Blueprint (or Database Structure) of 500 Year Old Library

APPENDIX TO HERNANDO’S LIBRARY IN 1539

I made an elaborated example of Hernado’s catalogues and lists, based on three random present day books, to better understand and get a grip on what he had in mind with his library in 1539. Based on the information of Hernando to king, Hernando’s testament, and Juan Pérez’s ‘Memoria’. (I skipped the information in the rest of Pérez Fernández and Wilson-Lee’s book for now.)

Sources

Overview with who says what where:

Book with Numbers on physical books

List Numbers, from 1 to n, on the physical books in library. Answering Q: Which book has number 15,343?

Catalog Authors and Titles

List Authors from a to z. Answering Q: Which books did Herodotus write?

List Titles from a to z. Answering Q: Who wrote title ‘The Histories’?

List Incipts from a to z. Answering Q: Which author or title belongs to this first line?

Question. Did this separate list exist? If not, how can Hernando (or another sumista) check, in a ‘Book with Numbers’ with 15,000 books, if a bookseller is selling a book by Juan Andrés as if it was by someone else? Juan Pérez writes: “In these, as I have said, there are names of authors, names of works with no author, and all the incipits of these authors and the works. And all of it in proper alphabetical order.” The information from Juan Pérez does not rule out this list with incipits.

Catalog Epitomes

List Summaries (or Epitomes) with a number in order of being made.

Question. Was this epitome number added to the ‘Book with Numbers’? It must have been. If it was only added on the ‘book-strip-with-30-items’ the epitome number was forever lost in a bundle(s) of thousands of strips. 

Catalog Materias

List Subjects from a to z. Answering Q: Which authors wrote in which books on ‘Ancient Persia’ long?

Question: was it the task of the sumista to add main subject to ‘Catalog Ciencias’ and related topics to ‘Catalog Materias’ after the epitome was made?

Catalog Ciencias

A ‘book-strip-with-30-items’ will be made for each materias number of a book. These slips or annotations can be ordered and rearranged perputually. 15,000 books with each three slips will result in 45,000 different slips. With 30 data items, ?most? of them in biblioglyphs, it results in millions of possible combinations of paper strungs.

Summarize Areas of Knowledge

Juan Pérez writes that each Area of Knowledge must be summarized in 1 to 4 books.

Eternal Maintenance

Each year books, obrezillas and prints must be included and processed in the catalogues and lists. As a result, Spain has information of these sources in one place available. Searchable, consultable and a starting point for gaining knowledge. Hernando: “For nobody can read the multitude of books that have been written in each discipline.”

P.S. Next week (here) I shall give you my comments and findings on Hernando's library. Someone else's library as a mirror for me.

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.”

Lime and Beeswax

Last year I read in one of the Fitzroy Mclean books that he was very fond of the country Georgia. The landscapes, the people, the food and its wine. This made me curious. All I know of Georgia is that it was the birthplace of Stalin and that it is on the Black Sea. For the rest I don't know anything about this country.

A couple of weeks ago I bought six bottles of Georgian wine. These two - one white and one red - I liked best.

The 'Tavankari Saperavi' was very special. Something like a Barolo but less earthly and more round. Both wines were fermented in kvevri. These are large clay amphorae, buried below ground, used for the fermentation, storage and ageing of wine. After the grapes are pressed the juice, grape skins, stalks and pips are poured into the kvevri, which is then sealed. The juice is then left to ferment into wine for at least five months before being decanted and bottled. An empty kvevri is after being washed, sterilized with lime and re-coated with beeswax. Ready to be filled again.

Archaeological excavations uncovered in Georgia kvevri dating back to the 6th millennium B.C. Pretty old, right?

What Happened to Rabbit?

 JN, Harvest vignette, 1939. From book 'Men and the Fields'. Line drawing.

JN, The Flooded Meadow, undated (before 1954; late 1940s or early 1950s). Oil on canvas. JN, Harvesting, 1947. Lithograph.

In 1939 John Nash (JN) drew 1 man with a stick and two dogs chasing a rabbit. In 1947 two dogs are chasing the rabbit at the same place. And the man with the stick? He is chasing with a new dog - dog number three - in another corner of the field. Chasing what? What happened to the rabbit?

Or is the man lying on the ground with his square shape hat in front of him? If so, why has he changed from a proactive to a passive attitude? 

Question mark? Note that the piece of grain to be cut changes shape. From indefinable in 1939 to an almost question mark in 1947. Is there a question asked somewhere? At which?