Abstract
Reader marginalia are one of the most valuable forms of paratext available to researchers. They offer great potential towards a better understanding of how early modern people read and engaged with books as texts and as physical objects. With so many early published works focusing on medicine and health, marginalia offer particular opportunities for those interested in medical history. This chapter will demonstrate how major cataloguing projects like the Glasgow Incunabula Project are uncovering fascinating examples of medical-related reader marginalia and creating online finding aids, which make it easier for researchers to locate and access early annotated books. Yet large numbers of books remain entirely hidden from view to researchers, either completely uncatalogued or catalogued without copy-specific metadata. This chapter will urge marginalia researchers to liaise with and collaborate with librarians and curators more closely in future to help tackle this issue and allow researchers to begin to address broader research questions.
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- 1.
The books featured here were first identified and described by Jack Baldwin, primary investigator on Glasgow Incunabula Project, to whom I owe many thanks. And many thanks to Julie Gardham, Senior Librarian and Head of Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library, for her invaluable input.
- 2.
University of Glasgow Library. 2017. “Glasgow Incunabula Project”. Accessed June 23 2017, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/
- 3.
The percentage would be even higher if we consider practical annotation, e.g. manuscript foliation, manuscript signatures, manuscript indexes, etc.
- 4.
GIP added Library of Congress Subject headings (LCSH) beginning “Medicine …” to 89 editions [i.e. 99 copies]. However, it should be noted that multiple texts—occasionally on differing topics—can be included in a single incunabulum; LCSH are not necessarily added to reflect every single text in a work, so this count may underrepresent the true number of “medical” incunables held. Also, this figure does not include non-medical works which include “medical” marginalia . See, for example, a 1489 Strasburg Biblia Latina [GIP B062; ISTC ib00588000] owned in the sixteenth century by a Benedictine monastery in Ettenheimmünster, Baden-Württemberg, which includes a five-line inscription in German at head of the initial leaf in a sixteenth-century hand containing a medical recipe to treat scalds. See University of Glasgow Library [i.e. UofG]. 2017. Sp Coll Euing Dt-d.14: “Biblia Latina”, accessed June 23, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/dt-d.14/
- 5.
Once again, the percentage would be even higher if we consider practical annotation.
- 6.
For a general discussion on taxonomies of marginalia , see Sherman, William H. 2008. Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 16–17. For another suggested typology of marginalia in incunabula, see University of Oxford. 2017. “Reading Practices”, University of Oxford 15cBooktrade, accessed June 23 http://15cbooktrade.ox.ac.uk/reading-practices/
- 7.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Bm6-d.12 “Savonarola, Michael: Practica medicinae, sive De aegritudinibus”, accessed June 23, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/bm6-d.12/
- 8.
Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) was a preacher and prophet who came to prominence in late fifteenth-century Florence for his attacks on corruption within the Church and his calls for religious reform.
- 9.
Yūḥannā Ibn Māsawayh (i.e. John Mesue) [Pseudo-]. 1523. D[omi]ni Mesue vita;
Doctoru[m] artis peonie cognomina. Canones vniuersales diui Mesue de consolatione medicinarum … Lyon: Antoine du Ry for Jacques Giunta, cf. a1r-a5r (see: Baudrier VI, 112). For a discussion of Yūḥannā Ibn Māsawayh, the problems on establishing authorship, and the medieval and early modern popularity of these works, see Paula De Vos (2013: 667–712).
- 10.
It is worth noting that Giunta issued further editions of this work in subsequent years with much the same typesetting (see e.g. Baudrier VI, 142 published in 1531); it is therefore uncertain from exactly which edition Jameson copied this text.
- 11.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian By.3.31 “Magninus Mediolanensis: Regimen sanitatis”, accessed June 23, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/by.3.31/ and University of Glasgow Library. 2017. Sp Coll Bm4-e.2 “Hortus sanitatis.”, accessed June 23, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/bm4-e.2/
- 12.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Bw.3.3 “Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/bw.3.3/
- 13.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Ferguson An-y.22 “Valascus de Tarenta: Practica, quae alias Philonium dicitur”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/An-y.22&Ck.2.1/
- 14.
The Collegium Medicum was founded by the City of Antwerp in 1659 incorporating the medical library of Antwerp resident Dr. Jean Ferreulx (1557–1627). This book is listed in the original donation from Ferreulx to the city. Many thanks to Steven Van Impe of the Hendrik Conscience Library, Antwerp, for this information.
- 15.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Bh.3.25 “Crescentiis, Petrus de: Ruralia commoda”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/bh.3.25/
- 16.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Bw.2.17 “Crescentiis, Petrus de: Ruralia commoda”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/bw.2.17/
- 17.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Bw.3.5 “Herbarius latinus”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/bw.3.5/
- 18.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Ferguson An-y.38 “Petrus de Abano: De venenis”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/an-y.38/
- 19.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Be.3.27 & Sp Coll Hunterian Bg.3.4 “Celsus, Aurelius Cornelius: De medicina”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/be.3.27%20&%20bg.3.4/
- 20.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Bh.1.17 (item 2) “Saliceto, Guilelmus de: Summa conservationis et curationis. Chirurgia”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/bh.1.17b/
- 21.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Ds.2.2 “Ketham, Johannes de [pseudo-]: Fasciculus medicinae”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/incunabula/a-zofauthorsa-j/ds.2.2/
- 22.
The books featured here were first identified and described by Sonny Maley, Wellcome Syphilis Project officer, to whom I owe many thanks.
- 23.
University of Glasgow Library. 2017. “Syphilis Collection”, accessed June 26, http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/specialcollections/collectionsa-z/syphiliscollection/
- 24.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Ab.6.31 “Nicolai Massa Veneti:: artiu[m] & medicine doctoris: Liber de morbo Gallico:.”, accessed June 26, http://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b3082690
- 25.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll BG57-b.9 “De morbis venereis libri sex ”, accessed June 26, http://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b3075134
- 26.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll Hunterian Aa.2.19 “Mikrokosmographia”, accessed June 26, http://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b1606622
- 27.
UofG. 2017. Sp Coll 83.b.15, “A treatise on the venereal disease”, accessed June 26, http://eleanor.lib.gla.ac.uk/record=b3092972
- 28.
See, for example, the Consortium of European Research Libraries (CERL) Material Evidence in Incunabula database; the collaborative Annotated Books Online (ABO) project; and the collaborative Archaeology of Reading in Early Modern Europe project.
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MacLean, R. (2018). Medical Marginalia in the Early Printed Books of University of Glasgow Library. In: Tweed, H.C., Scott, D.G. (eds) Medical Paratexts from Medieval to Modern. Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73426-2_10
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