Money Not Spent in Falconry

Below is a part of Hernando Colón’s (1488–1539) tombstone as sketched in his testament (source: here). Part of (or next to?) his coat of arms are his four main catalogues: autores, sciencie, epitome, and materie. I read: these catalogues were so important to him that he wanted to be immortalized with them. 

It did not stop at a sketch. It was eventually also realized on his grave in the church of Seville, Spain. 

I read with great interest this week: Pérez Fernández and Wilson-Lee, ‘Hernando Colón’s New World of Books. Toward a Cartography of Knowledge’ (2021). I was looking for the answer how to order infinitely and how to discover new things as Wilson-Lee wrote in his book ‘The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books. Young Columbus and the Quest for a Universal Library’ (2018). I wrote about it in my blogpost ‘The Navigator of Print’ (10-2019).

For most people this book will be a bore. Too scientific because of the endless threads of references to other books, thoughts, and scholars. Too many old books with unknown authors and titles. Too many languages (including English, Latin, Spanish, and Italian). For me it was a lovely read. In the appendixes five primary texts are translated: including Hernando’s testament (before 1539), Hernando’s letter to the king (around 1536), and Juan Pérez’ ‘Memoria’ (between 1539-1544). What a treasure trove. Hernando summarizes his project in his letter, that consists of two pages, to the king (appendix five). This is basically all you need to read. The rest are footnotes. 

Hernando wanted to build the perfect universal library with all the books of the world: books in all languages and disciplines, that can be found within Christendom and beyond it too. He designed a system with catalogues and  processes for storing, sorting, collating, and distilling information effectively from books, pamphlets, and pictures. A powertool for navigating on and with the global repository of knowledge.

For this he designed four main catalogues and one list with booknumbers (‘Indice Numeral’ or ‘Registrum B)’. Data items: unique booknumber from 1 to 15,000 (around), author, title, incipit (first line of a book), ending (last line of a book), contains epistles, contains epigrams, published in place, format and, price in place. The four main catalogues (my summary):

These five building blocks were all carefully cross-referenced. Example in Juan Pérez’ ‘Memoria’ (appendix one).

•    v. 1532 is printed in Venice in year 1532.
•    5344 underlined is the unique booknumber on bookshelf and in the list with booknumbers.
•    321 between three lines is the keyword this book has in the Libro de las Materias.
•    8.953 in box is the number of the book summary in the Libro de los Epitomes.

Surprising? Interesting? Are you bored? Don't forget that we are in the era when the printing press was born in Europe and the continent was overrun with printed books, pamphlets, and pictures. 

Question: how to order infinitely and how to discover new things? Answer from Hernando: use my Libro de las Ciencias and bundle the slips of paper at your own discretion. Seen from the present, this is hardly surprising. The key figures in the universe of Hernando were the sumistas. Well-paid scholars who made the summaries and maintained the catalogues. Unfortunately nothing has been preserved of the Libro de las Ciencias. Not one slip! All we have are the descriptions of Hernando and Juan Pérez, and the traces that remained in his catalogues and books. Did you know that 75% of the 15,000 books he owned have disappeared?

Why didn’t we hear of Hernando’s library? Why is it not as famous as the ancient library in Alexandria? His library has not taken off. After his death everything fell apart like loose sand. Quote (page 194-195): “The twenty-first-century historian who contemplates with some melancholy the almost tragic fate of his [Hernando Colón] universal library cannot but imagine what a great collection it could become if Hernando’s financial situation should have been more buoyant, if the Spanish situation had been more favorable, and if his heirs had followed his instructions, stocking his shelves with these new iconic volumes in the history of science and knowledge alongside the myriad of pamphlets which reshaped the politics and culture – high, middle, and low – of early modern Europe.”