A Italian Cistercian Breviary, in Newark, NJ

While in New York recently, I not only crossed the East River to go to Brooklyn, but also crossed the Hudson to go to Newark, New Jersey, because I had been in touch with Nadine Sergejeff at the Public Library, and she had kindly agreed to show me their medieval manuscripts. The one I was most interested to see is a Breviary, briefly described by Bond & Faye as being Cistercian, and perhaps from Lombardy:

de Ricci On Cutting Up Manuscripts

Much attention has been given in recent years to the activities of Otto Ege and his defence of book-breaking in his article "I am a Biblioclast", and the whole subject was covered in some detail by Christopher de Hamel in his Cutting Up Manuscripts for Pleasure and Profit (Charlottesville, 1993).

But one surprising defender of the practice has, as far as I am aware, been overlooked in these discussions: Seymour de Ricci (1881–1942), probably best known for his Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (1935–37). In addition to this vast union catalogue, de Ricci also catalogued a few private collections, such as the books and manuscripts of the first Lord Amherst of Hackney (1835–1909) in 1906, and in 1913 an exhibition catalogue of miniatures belonging to the Parisian art historian and dealer Léonce Rosenberg (1879–1947):

Another Soranzo MS, now in Philadelphia

Browsing images of manuscripts at the Free Library, Philadelphia, I recently came across another unrecognised manuscript (Lewis E 219) formerly owned by Giacomo (alias Jacopo) Soranzo, with the distinctive foliation described in a previous post:

Ege Leaves at Occidental College

The Ege leaves in the Occidental College collection include:

• Psalter; France, mid-13th century
• Gwara HL10
• Psalms 119:136-154
• Apparently with a pencil folio number "14"
• de Ricci, Census, II, p.1938–9, no.12, tells us that Ege had bought the manuscript in 1922 from Adler, Munich, and that before disbinding it it had only 82 leaves, containing Pss.70-150 and canticles, misbound.
• Despite being correctly attributed to France by de Ricci, Ege attributed it to Germany

Stephen Ferguson's blogging at Princeton

I have recently found blog-posts by Stephen Ferguson at http://blogs.princeton.edu/notabilia/author/stephen-ferguson/

A sample post, similar to those I post myself, is this (from here: http://blogs.princeton.edu/notabilia/2013/05/17/shelf-marks-of-sunderland-books/):

Shelf-marks of Sunderland books

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Stephen Ferguson

	Horace. Ars poetica with commentary of Aldus Manutius (Venice, 1576) Call number: PTT 2865.311.076. [Shelf mark on verso of front free endpaper, which is marbled on recto. The front paste-down is marbled. These are the only marks of ownership.]
	Charles Spencer, third Earl of Sunderland (1674-1722), his “books are easily recognizable by the bold shelf-marks written in ink on the verso of the upper cover in the upper left hand corner.” S. DeRicci, English Collectors of Books & Manuscripts (1530-1930) and Their Marks of Ownership (Cambridge, 1930), p. 39.

For more about the history of the Sunderland Library, see the record for the 18th century manuscript catalogue of the Library held at John Rylands Library:
http://archiveshub.ac.uk/data/gb133-engms62.txt