College and Research Libraries New Books About the Book Arts Die Er/indung des Buchdrucks als technisches Phanomen. By Friedrich Adolf Schmidt- Kiinsemiiller. (Kleiner Druck der Guten- berg-Gesellschaft No. 48). Mainz, Guten- berg Society, I95 1. I24 p. Free to mem- bers. The Dream of Poliphilo. Related and in- terpreted by Linda Fierz-David. Trans- lated by Mary Hottinger. (Bollingen Series XXV). New Y ark, Pantheon (I950). 244p.,34illus. $3.50. The Hieroglyphics of H orapollo. Translated by George Boas. (Bollingen Series XXIJI). New York, Pantheon (I950). I34 p., IO illus. $3.50. The Art of Botanical Illustration. By Wil- frid Blunt, with the assistance of William T. Stearn. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons; London, William Collins Sons, I 951. 304 p., 46 color plates, 32 plates in black and white, 6I text illus. $s.oo. Die Botanische Bu chillustration. lhre Ge- schichte und Bibliographie. By Claus Nis- sen. Volume I: History. Volume II: Bibliography. Issued in parts. Stuttgart, Hiersemann, I95o--N ot complete. Baroque Book Illustration. A Short Survey. From the collection in the Department of Graphic Arts, Harvard College Library. By Philip Hofer. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, I95I. 43 p., I49 illus. $7 .50. Designing Books. By Jan Tschichold. New Y ark, Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc. ( I95 I). 2 I p., 58 plates. $s.oo. The books discussed in the following review have been selected because each of them in its own way makes a valuable contribution. Each of them has something new to say to the librarian who is interested in books not merely as a vehicle of information but as the tangible, physical manifestation of spiritual, intellectual and artistic endeavour. The first of these books, recently distrib- uted to the members of the Gutenberg So- ciety, has perhaps a more specialized appeal than most of the others in this group . It deals with the technical aspects of the inven- tion of printing with movable type. It is a serious and sober discussion, deliberately stressing the practical, mechanical side of early printing at the expense of historic and cultural factors. The usefulness of the book JULY, 1952 lies in this concentration. Based upon care- ful scrutiny of surviving monuments and documents and an equally careful analysis of the vast and evergrowing literature on early printing, it is a contribution of considerable value. The author is not committed to any dogma or to the defense of a particular his- toric tradition. For this reason one finds here a quite impartial and thorough review of the several technical experiments that were car- ried on not only in Strassburg and Mainz, but elsewhere in Europe as well. Against this background Gutenberg's contribution is shown as precisely as is possible with the information , available today. The next five books on our list, all in fact except the last item, have one thing in com- mon: They all bring new and sometimes star- tling insight into the role of the book in what might be called the great centuries of Renais- sance culture in Europe between 1500 and I 8oo. This is all the more surprising since many observers agree that this period has been quite thoroughly explored from many points of view. The Hypnerotomachia Poliphilo of Fran- cesco Colonna, for instance, is known to every lover of fine books as the most perfect realiza- tion of the ideal of beauty and harmony in I tali an Renaissance printing. Yet, hardly anyone knows what this book is really about, what it meant to the Italians and the French- men who read it and gazed at its pictures so eagerly in the 16th and 17th centuries, and what it still means today. Linda Fierz-David deserves the gratitude of modern readers for having unlocked a hitherto secret treasury, of beauty and imagination. Those of us who have an interest in the exploration of the sub- conscious mind, whether by means of the visual arts, through literature or scientific analysis, will be able to enjoy the skilful resume and the ingenious interpretations which form the main body of this study. Those, on the other hand, who are in- terested in Renaissance culture and the means of its projection, will be interested to find how "modern" was the outlook of this Dominican monk, Francesco Colonna, how closely linked is his imagery and literary in- tent with progressive cultural manifestations which have meaning to people in the twentieth century. This relationship is by no means 275 / apparent on the surface, it becomes clear only after an understanding has been gained of the substance of this work and of the elements which are blended in one in the Hypnerotoma- chia: "the humanistic conception of the re- vival of classical culture, the courtly concep- tion of the love of women as a task; the al- chemical conception of the transmutation of matter." The dream experiences of the hero of this 15th century novel (he is taught to free himself from his obsession with alchemy and medieval courtly love through identifica- tion with humanistic culture) are bound up with a specific historic situation in the de- velopment of the western intellect; but their literary and pictorial condensation in a great book is of more than historical interest. They convey a sense of oneness in rpan's struggle to conquer the perplexities and rid- dles of human existence. The question of whether the artist should speak only of matters of the broadest public interest and in a realistic idiom immediately comprehensible to every member of a given society, or whether he has the right to choose · his message and to communicate it by what- ever means he believes to be most effective- this question has become a vital issue in the conflict between totalitarian and democratic society. The H ypnerotomachia is an outstanding example of the use of symbolism in a crucial moment in the development of the western mind. We are beginning to understand that it was not an isolated instance. On the contrary, the employment of graphic images with hidden, symbolic meaning, discovered or rediscovered in the Renaissance, became a main strand in its cultural fabric. At the very moment when man set about to discover and record vast new strata of the physical universe with highly rational methods, it was felt keenly by many that truth was elusive, and that its evanescent spirit could often be reflected more faithfully in the allusive, hid- den image. George Boas' translation of The Hieroglyphics of H orapollo is an important study of a curious book which has had re- markable influence in the establishment of literary and pictorial images and emblems. It was written in the Egyptian language by Horapollo Millacus and later translated into Greek by one ".Philip." The author of the new translation, who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, describes himself as an "Iconologist," interested in images as an his- torian of ideas and of taste. It was as part of the rebirth of platonism that Horapollo caught the imagination of humanist leaders. Willibald Pirkheimer in Nuremberg made a translation into Latin and his friend Durer drew some marvellous illustrations which Professor Boas reproduces with his English rendering, without however tracing their pos- sible relationship to illustrations in th~ printed editions of this book. The rational, naturalistic approach to the recording of the world around us can perhaps best be studied in the history of botanical il- lustration. Two recent books of European origin deal with this important form of docu- mentary illustration. They show how plant portraits produced in the last two thousand years were not primarily symbolic or indi- vidual interpretations, but successive attempts at objective realism. These two books also demonstrate that especially during the great historic age of European bookmaking botani- cal artists and their engravers and printer- publishers produced breathtakingly beautiful interpretations of plant life. Many of these efforts, not hitherto recognized, belong among the masterpieces of the high art of bookmak- ing. As I said in a recent article in Publishers' Weekly (Nov. 3, 1951), Wilfrid Blunt's The .Art of Botanical Illustration is that rare and delightful thing, a work of scholarship which is also a work of art. The other book, Dr. Claus Nissen's Die Botanische Buchillustra- tion, is the result of many years of painstaking research by a librarian-bibliographer who is also a trained natural scientist. Both books do full justice to the great age of printed botanical illustration, but they also include surveys of the classical and medieval manu- scripts which precede the first printed herbals. They also bring the story to the present time. In the later development, England's share is justly given the place of honor, but the con- tribution of other countries and the rapidly changing methods of technical reproduction is traced, especially in Dr. Nissen's systematic and comprehensive coverage. Both these books have one particl)lar value for those librarians who have in their care im- portant collections of books printed before the middle of the nineteenth century: they can be used as guides to the discovery and re- evaluation of scarcely appreciated or perhaps 276 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES completely neglected masterpieces 1n these very collections. This is true to an even greater extent, though of course for one particular period only, of Baroque Book Illustration. In this study Philip Hofer, in charge of the Harvard Library's Department of Graphic Arts, set himself the task of demonstrating that the contribution of the seventeenth century to the arts of the book has been seriously under- estimated by almost every authority in the field. There can be little doubt that this claim is justified and that he has produced sufficient evidence to prove this point. The book is based on the author's own collection of about one thousand books of the baroque period, the only systematic attempt to select significant examples from a vast stream of production which has baffled many students by its contradictory stylistic trends and the be- wildering variety of its intentions. Philip Hofer emphasizes in his introduction "the sweeping range of emotional content, from religious ecstasy all the way to the most severe self-restraint," which one could also describe as a curious capacity for combining highly imaginative symbolism with the most objective documentation. The study of the 149 illustrations, superbly reproduced by the Meriden Gravure Com- pany, is an absorbing and richly rewarding experience. Surprisingly few of the books from which these plates were selected have previously been exhibited, described or com- mented upon. Many of them record con- temporary events, especially celebrations and ceremonies of the great rulers of a world in the throes of ·violent conflict, with brilliant freshness of observation. The architectural and the theatrical tendencies of Baroque il- lustration are well documented in the plates and commented upon in the introduction. The broad political background of the period and the social forces which sought expression in these monumental graphic arts productions are traced briefly, but with a keen sense for the significant and the essential. The special conditions prevailing in each of the countries which saw important work performed, are described in a series of all-too-short chapters, each devoted to one country or geographical unit. The book leaves many questions unan- swered. Frequently the plates suggest ques- tions of interpretation and evaluation for JULY, 1952 which there was no room in the brief descrip- tions of the reproductions. An adequate answer to such problems would be possible only within the framework of a broad analyt- ical approach to the nature of Baroque il- lustration. This, however, lay outside the intentions of this work which was planned to serve as a first brief introduction to an unjustly neglected, fascinating field of study. One hopes that the full catalog of the Baroque books in the Harvard collection, which Philip Hofer is now preparing, will offer an opportunity for a further develop- ment of many themes which have first been alluded to in the present study. One also hopes for bibliographical references to the studies about some of the artists, printers and patrons of this period which have already been published. There is no one better suited for these important tasks than the author of the present volume. The interest to librarians of the last item on our list, Jan Tschichold's Designing Books, is quite different from the other books re- viewed here. This book of one of Europe's most talented and also most articulate book designers is directed mainly to practicing typographers. It is a collection of 58 strik- ingly beautiful examples of title pages, covers and text pages, distinguished through their remarkable restraint. The art of attaining maximum effects through a minimum of means is demonstrated here with great refine- ment and mastership. The reproductions are preceded by a brief and simple instruction on how to design a book, followed by what might be described as a "code of fair composition," also brief and simple. Jan Tschichold's typographic creed is per- haps best demonstrated in his insistence that "first of all a book should display good taste, not what is commonly called personality. Tact, restraint, the conviction that one is subservient to the book and can add some- thing to its appreciation by means of a really pleasing, enjoyable, elegant, practical, eve·n beautiful presentation-these are the true qualifications of a true typographer." And the librarian? In the bewildering on- slaught of sharply competing media, his faith in the book as a . central medium of culture, if indeed he holds such a belief, is sharply chal- lenged. Within the realm of the book itself he witnesses the passing of traditional typo- graphic standards. Photographic composition, 277 offset printing, mass production· of cheap re- prints, a shift from verbal to pictorial pres- entation, all these factors seem to spell the doom of the typographic art as a valid ex- pression of intellectual content. Jan Tschichold's D esigning Books is a vivid demonstration of the kind of values we stand to lose if we surrender thoughtlessly and without a struggle to forces primarily moti- vated by efficiency demands and economics. That is one important function of this book. From this follows another one: The loss of these standards is by no means a matter of inevitable necessity. The task of meeting the cultural challenge of mass production lies still much more before than behind us. Such books as Jan Tschichold's are important yardsticks of quality against quantity. Above all, they demonstrate the values that may very well prove capable of transfer or re- definition in mass production, if enough people believe that such a thing is not unimportant. This is a question in which the vote of the library profession carries a great deal of weight.-H ellmut L ehmann-Haupt, N ew S chool for Social R esearch. Library Practice Abroad B iblioteksprob!em; nagra synpunkter pd bib!io- t eksarbetets organisation och rationalisering. Ed. by Valter Ahlstedt, Knut Knutsson, Folke LOfgren. Stockholm, N atur och Kulter, 1952. 172p. Sw. Kr. 8.25. The Bibliotekstekniska Klubben is a group founded in Stockholm in 1943 'to bring into open discussion some of the more urgent problems of modern librarianship. The pres- ent volume contains six essays, five by Swedish librarians and one by a Danish librarian, which were presented to the club. Four of the contributors are members of the staff of the Stockholm Public Library; and all three of the editors, including head librarian Knut Knutsson , are officers of the same li- brary. There are English summaries of each of the essays on p. 167-172. The first three essays deal with problems of cataloging and classification. Valter Ahl- stedt, an amanuensis at the Stockholm Public Library, writes on "Enhetskatalogisering" ("uniform cataloging" rather than "unit cata- loging," as defined in the English summary). Ahlstedt argues for intrinsic uniformity based on the three main functions of the catalog (entry, description, and location). He frow"ns on the stern rigidity of codes such as the Anglo-American and the Prussian Instruk- tion, the two most influential, which enforce uniformity rather than encourage it. In his essay on "The Relations between Cataloging and Administration" E. Allerslev Jensen, an inspector in the Danish Directorate of State Libraries , reviews some of the American dis- cusions of cataloging problems during the last decade and studies their applicability to the Scandinavian scene. He argues for simplified inter-Scandinavian cataloging rules with printed cards issued coordinately with the national bibliography (precisely what was started within the last year by the Deutsche Bibliothek at Frankfurt am Main). His contention that cataloging as a technique is subordinate to the basic purposes of the library represents a refreshing viewpoint. Carl Bjorkbom, librarian of the Royal Technological University in Stockholm, con- tributes a study of "Principles of Bibliographi- cal Classification" in which he expounds the virtues of a "synthetic classificatory language" as opposed to natural language. He uses the Decimal Classification as the point of depar- ture for his discussion. He points out that clas~ification is not to be viewed primarily as a scheme for arrangement of books on the shelves but rather as 'a device for the codifica- tion of knowledge (thus making it an indis- pensable tool in the mechanization of bibli- ography). Folke LOfgren, "first librarian" at the Stockholm Public Library, reports on the re- sult of job analysis and work measurement at his library, an operation which resulted in substantial reassignment of clerical and pro- fessional duties through reduction of the pro- fessional staff and expansion of the clerical staff. Pertrus Jonsson, an amanuensis at the Stockholm Public Library, examines the pe- culiarly Scandinavian problem of satisfying the claims of creative writers for a certain subsidy based on the circulation of their books in public libraries. ("The Library Fee Ques- tion" is a somewhat misleading translation in the English summary.) In Denmark and Norway creative writers receive a subsidy based on the circulation of their books in public libraries; and while the Swedish Writers' Guild has made similar demands, Jonsson rejects them for an alternative pro- 278 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES