The Incunabula Collections at the Library of Congress
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
The Incunabula Collections at
the Library of Congress
PETER M. VAN WINGEN
Over its 187-year history the Library of Congress has collected nearly 5,700
fifteenth-century books, the largest collection of incunabula in the Western Hemi-
sphere. This paper draws together from many sources the history of the several
collections that give the Library this strength. It is a tale of intrigue, good fortune and
hard work, of politics, patriotism and philanthropy.
The original Library established by Congress in 1800 and destroyed when the
British burned the Capitol in 1814 had no fifteenth-century books. Neither did the
collection sold to the Congress by Thomas Jefferson in 1815. This is not surprising-
the books in the first Library served the need for general literature, I and Jefferson
primarily collected modem, scholarly editions in handy fonnats.
By the 1830s there were me mbers of the Senate Library Committee who had a
strong interest in developing a library that wa~ universal in scope. Congress's first
opportunity to acquire incunabula and early printed books presented itself on
February 9, 1836, when Richard Henry Wilde, a fonn er member of the House of
Representatives who was in Florence working on a biography of Tasso, infonned the
Library Committee that the large library of the late Count Dimitrii Buturlin was
availahle for $50,000. A catalogue of this collection had been printed in 1831' It
contained 25,000 printed volumes, including 979 incunabula, with special strengths
in Greek and Latin c1a" ics, including a fin e collection of Aldine editions. The
collection was "fullest in those departments in which the Library of Congress is
defici ent , particularly ancient authors, belles-lettres, literary history, the fin e arts, and
the standard productions of France and Italy.'" In 1836 the Library of Congress held
25,000 books which had been acquired at a cost of $100,000. By this one purchase,
Pe ter M. VanWingcn is Heudofthc Re fe rence and Heade r Services Section, Rare Book and Special
Collections Division. Lihrary o f Congress. This paper was delivered at "Incu nabilla in American
Lihraries," a symposium sponsored hy the Cente r for the Book and the Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, libraI)' of Congress. April 1-2, 1987.
8586 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANSHIP
the collections could be doubled in size for half that amount.
The legislative process to purchase the Buturlin collection began smoothly
enough. On February 18, 1836, William Campbell Preston, Chairman of the Library
Committee, submitted a resolution to the Senate empowering the Library Commit-
tee to inquire further into the purchase of the Buturiin library" D,miel Webster,
among others, expressed his high regard for the collection. The resolution was
adopted.' Preston's report, on March 15, 1836, pOinted out that the collection "is
especially rich in that species of literature which can be scarcely said to exist in this
country, for neither the Library of Congress nor any of the public or private libraries
of the United States possess anything in bibliography beyond the occasional speci-
men .... There are 119 copies of Aldine editions, 368 from the Bodoni press, many
hundred volumes printed in the fifteenth century, and many others illustrative of the
early achievements of typography and its progress to perfection.'"
On June 4, the resolution died, the victim of partisan backstabbing at the hands
of Senator Henry Clay, who had "Ordered, that it lie on the table.'" Clay, a Whig,
remembered that in 1829 the newly-elected Democratic President, Andrew Jackson,
had removed the Whig Librarian of Congress, George Watterston, and had installed
in his stead John Silva Meehan, a Democrat. The Buturiin bill was tabled because "the
Whigs could hardly entrust such a library to a Democratic Librarian.'"
Although the 1839 Catalogue of the Library of Congress . .. 9 lists two incunabula,
the Chronecken der Sassen (Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 6 March 1492) and Ranulphus
Higden's Polychronicon (Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 13 April 1495), the
earliest incunabulum with a recorded date of acquisition is a 1478 edition of
Astesanus de As!'s Summa de casibus conscientiae (Venice: Johannes de Colonia and
Johannes Manthen, 18 March 1478). This volume, the gift of Obadiah Rich in 1840,
is an example of the Library's serendipitous collecting of incunabula in the mid-
nineteenth century. Obadiah Rich had been the American consul at Valencia, Spain,
from 1816 until 1829 when he moved to London and established himself as a
bookseller. The Library of Congress along with many other American libraries and
collectors bought Americana from him. Since the Library was certainly not buying
fifteenth-century books, Rich must have made a gift to a good customer of an
interesting example of the art of printing.
The date that marks the foundation of the incunabula collection at the Library of
Congress is April 6, 1867, when the last load of Peter Force's library was received at
the Capitoj1O This was a major acquisition for the Library, the beginning of an
ongoing interest in early printed books, and a personal triumph for the recently
appointed librarian, Ainsworth Rand Spofford.
Over a period of thirty years, Force had assembled a formidable collection of
primary documents, incorporated into his work published as American Archives 11
Force was acquainted with book dealers throughout this country and abroad and has
been called the greatest American book collector of his time. His personal library heldINCUNABULA COLLECTIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 87
approximately 22,500 volumes.
In 1867 Spofford was able to capture the Force Collection when the New-York
Historical Society reneged on its agreement with Force to purchase the collection for
$100,000. George H. Moore, Librarian for the SOCiety, wrote to Force on May 30,
1865, to say that the New-York Historical Society had just acquired five acres ofland
on Central Park West. The Society had new financial burdens and negotiations with
Force ended." On January 25,1867, Ainsworth Spofford submitted a SpeCial Report
... Concerning the Library ofPeter Force" to the Joint Committee on the Library. On
the following day, the Committee voted unanimously to recommend the purchase of
the Force Library and on March 2, 1867, Congress passed an act authorizing the
expenditure of $100,000 for the collection.
In his report Spofford pointed out that the Force Library included a group of
books illustrating "the progress of the art of printing from its infancy."'·' That section
of the collection contained 161 incunabula. Spofford, in a later biography of Force,
wrote: "It was not alone with reference to Revolutionary history that Mr. Force's zeal
as a historical student was enlisted. He had a passion for the art of printing-his own
early chosen profession-and had collected a larger library of books printed in the
infancy of the art than any public library in the United States could boast of.""
The collection had some important books. The earliest imprint was Clemens V's
Constitutiones (Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 8 October 1467); also included were a copy
of Hartmann Schede!'s Liber chronicarom (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 12 July
1493) and jenson's 1472 printing of Pliny's Historia naturalis (Venice: Nicolaus
Jenson, 1472).
Also in 1867, the Smithsonian Institution depOSited its important book collection
for safekeeping in the Library of Congress, which had been fire-proofed following a
disastrous fire in 1851. These books, including approximately sixty incunabula, are
listed in the Library's 1868 catalogue.
A survey of the accession dates written or stamped in the Library's incunabula
reveals that there were scattered purchases of fifteenth-century books between the
receipt of the Force Collection and the end of the century. We know, for example,
that the Library purchased sometime before 1874 Aristotle's Opera (Venice: Aldus
Manutius, 1495-98) as a duplicate from the British Museum. It had been Thomas
Grenville's copy. HI But gradually, collecting by serendipity changed to collecting with
a purpose-to form a collection of fifteenth-century books that would show the
invention and development of printing in its infancy. The emphasiS was more on
assembling museum artifacts than on acquiring texts unrepresented in the Library,
and interest in places and dates of printing took p recedence over adding new works.
This attitude characterized incunabula collecting at the Library of Congress in the
late nineteenth century.
The Library of Congress moved from the Capitol to its first separate building in
1897. The Annual Report for 1898 reported that an exhibit opened during the year88 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANSHIP
displaying rare and early printed books. The exhibit filled a gallery and included
examples of incunabula, representing works printed in every year from 1467 to
1501."17
At the beginning of the twentieth century the count of the fifteenth-century
books at the Library stood as follows:
Force Collection 161
Smithsonian Deposit 60
Joseph Toner Gift 10
231
Other 130
TOTAL 361
From these numbers it becomes clear that a majority of the incunabula had come
to the Library through a few large transactions, a pattern that was to hold true for
future acquisitions.
The Library's small, interesting collection of incunabula contained enough books
to support an ambitious exhibit on the beginning of printing, but it was by no means
a research collection. The pivotal event which changed the collection from a
nineteenth-century gentleman'S gathering of black-letter books to a twentieth-
century research collection occurred in 1910.
In that year the Library received on deposit the collection of John Boyd Thacher
of Albany, New York. The collection consisted of four parts: incunabula, early
Americana (especially Columbiana), autographs of European notables, and manu-
sCripts, illustrations, and books relating to the French Revolution. Thacher was born
in Ballston Spa, New York, on September 11, 1847. After attending Williams College
he entered his father's business, Thacher Car Wheel Works, and eventually assumed
its ownership. In addition to his business interests, Thacher was a successful politi-
cian. He served as a Democratic state senator and as mayor of Albany for two terms.
He was elected to the Grolier Club in 1887. '.8 His first book collecting interest was in
early Americana, but he quickly broadened his scope and began to collect incunab-
ula. He probably started collecting fifteenth-century books seriously around 1889. It
seems likely that his collection was stimulated, at least in part, by the example of
General Rush Hawkins. 1' Hawkins, the pioneering American collector of incunabula,
followed the system originated by Henry Bradshaw and developed by Robert Proctor
in which specimens of the first ' or earliest work of fifteenth-century presses are
collected in order to demonstrate the diffusion of printing. Proctor determined that
by 1501 there were over 238 places where printing had been practiced and about
1,080 distinct presses had operated in these places. Thacher set out to get at least oneI NCUNABU LA COLLECTIO NS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 89
specimen from each press. After ten years of collecting he was able to record:
I bought at Libbie & Co.'s sale, Boston, and paid for it, June 3, 1899, a Benedicti
Regula printed by Geoffrey MarneI'. Paris, September 7,1500. This book completed
my 500 presses of th" fifteenth century. I take it as a good augury that the first book
of my incunabula and the one to round out my five hundredth press should have
heen found in America. It is seldom my collection finds specimens of incunabula
already hrought to America.
Ten years ago it did not seem possible that 1 should get from one to ten examples
of 500 presses of the fifteenth century. No other private collection lias so great a
numher of separate presses. 211
Thache r retired from business and public life in 1898. The last eleven years of his
life were devoted to research and collecting. He and his wife, Emma Treadwell
Thache r, traveled throughout Europe searching for incunabula and for materials
relating to Thacher's study of the French Revolution . Shortly after his death, Emma
Thache r deposited her late husband's c'Oliections at the Library of Congress. The
de posit had 904 incunabula, including sixty-four duplicates. Thacher's collecting
method hrought in major rarities-Fust and Schoe fl'er's printing of Guillelmus
Durant;'s Rationale divillonlm officionl1n ([Mainz]: Johann Fust and Peter Schoef-
fer, 6 October 1459)-as well as items unrecorded at that time.'1 The very nature of
the collection invites analysis in terms of numbers . Early deSCriptions of the Thacher
Collection almost invariably speak in such terms, and comparison with the Hawkins
Collection was never far from anyone's mind .
He rbe rt Putnam included the following long footnote in his Annual Report for
1910:
The extent of the lX)ssihle benefit [of the Thacher Collection] can be estimated only
hy an itemized exhibit of the collection in a catalogue. It may, however, be indicated
in a superficial way by a comparison: The collection of incunabula formed by Gen.
Hush C. Hawkins and now deposited in the Annmary Brown Memorial building at
Provi dence, H.I. , is (justly) regarded 'L' offering as excellent an opportunity as could
C'Onveniently be found in one place for the study of early printing and the comparison
of early presses. The catalogue of it (by Mr. A. W. Pollard) shows about 542 entries
(including a few late r than A.D. 1500 and therefore not strictly incunabula). A
similar catalogue of the Thacher Collection would show about 820 incunabula
proper. The Hawkins Collection includes some 80 printers (67 of them represented
hy 15th century imprints) not in the Thacher Collection (though of these eight,
including Le Hoy, Lettou, Pynson, and Wynkyn de Worde, are represented on the
Lihrary's general shelves); but the Thacher Collection includes over 140 not in the
Hawkins Collection. As against 141 places represented in the Hawkins Collection,
there are 126 represented in the Thacher ..•,90 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANSHIP
By present-day standards the terms of the deposit were hazy, but it was clear that
the Library had every reason to believe that the books would eventually become part
of an instrument of gift. The Library of Congress stood on the threshold of obtaining
a great collection. Mrs. Thacher made a trip to Washington and viewed the materials
and seemed pleased. When she died on February 18, 1927, her will bequeathed the
entire collection of books and manuscripts to the Library. Putnam told the Washing-
ton Post that "the collections are probably the most notable ever presented to the
Library through private-benefactors" and went on to declare that the donation was
a "signal manifestation of the patriotism of American scholarship.""
But the Thacher family felt differently and in December, 1931, Colonel George
Curtis Treadwell, one of the executors and also the residuary legatee of the estate of
Mrs. John Boyd Thacher, brought suit against Herbert H. Putnam, claiming that the
conditions of the will had not been met. The conditions were: the collections of books,
autographs, letters and documents were to be kept together; a catalogue of the
materials was to be prepared; finally, all possible precautions for the preservation and
safety of the materials were to be observed. The estate claimed that these conditions
had not been met and wanted the will nullified. The case went to the Superior Court
of the District of Columbia, the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia and the
United States Supreme Court. In each instance the court decided in favor of the
Library. In the end the Library returned to the estate some autograph materials
which it later bought back for $1,109.93.24 It was a time-consuming and unhappy
episode. At the heart of the Library's victory was the fact that in 1915, while the
collection was still on deposit, the Library had published a Catalogue ofthe John Boyd
Thacher Collection of Incunabula, compiled by Frederick W. Ashley.'"
The period between the wars was, of course, a time of great expansion in
American library collections. The Annual Reports indicate that the Library of
Congress added nearly 100 incunabula from separate sources with the largest
numbers coming in 1922 (20 items), 1923 (26 items), and 1924 (21 items). In the mid-
1920s the Library embarked on a campaign to attract funds and materials in addition
to its congressional appropriation. The timing was good. Americans were wealthy and
collectors were active. In 1925, by act of Congress, the Library of Congress Trust
Fund Board was formed "to accept, receive, hold, and administer such gifts or
bequests of personal property for the benefit of, or in connection with, the Library,
its collections, or its service."" The follOwing year the Library published a catalogue
listing outstanding items in the collections along with· important desiderata. In the
foreword, Putnam encouraged monetary gifts, but stated: "Another way would be the
direct gift of the material itself from the collection of the donor. The Library has not
lacked some such gifts of considerable importance. It hopes for many others, as
collectors who have had the relish of collecting, and a suffiCient satisfaction in the
possession, may come to consider the permanent dispOSition of their collections, and
may tum to the National Library as inevitably as the British collector turns to theINCU NABULA COLLECTIONS AT TIlE LIIlHAHY OF CONG HESS 91
British Museum. It has, there fore, seem"d worth while to list a few examples of the
'Desiderata' still "Ickin~ from our shelves, limiting the list, for the moment, to the
hihlio~raphical monumenta which should indisputably be represented in the Na-
tional Lihrary of' tlH' United States.""
Th e desiderata included seventy-seven incunabula. In addition to a Gutenberg
BibI" and any fifteenth-century edition of' the Columbus letter, the list indicated the
Library's n('"d for a Mainz Psalter, the 1462 Fust and Schoeffer Bible, the 1476
Jenson Bihl", edition"s principe", of Tacitus, Hom er, and Aristophanes, and anything
printed hy C,lxton. These arc· serious requests and they demonstrate the Library's
inte n'st in acquirin~ major items. This approach was another manifestation of
Putnam's call for the "patriotism of American scholarship," but the Library needed
to get into the public's consciousness in order for it to succeed. When the status of the
Thacher Coll ection changed from deposit to gift in 1927, long accounts appeared in
the Washington papers and The New York Tillles . This helped, but it was not quite the
thin~ to catch the public's imagination.
At this point Otto H. F . Vollbehr e merged from the wings. Vollbehr was a
German industrial chemist turned book collector who at the close of World War I
found himself with lIlore assets than most. While the rest of Europe was in the throes
of revolution and economic depression, he was able to buy early books very cheaply.
Eithe r in his own collection or through conSignment Vollbehr had control of
thousands of incunabula. Be tween 1924 and 1926 he sold the Huntington Library
nearly 2,400 fifteenth-ce ntury books.'" In 1926 Vollbehr came to the United States,
bringing with him a collection of 3,000 incunabula to be exhibited at the Eucharistic
Congress in Chicago. Vollbehr stole the show. Inte rest in the books was so great that
Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago tried to buy the entire collection for the religiOUS
library at St. Mary-()f~th e-Lake . Afte r consulting with several experts Vollbehr set the
price at $3,000,000. The efforts of the Cardinal failed, but he gained some solace from
Vollbe"r's gift of a choice collection of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manu-
sCripts. After the exhibition in Chicago, Vollbe hr traveled with the collection by train
to several cities, Vollbe hr reported that 40,000 people came to see his books during
the fourteen days he was in St. Louis. In New York the books were on display at the
National Arts Club . Vollbehr's last stop was in Washington, and over one hundred of
the books we re exhibited in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress. Two brochures
we re printed by the Government Printing Office, one providing background on the
collection and the collector, the other listing the books on display. Then, in the words
of a journalist covering the story, "A widespread hope that was nothing short of a
de mand, expressed to Dr, Vollbehr verbally, by letter and wire, that the volumes
remain in this country, caused him to volnnteer an unusual proposition."'" Vollbehr
proposed that if a he nefactor would step forward to buy the collection for an
American institution for half the ",king price or $1.5 million , he would donate the
other half. In addition , he would include a complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible92 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANSHIP
printed on vellum as one of the 3,000 incunabula.
The Gutenberg Bible which crowned Vollbehr's collection received extensive
press coverage, helped by a widely distributed booklet describing this copy.'"
Vollbehr never tired of telling how he acquired the Bible. According to his account
this copy had had only three owners. The first owner was Johann Fust who took it to
Paris and sold it as a manuscript to a representative of the monks of St. Blasius. It
resided with the monks in the Black Forest until they had to move to St. Paul in
Carinthia in the face of the Napoleonic army. Finally in 1926, Otto Vollbehr
purchased the three volumes from the monks for $250,000.
Public imagination was stirred by Vollbehr's offer but no donor came forward.
Several sources were tried (among them Edward Stephen Harkness, John Pierpont
Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.), and there was considerable interest from some
parties in negotiating for the Bible alone. No one was interested in paying for the
entire package. To his credit Vollbehr refused to break up the collection, reiterating
that his books showed a true representation of printing in the fifteenth century from
its high points to the schoolbooks and tracts which, though widely available when
printed, had been so little regarded in the ensuing centuries that they were virtually
unobtainable.
In December 1929, as Vollbehr prepared to set sail for London without having
sold the collection, he received a copy of a bill which had been presented to Congress
proposing that public funds be used to acquire the Vollbehr Collection for the Library
of Congress. The bill had been introduced by Congressman Ross Collins of Missis-
Sippi. Collins had never met Vollbehr nor had he ever seen the collection.
At this point things moved quickly. Collins introduced the bill (H.R.6147) on
December 3,1929. On February 7,1930, Collins addressed the House of Represen-
tatives for over an hour on the merits of the Vollbehr Collection. On March 25, a
similar bill was introduced in the Senate; it was returned to the library Committee
and killed. On May 29,1930, Collins again introduced a bill to purchase the collection
(H.R.12696). It passed unanimously. On June 10, the bill was referred to the Senate
Committee on the library. On June 24, it was debated and passed in the Senate. On
July 3, 1930, the bill (Public Law 533) was signed into law by President Hoover. The
action taken between the bill's first defeat in March and its unanimous passage in
June constituted the most amazing instance of public support for a purchase in the
history of the library of Congress.
In that three-month period Collins and Vollbehr were able to gamer unprece-
dented support for the purchase. Collins's speech was reprinted from the Congres-
sional Record'l and sent to universities, libraries, writers, teachers, and the news
media. All were told to write or cable their Congressmen and Senators expressing
support for the purchase of the 3,000 incunabula including the Gutenberg Bible. The
library'S ManUSCript Division has five scrapbooks containing over 2,000 letters
personally received by Collins. It was estimated that 25,000 individuals expressedIN CUN ABULA COLLECTIONS AT THE L1BHAHY OF CONGHESS 93
their support of this purchase."
The stock market had just crashed. This would not seem like a propitious time to
lobby for a special appropriation for books. But there is an indication in the letters and
reports of the Vollbehr Collection that more was at stake than a collection of
incunabula. The purchase was seen as an "official recognition of the movement
towards an American renaissance."3.") In a column in the Saturday Review of Litera-
ture strongly advocating the purchase, E. Paul Saunders concluded:
Congress shouk] pass H.R.6147 without dissenting vote a< a matter of national
pride-pride in [the factl that . .. acquisition of the Vollbehr collection would place
the Library of Congress on a parity with the national libraries of Europe, including
particularly the famous British Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, at present
the two leading libraries of the world.
Let us have parity in scholarship as well a, in ships, in culture as well as cruisers,
in hooks as in hattleships!'"
In the end it was public support which carried the bill. Putnam told the Library
Committee that the defeat of this bill would be a "calamity" and that if the public were
to perceive any sense of indifference on the part of either the Librarian or the
Congress the re would be serious repercussions for both. He stated: "There has
developed throughout the country an enthusiasm for this project which amounts to
an exhilaration-that the Government of the United States may match the other
governments of the world in the recognition of cultural objects. You have had
evidence of that in the letters and editorials with which you have been deluged.""
On July 3, 1930, the last day of the second session of the 71st Congress, the so-
called Collins Bill was enacted into law. On July 15, the Vollbehr books arrived at the
Library of Congress. Putnam still had to travel to Europe to bring back the Gutenberg
Bible, which finally reached the Library on September 3. In Austria, Putnam and the
Library delegation found that with cumulated interest the Bible would cost $325,000.
Vollbehr showed that of the $1,500,000 received from Congress, he had a balance of
only $300,000. The monastery reluctantly accepted this amount, but later com-
plained bitterly when it took another twenty days for Vollbehr's check to clear.
In Decem ber 1930, five months after the Vollbehr Collection arrived, the Library
opened a major exhibition entitled, "Exhibit of Books Printed During the XVth
Century and Known as Incunabula, Selected from the Vollbehr Collection Pur-
chased by Act of Congress 1930." I n one of the more amusing statements ever written
in an exhibit catalogue, Putnam noted: "Of the 3,000 items in the collecti9n, it has
been possible to include in the present exhibit only about 1,700.""
Unfortunately, the Vollbehr story doesn't stop here. We know that the 1930 sale
barely got VoJlbehr out of debt, but he still had 1,500 incunabula which for various
reasons were not included in the Library of Congress sale. The Library was interested94 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANSHIP
in acquiring 1,000 of these books. Again Vollbehr hoped that some public-spilited
individual would donate the collection. The books themselves were actually held at
the Library of Congress for a few years, but from correspondence it is clear that the
chances for acquisition became dimmer and dimmer until the Library found itself in
the uncomfortable position of holding books which were in reality collateral owned
by the Bank of America. In 1937 V. Yalta Parma, Curator of the Rare Book Collection,
wrote to a New York bookseller, who claimed to have recently soldan edition of Marco
Polo from the Vollbehr books on deposit:
It is necessary that I understand the situation regarding the books in the collection
and I would appreciate your telling me how you could sell the Marco Polo with any
advantage to yourself while it is held for security for another loan. The whole
difficulty with Dr. Vollbehr's affairs seems to come from a lack of frankness with
everybody concerned, so that every move develops unexpected entanglements. This
of course you have yourself discovered:"
There was still more to come. On November 30,1934, Vollbehrwas called before
the House Committee on Un-American Activities to explain his actions in spending
between $5,000 and $6,000 to mail eleven issues of a pro-Nazi publication called
Memorandum. Also, he was questioned about his distribution of a financial informa-
tion service "full of subtly devised propaganda aimed to stir up anti-Semitism.""
The incunabula were finally sold privately and at auction in 1939 and 1940 in New
York. Many of the books found their way into American libraries. Vollbehr himselfleft
the country in 1939 under pressure from the FBI. After World War II, Army
intelligence officers told Frederick Goff that Vollbehr's house in Berlin had been
destroyed by bombs but that he had escaped to Baden-Baden. He died shortly after
the war.'"
When Putnam published the Library'S desiderata list in 1926 he hoped that
donors of materials would step forward. In 1930 he testified before Congress that the
Vollbehr Collection would have a great impact on a group of people never previously
associated with the Library:
It is not merely the literati, the scholars-it is also the man on the street, who has
been touched and stirred. And among the groups so stirred is one group of exceeding
importance to us; that is, the group representing connOisseurship.
Now we are constantly receiving expressions of respect and admiration for the
development of the Library, but there is one kind of admiration and respect and
interest that we have thus far lacked-that is, the interest of the connoisseur who
values books as books. Last fall one of my associates wrote to such a man asking him
if he would lend one or two of his rare editions for exhibit in the Library. He wrote
back: "Why should I lend them to the Library of Congress? What does Congress care
about such books as I care for?" Now that man, stirred by this bill, came down forINCUNABULA COLLECrIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 95
the hearings. He told the committee, and told me afterwards that if Congress would
do this thing it would mean that mllectors such a. he would think of our Library
instead of some other as th e place where, a. gifts, their collections would find real
appreciation.,1!)
Putnam's instincts were correct. In 1943the Library received the first installment
of its greatest rare-book gift-the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection. The story of
Lessing Rosenwald's collecting of illustrated books is well-known." Rosenwald began
collecting prints in 1926, hut his first major book purchases came in 1928 when he
bought from A. S. W. Rosenbach a group of Gennan illustrated incunabula, among
them Die Crollica vall der hilUger stat van Coellen [The Cologne Chronicle]
(Cologne: Johann Koelhofr. the Younger, 23 August 1499) and Koberger's printing of
Jacobus de Vamgille's Legem/a allrea sanc/Onllll (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 5
Dece mhe r 14HIl)." On the afternoon of March 5, 1929, he spent $404,700 at
Rosenbach's OJ) a variety of books ranging from block books to William Blake. Early
in 1930 he re turned to Rosenbach's, and for $297,000 Rosenwald bought twenty-six
books that he knew would be available only once in a lifetime, including the 1488 Paris
e dition of Olivier de l~, Marche's Le Chevalier deliber/! (Paris: [Guy Marchand or
Antoine Caillaut I for Antoine Verard, 8 August 1488), considered the finest illus-
trated French book of the fifteenth century. The Rosenwald-Rosenbach connection
was an important one. Not only did Rose nbach convince Rosenwald to focus his
collection and to buy only superior copies, he made extraordinary opportunities
available. For example, in 1930, knO\ving that Vollbehr was in great financial
difficulty, Rosenbach and Rosenwald offered to take the Gutenberg Bible for
$400,000. Wh ile the option was pending Rosenwald informed Rosenbach that the
sudden f,,11 ill stock prices had made it difficult for him to pay his previous bills. The
purchase of the Bihle might prove to be catastrophic, Fortunately, Congress bought
the Vollhehr Collection and Rosenwald and Rosenbach "heaved a sigh of relief.""
In 1939 Rosenwald retired as Chairman orthe Board of Sears Roebuck and began
to fulllll his dream of involvement with philanthropy and developing his tastes as a
collector. Both of these pursuits converged in 1943 when Rosenwald presented his
collections to the lIation, retaining possession of them during his lifetime, The prints
were given to the National Gallery of Art and the books to the Library of Congress.
The initial Hose nwald book donation numbered about 500 choice items. Of these,
200 were incunabula, thirty-seven of which were not reported in other American
collections.
The 1943 gilt and the opportunities available after World War II increased
Rosenwald's collecting fever. In 1947 he presented to the Library 250 of the books he
had acquired he tween 1945 and 1947. The gifts continued until Mr. Rosenwald's
death in 1979, the largest in the last two decades being 700 books given in 1964 and
180 in 1978. The catalogue of the collection published by the Library in 1977"96 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANS HIP
includes 2,653 entries, of which 559 are incunabula. Several hundred additional
important rare books came to the Library when the collection was transferred from
Jenkintown, Pa., to Washington, D.C., in 1980.
The Vollbehr Collection contained in-depth representation of every aspect of
fifteenth-century printing. The Rosenwald incunabula are books of outstanding
importance in extraordinary condition. The 1926 desiderata list included seventy-
seven incunabula. Five of these were acquired in the Vollbehr purchase; twelve came
through Rosenwald gifts, including Johannes Balbus's Catholicon (Mainz: [Epon.
press (Johann Gutenberg?)] 1460), Fust and Schoeffer's 1462 Biblia latina (Mainz:
Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, 14 August 1462), the edition of Dante's La
Comm£dia (Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, Alamanus, 30 August 1481) with copper
engravings ascribed to Baccio Baldini, and two of the Caxtons on the list. All together
Rosenwald had sixteen Caxton imprints.
The Rosenwald gifts brought the total number of copies of incunabula at the
Library of Congress to nearly 5,700. But the acquisition of this one collection was
significant for many other reasons. The presence of the Rosenwald incunabula has
affected the use of all the Library's other incunabula. Frequently, readers come to the
Library of Congress because they know the Rosenwald Collection has a particularly
important and well-known book. When they get to the reading room they learn the
depth of the collections--{)therworks by the same author, other books from the same
printer or place. The great texts of literature, history, religion, and science that came
from Force, Thacher, and Vollbehr take on even greater impact in the Rosenwald
Collection editions, illustrated with the vigorous woodcuts that constitute such a
striking feature of fifteenth-century books.
Acquiring incunabula is only the first step that a library must take with its
fifteenth-century books. Cataloguing these books is time-consuming, requires highly
skilled personnel, and its costs must be absorbed by the institution. Putnam recog-
nized this in his 1901 Annual Report:
SpeCial rules for an incunabula catalogue have been formulated, having regard to
their special character and to the demands made upon such catalogues, but the work
itself is in abeyance, the time of competent cataloguers being claimed by more
pressing duties. So far as catalogued, incunabula are represented by entries
adequate for the general catalogue.'"
By 1907 a list of the Library's fifteenth-century books had been prepared by
Charles Martel, the chief cataloguer. His list contains 361 titles and, according to
Putnam, "covers nearly all the incunabula in the possession of the Library."" Putnam
goes on to say that "copies of these titles have been prepared for the Union catalogue
of incunabula in American libraries, which is now in course of preparation under the
direction ofMr. John Thomson, Librarian of the Free Library of Philadelphia."" ThisINCUNA llU LA COLLECrIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 97
is hut the first example of the impetus that the three editions of Census oflllcunaln,za
in Amelicll gave to work on incunabula at the Library of Congress. Th e Library
identified. couuted . and catalogued its ineunabula lor the Census published in 1919.
When Margaret Bingham Stillwell compiled the second Census in 1940. the Library
again cooperated li,lIy and all of the books acquired in the Vollbehr purchase were
included . A young ,""istant on the second Census. Frederick R. Goff. came to the
Hare Book Division of the LibraryofCongress in 1940 and after serving as an assistan t
to Arthur Jl oughton hu m 1941 to 1942. and acting chief from 1943 to 1945. Goff
became ch ief in 194.5. re maining in that pOSition until his retirement in 1972.
Frede rick Goff made a major contribution to the study of incunabula by compiling
and editing [nc,mllh,lill in Americ(Jn Lihraries, (J Third Census. Published in 1964. it
is a cr"dit to the Library and to Goffs dedication and persistence over thirty years of
his can'("r.
All douors. even donors as generous as M r. Rose nwald. need careful attention.
and GolT b"calll(, very close to M r. Rosenwald and the Hosenwald family. In his
llecolle('/iolls Host'nwald aeknowledged the part Goff played in his collecting: "He has
been a splendid advisor and has aided me in my c-ollecting and in bibliographical
knowledge. 1 have seldom gone wrong follOwing his careful advice. In looking back
over the years. it is safe to say that Fred Goff shares ,vith Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach the
major credit Ii" bringing to me the great pleasure and satisfaction of collecting books
alld learning about the m."'-
When I give general tours of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and
show visitors the stack areas where the fift eenth-century books are shelved. they are
surprisf'd that we allow reade rs to use the hooks and that modem scholars find books
of such great age relevant to the ir research. Our reade r records provide firm evidence
that the collcetions are used. They also continue to grow. though less quickly than we
would like. because of all the competing pressu res for very limited funds. The division
depends heavily on gifts now as in the past.
In this paper I have discussed only the incunabula in the Rare Book and Special
Collections Division . The incunabula in the Hehraic Section. the Law Library. and
the Music Division have been included in my numerical totals. but each collection
deserves full conside ration on its own. The assemblage of the largest collection of
incunabula in the Weste rn He misphe re is the story of strong leaders such as Spofford
and Putnam . generous donors sneh as Thache r and Rosenwald, politicians such as
Collins. dedicated staff such a., Ashley and Goff, and at lea.,t one scamp. The
incunahula collections also demonstrate the essential part played by c-ongressional
appropriations and indicate that when circumstances warrant, the Library can turn
to Congress for the purchase of major rare-book collections:
The institution itself also played an important role. As the motivations behind
collecting ineunabula moved from serendipity to gathering artifacts to developing a
research collection. the Library of Congress worked to make these G'O lIections known98 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANSHIP
and more accessible through catalogues, exhibits, and new facilities. Though the
Library built its fifteenth-century book collections in major segments, the collection
of reference books and secondary sources was developed through steady growth and
constant attention to past and current scholarship. The unparalleled resources of the
bibliography collections attest to the Library'S dedication to this principle. The
Library of Congress's participation in national and international incunabula projects
has benefited these projects Significantly and has had a direct application to the
organization and cataloguing of its own materials. A project to compile an Incunabula
Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) is underway, and scholarship in fifteenth-century books
is flourishing." The Library of Congress incunabula collections stimulate and support
these efforts, ample tribute to the individuals who contributed to their growth.
NOTES
1. William Dawson Johnston, Histo11j of the Libra11j of Congress; v. 1. 1800-1864 (Washington,
Government Printing Office, 1904), 49.
2. Dimitrii Petrovich Buturlin, Catalogue cfe 10 bibliotheque (Florence. 1831).
3. National Intelligencer 24, no. 7174 (February 9, 1836), 3.
4. U.S. Congress, Register of Debates in Congress (Washington, Gales & Seaton, 1825-1837).
2,578.
5. Register of Debates.
6. U.S. Congress. Senate, On Purchasing the Library ofLate Count Boutourlin. at Florence , 24th
Cong., 1st Sess., S. Rep!. 242, March 15, 1836.
7. U.S. Senate, Journal (Washington, 1828), 405.
8. Johnston, Histo11j, 209.
9. U.S. Library of Congress, Catalogue of the Libra11j of Congress in the Capitol of the United
States of America, December, 1839 (Washington, 1840).
10. Newman F. McGirr, "The Activities of Peter Force," Records of the Columbia Historical
Society of Washington, D.C. , 42-43 (1942), 70.
11. American Archives: Consisting ofa Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers. Debates,
and Letters and Other Notices of Publick Affairs, the Whole Forming a Documenta11j Histo11j ofthe
Origin and Progress of the North American Colonies ... ([Washington, 1837-1853]).
12. Frederick R. Goff, "Peter Force," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 44, no. 1
(1950), 14.
13. U.S. Library of Congress, Special Report ofthe Librarian of Congress to the Joint Committee
on the Libra11j Concerning the Historical Libra11j of Peter Force, Esq. (Washington, 1867).
14. U.S. Library of Congress, Special Report, 6.
15. Ainsworth R. .Spofford, "The Life and Labors of Peter Force, Mayor of Washington,"
Records of the Columbia Historical Society 2 (1898), 7.
16. Frederic Vinton, "Book Rarities at Washington," Bibliotheca Sacra 31 (January 1874), 114.
17. U.S. Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress, 1898, 15.
18. Frederick R. Goff, "John Boyd Thacher." Gralier 75, A Biographical Retroepective to
Celebrate the Seventy-Fifth Anniversa11j of the GraZier Club in New York ([New York, 1959]),39.
19. Goff, 41.
20. From a note in Thacher's copy of Santander's Dictionnaire bibliographique choisi du
quinziemesiecle, v.I., as quoted in Frederick W. Ashley's introduction to U.S. Library of Congress.INCUNABULA COLLECTIONS AT THE LIBHARY OF CONGRESS 99
Ca/aloglle of the joh" Boyd TIIIlc/wr Collertimi of Il/elHU/lm/a (\Vashington: Library of Congress,
1915). 12.
2 I. For example: Thache r 507 (GolT C·533) lind Thache r 766 (GoITT·355).
22. U.S. Lihnu)' of' COll~ress. AII/wal Report of th e Uvmri(11I of Clm gress. 1910. 23.
23. Washill!!.to/l Post (March 10. 1927).20.
24 . U.S. Library ofCon);ress. "Annnal Heport of the Supe rintendent of Library BUildings. 1934."
4. Photocopy of typescript in Hare Book and Special Collections Division, Tha.cher file.
25. U.S. Library of Congress, Cala/oglw oj th e john Boyd Thacher Collection of InCU1lObuia ,
e01l1pilecJ by Frederick W . Ashley (\Vashington: Lihrary of Congress. 1915).
26, U.S. Congress. Statllt('s fit Large. 43 Stat. 1107.
27. U.S. Library of Congress. Ubm11j of C()flgress: Some Nutable Items That It H(Js, Some
Exalllples of Many Dillen; That It Ne('(/.\' (\Vashington. 1926),
2H, "Huntington Lihrary Collections." Huutillgt(H) Library Bulletin . no, 1 (May 1931): 83.
29, E . PUlIl Saunders, "Dr. Vollhehr Pllts 'Incunabula' into American Public's Vocabulary," The
Naticm's Capital Ma{!.a::.illl' 1. no.o (May 1931): 4l.
30, Edwin Emerson, itlclltwlm{um luc" uwIJUionl1l1: 1'Ju: Gutellberg Bible 011 Vellum in the
VoU/}ehr Colll'cfioll (Nt!w York: Tudor Press. 192H).
.'31 , U ,S. Congress. C't mgn'ssimw{ Record. 71st Cong.. 2nd Scss.. 1930. v. 72. pt.3. p .325 1-3257
Wc hruary 7. W30).
32, SIlUIH:lPTS , "Dr, Vollhchr," 13,
33 , Sallnde rs. "Dr. VolIJwhr."
34. E. Palll Sallndprs , "Tht.· Vollhehr Collection," Saturdalj Review of Litemtllre 6 (March 15.
1930): 832.
35. U .S. Congress. Senate. Pu rc/w.m of the Vollbehr Collection of lncwwbllla , 71st Cong., 2nd
Sess .. S. Re p!. 965. 1'.2.
36. U.S. Librnry of Congress. Exhibit oj Books Prillted Durillg the XVih Centun) and Known as
InCtllWbllla Seiecte(lfrol7l the VolibehrCollectioti Purchased by Act of Congress 1930: List o/Books
(Wa.,hington. 1930). iii.
37. From c'O!'y of u le tter from V. Valta Parma to Edgar A. We ber. dated August 14. 1937. Rare
Book nnd Spc:cial Collections Division Special File, "Vollhehr."
38. Burton H100 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS L1BRARIANSHIP 47. U.S. Library of Congress, Annual Report, 58. 48. Lessing J. Rosenwald, Recollections of a Collector lJenkintown, Penna., 1976), 131. 49. Bibliography and Study of 15th-Centun] Civilisation, ed. L. Hellinga and J. Goldfinch (London: British Library, 1987).
".. is simply wonderful-a splendid morriage ofform and content!"
AMER1CAN BOOK PR1CES CURREWf
"1 truly cannot tell you how pleased we are to receive The Gentle
Art of Giving. The brochure meets a serious need for a succinct
easy to understand description of recent changes in the tax law
concerning the giving of gifts of appreciated property. In addition to
the informotion provided. the brochure is extremely well designed."
TEXAS ASSOC1ATION OF MUSEUMS
"Your appraisal report knocked my socks off!"
TOM WRIGHT. Photographer and Road Manager
for the English Rock Band. THE WHO
"Certainly your work is of the highest quality."
R. LEE CLARK. President Emeritus
M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
"Without reservation we would recommend John Payne."
CHARLES E. YEAGER
Brig. Gen. USAF Ret.
ARCHIVAL & LIBRARY APPRAISALS
2205 Bridle Path Austin. TeXLls 78703 (512) 478-7724VLE
VIEUX LlVRES D'EUROPE, INC.
14 East 73rd Street, Suite 4B - New York, NY 10021
Tei. (212) 661-5694 Fax (212) 661-1434
RARE BOOKS & FINE BINDINGS
featuring
French and Other Literature
Religious Books
Travel Accounts
Eighteenth Century Illustrated Books
Biographies
FROM 1525 TO 1910
Viewing by appointment Catalogue available upon request
Visa & Mastercard AcceptedYou can also read
