBSC will be closed Monday, May 27th, for Memorial Day and Thursday, July 4th, for Independence Day.
The books in Special Collections’s April-May spotlight exhibit represent a small selection of materials from the University of Notre Dame’s collection that reveal the influence of William Morris on the Arts & Crafts movement. From the printing and binding of Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson to the illumination and calligraphy of Edward Johnston and Alberto Sangorski, Morris’s ideal of the “book beautiful” was taken up by dozens of other makers who sought in their own way to merge artistry and craftsmanship in the creation of beautiful books.
William Morris founded the Kelmscott Press in 1891 in response to the decorative excesses of the waning Victorian era and declining material and design standards in book publishing. He aimed to print books “which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same time they should be easy to read and should not dazzle the eye, or trouble the intellect of the reader by eccentricity of form in the letters.” 1 Perhaps for the first time in Europe since Gutenberg, Morris sought to design the whole book, selecting the paper, type, illustrations, typography, binding, and even the ink that were used in the production of books from the Kelmscott Press.
In making these decisions, Morris was informed by a set of exemplary medieval manuscripts and early printed works that he assembled as a personal reference library. On his historical influences in book design, Morris wrote “I have always been a great admirer of the calligraphy of the Middle Ages, & of the earlier printing which took its place. As to the fifteenth century books, I had noticed that they were always beautiful by force of the mere typography, even without the added ornament, with which many of them are so lavishly supplied.” 2 The University of Notre Dame is fortunate to have two medieval manuscripts (cod. Lat. c. 6 and cod. Lat. e. 4) owned by William Morris.
Lat. c. 6 binding (fore edge) and Morris bookplate.
Cod. Lat. c. 6 is a 13th century copy of Peter Riga’s Aurora. Its undecorated, utilitarian limp parchment binding is charming even in its worn state and exemplifies the authenticity that Morris was attracted to in scribal book production. This book features particularly pronounced “yapped” fore-edge folds on the parchment cover, which were intended to protect the page edges from wear. Yapped edges are commonly found in this style of binding, and Morris would go on to incorporate them in his binding designs for books from the Kelmscott Press.
Except for the Kelmscott Press edition of Chaucer’s works, most books from the press were issued in two possible binding configurations: limp vellum with colored silk ties or a hardcover binding with off-white linen covering the spine and blue paper covering the boards. The Earthly Paradise was one of the last publications by the Kelmscott Press, and this particular copy retains its William Morris-designed limp vellum binding with green silk ties. It was bound for the Kelmscott Press by J. & J. Leighton. The yapped fore-edge folds of this binding are reminiscent of the yapped edges on the Riga Aurora manuscript, though they are more diminutive. The use of green silk (custom dyed at the request of Morris and used for the fore-edge ties on this binding) appears frequently in British Arts & Crafts movement books. A similarly colored green silk was used to sew the copy of Men & Women by the Doves Press in the exhibit and is visible in the gutter fold.
Men & Women opening showing colophon and green silk in gutter.
After taking up bookbinding in 1883 at the suggestion of Jane Morris, William Morris’ wife, Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson established a new aesthetic for gold tooling in bookbinding using repeating patterns of a custom-designed set of brass finishing tools and high quality leather. Cobden-Sanderson’s aesthetic was also disseminated through his teaching. His students, such as Douglas Cockerell and Katharine Adams, became leading binders in their own right. Like William Morris, Cobden-Sanderson was interested in the design of the whole book and believed that ideally each part of the book’s production–materials, typography, illustration, and binding–should function together harmoniously to communicate the ideas contained by the written word.
Though foremost a bookbinder, Cobden-Sanderson collaborated with Emery Walker—a renowned typographer who assisted Morris in the development of several Kelmscott typefaces—to establish the Dove Press in 1900 four years after the death of William Morris. Their Doves typeface was a more accurate, svelte interpretation of Nicolas Jenson’s roman types from the late 15th century than was Kelmscott’s squat Golden typeface used in The Earthly Paradise (and in Morris’s bookplate).
This Doves Press copy of Men & Women by Robert Browning was “flourished” in the margins by Edward Johnston. Johnston was a calligrapher who was inspired by Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and helped revitalize illumination and lettering in the Arts & Crafts movement. Ironically, Johnston is perhaps best known today for creating the sans serif typeface used by the London Underground transportation system than for his floral calligraphy.
Sometime between 1901 and 1905, Edward Johnston taught calligraphy at the Central School in London to Francis Sangorski, an virtuosic bookbinder and younger brother of Alberto Sangorski. Though Alberto was initially a bookkeeper from Francis’s bindery, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, Alberto learned the rudiments of calligraphy, quill pen cutting, and gold illumination from Francis. In 1905 at the age of 43 (coincidentally the same age Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson gave up lawyering for bookbinding) Alberto Sangorski established himself as a calligrapher.3
This illuminated manuscript of John Milton’s On the morning of Christ’s nativity: an Ode was created by Alberto Sangorski sometime between 1905 and 1910. Alborto Sangorski developed his own miniaturist painting style based on Medieval and Pre-Raphaelite artists, which can been seen in this manuscript and in the manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s The Blessed Damozel also on display in the exhibit. Alberto’s work drifted from the historical modeling of other Arts & Crafts figures and embraced the Edwardian era’s exuberance in design and catered to the conspicuous consumption of the truly “Gilded Age.”
This Alberto Sangorski manuscript of Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s poem The Blessed Damozel was bound by his brother Francis’s bindery, Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Francis Sangorski began his bookbinding apprenticeship in 1901 under Douglas Cockerell, another leading figure in the Arts & Crafts movement who himself trained under Thomas J. Cobden-Sanderson at the Doves Bindery. This binding is typical of Sangorski & Sutcliffe’s higher-end design bindings, featuring elaborate gold tooling and decorative leather onlays of thinly skived crimson goatskin. Sangorski & Sutcliffe’s most expensive and celebrated binding of an 1884 imprint of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám sank on the RMS Titanic on April 14, 1912. Francis Sangorski drowned six weeks later while swimming in the English Channel. Like the Milton manuscript, this codex was likely created early in Alberto Sangorski’s career sometime between 1905 and 1910.
