Books are caskets, vainly walled against decomposing time: knowledge eternally embalmed.
Lightly pressing the 1-inch wooden frame covered by thick, ornate, faded lambskin, the heavy, brass clasps snap open. I slowly lift the massive folio cover; there is a brass loop where an iron chain was linked from book to scholar's desk. The spine is securely attached to the covers and creeks like the opening of a forbidden chest. Looking inside, I see evidence that neither the chain nor the sheer weight of the book succeeded in their purpose. Once divorced from its origins in some mountain monastery, its secrets circulated throughout the strata of hell, heaven and history. On the inside cover is a layered accretion of bookplates, ownership passing from a monastery to a duke, to a king, to a philosopher-scientist, to a romantic American poet. Red scribbles and an awkward, oval horse with its rider fills parts of the frontispiece where a 19th century child, our innocent ancestor, had crossed through.
I encounter a warning. An intricate wood-block print of a tree is impressed into the yellowed paper. Some of the tree's branches are falling off. Others are wilted and bandaged oddly onto the trunk. A philosopher wearing a Greek beard points up to the tree and glares back at me. Nestled in the branches is the lid of a casket held up by an ugly, little naked man. Above the tree is a delicate ribbon, a banner with the words "ALTUM SAPERE NOLI" or "DO NOT KNOW TOO MUCH!" With this mortal warning vividly etched on my soul, I vigorously turn to the text!
At first I did not believe it. I would have the chance to actually go through every book in the Special Collections library from the 1450s to 1700. Working with Professor Kenseth, Lauren Fog, and the staff at Special Collections we have started a project to expose these excellent treasures to the Campus and the world. Every Wednesday and Friday Fog, Professor Kenseth and I comb through volumes ranging from the Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius, to the Confessions of Augustine, the Geography of Ptolemy, the Architecture of Vitruvius and the Poetics of Aristotle, searching for prints and illustrations. Ranging from the delicate and obvious mastery of Drer to the rudimentary art of an early printer the books in Special Collections are in themselves another campus art museum.
After we catalog and describe the basic features and provenance of the prints, we will initiate the process of researching the history behind the illustrated books. When the catalog is finally finished we hope it will encourage a greater interest in the invaluable treasures of Special Collections and make students more aware of the rich research possibilities found between the covers of early books. For example, a student interested in geography and human development might find the images of the Nuremberg Chronicle and the Cosmographie of various scholar-travelers especially valuable in proving historical continuity. A classicist would drool with delight over the many renaissance maps of Italian towns and cities before modernization and the influence of vandals, looters, earthquakes and greedy popes. Even science majors can find this early material extremely valuable. Books on Euclid's geometry are filled not only with the standard printed images but marginalia written in by centuries of users, theorizing and sometimes ingeniously adapting the original geometry. Zodiacal and astronomical tables, descriptions of stellar events, would be interesting to any astronomy majors wanting to construct and chart the frequency of recent astronomical events. Many students already utilize Special Collections and are aware of its treasures. Yet others may not be aware of the numerous possibilities for original research or perhaps think of Special Collections as a building dedicated solely to the humanities. I hope these students will come to Special Collections and experience the mystical joy of handling books like the first folio of Shakespeare or early printings of The Divine Comedy, Luther's writings, the physics of Galileo, books that still stir the course of history.
As I turn the page printed with the bandaged tree of knowledge, I suddenly see why there was such a need to protect the life of the pages within. The book is a World History, a compilation of all knowledge, an embodiment of a whole worldview. It begins with images of the creation of heaven and earth, traced the fall of Rome, the emergence of the Holy Roman Empire and the rise 16th century modern science. Philosophers, kings and queens, strange creatures with enormous feet, men with faces on their chest, tartars, chimera, the frightening but also supremely compelling depiction of the vast terra incognita that still extended beyond Europe, beyond the stretch of idle wisdom, are all depicted in this book.
Reading in Scientific American, I learn that all matter might eventually be dispersed into the smallest particles, even black holes will be dissipated, everything will loose its connection with everything else, and the universe itself will die. At some time non-existence will slowly and prevail over existence. The dust of our lives, of books, of blood, and of brains, will be washed away into the drain of vastness and void. Why is there memory? What reason is there to care? Many have found these questions unanswerable. Yet there is still a strange, illogical impulse to preserve ourselves, our "contribution", our "knowledge." Why try to extend life and memory? Not one year will be taken off the eternity of non-life. Maybe it is only instinct, or maybe there is some small secret we all somehow know but have never been able to completely tell. The story of this yearning, this need to tell, is found on the pages of the pricelessly imperfect, the frayed, the creaky, the beautiful, or even the worm-eaten books of our ancestors.
