Houghton Library

Showcasing the digital collections of Harvard's Houghton Library, including illustrations, photographs, bookbindings and more.

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Now open at Houghton Library, our exhibition "War of Words: A Citizen’s Eye View of the Revolution" (curated by yours truly.) Featuring a rare first printing of the Declaration of Independence, War of Words showcases the pamphlets, posters, newspapers, and cartoons that brought news of the American Revolution to people of the period.

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Verlaine, Paul, 1844-1896. Amour : manuscript, 1873-1886.

MS Fr 139.4

Houghton Library, Harvard University

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This facsimile of The Royal Psalter of Sainte-Chapelle, an illuminated manuscript originally made in Paris in the early thirteenth century, is filled with a delightful variety of geometric, floral, and zoomorphic line fillers.

Medieval scribes and artists filled the empty space between lines with humor, providing a break from often serious texts and also creating visual balance and symmetry. We suspect that they must have had a lot of fun creating these quirky creatures.

The Fine Arts Library holds a collection of over 300 full-color facsimiles of illuminated manuscripts from a wide range of periods and traditions. The collection primarily includes religious texts, but representatives of secular works on poetry and literature, astronomy, travel, sketchbooks, and science and medicine are also included.

Der Königspsalter der Sainte-Chapelle = The Royal Psalter of Sainte-Chapelle Psalter of Blanche of Castile Simbach : Verlag Müller und Schindler, [2021] 1 volume (unpaged) : color facsimiles ; 30 cm + 1 cloth (96 x 96 cm) + 1 interimskommentar volume (47 pages ; 30 cm) Latin English HOLLIS number: 99153759213303941

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Illustrations from a 1555 manuscript manual of military engineering.

Maggi, Girolamo, -1572. La prima parte della espugnatione delle città, e fortezze : manuscript, 1555.

MS Typ 261

Houghton Library, Harvard University

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Galilei, Galileo, 1564-1642. Sidereus nuncius. 1610.

*IC6.G1333.610s

Houghton Library, Harvard University.

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Reblogging our first ever post in celebration of our 13th Tumblrversary!

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Bible : manuscript, [12--]

MS Typ 119

Houghton Library, Harvard University

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Benois, Alexandre, 1870-1960. Costume design for the ballet Petrouchka.

MS Thr 368

Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University.

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What in the World?

Everything is terrible, but for those attempting to compartmentalize, here is a beautiful 16th century map of Asia in the form of a pegasus.

The map appears in the Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae of Heinrich Bünting (1545-1606) which describes the travels of biblical figures and Church Fathers. It includes several particularly unusual maps. The book was first published in 1581, and the image above is from a Swedish translation of 1591.

Link to catalog record below:

Bünting, Heinrich. Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae. Stockholm: Andrea Gutterwitz, 1595. 

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Danforth, John, 1660-1730. A pindarick elegy upon the renowned, Mr. Samuel Willard, : late reverend teacher of the South Church in Boston, and vice-president of Harvard College in Cambridge; who deceased September the 12th. 1707.

AB7 D2116 707p

Houghton Library, Harvard University

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Les grands noelz nouueaulx, ca. 1550. A collection of 16th century French Christmas carols.

FC5.A100.550g

Houghton Library, Harvard University

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Title page of: Baker, Richard, 1568-1645. A chronicle of the kings of England, from the time of the Romans government unto the death of King James. London, 1670.

MS Hyde 76 (5.1)

Houghton Library, Harvard University

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Our newest video in the Frequently Asked Questions series tackles "What is the oldest book in Houghton's collections?" (Spoiler alert: it depends!)

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In this post, you will see an auction sale catalogue from 1781 with handwritten notes and detailed illustrations. There are 21 contemporary ink sketches of objects offered for sale. There are also handwritten notes on a page facing the title-page, which is an informative manuscript biography of Le Blanc written sometime in the 19th century.

Also featured is one of many facsimiles of illuminated manuscripts held by the Fine Arts Library. Facsimiles allow students to handle the objects and study a version of a manuscript very close to that found in the original repository.

Die Wiener Genesis : bildgewaltiges Erbe der frühen Christenheit is a full-size color reproduction of the entire Vienna Genesis, held by the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna. The facsimile replicates the manuscript’s look-and-feel and minute physical features, including laser-cut holes. The Vienna Genesis dates from the early Byzantine empire, and is among the oldest known illustrated biblical manuscripts. It is only one of two illuminated Greek Old Testament works to survive from before the period of imperially sanctioned iconoclasm in the eighth century. (Summarized from www.facsimilefinder.com.)

Facsimiles and auction sales catalogues can be requested to view in our Special Collections Study Room.

Catalogue d'une belle collection de tableaux, des trois ecoles : bronzes, marbres, porcelaines anciennes, beaux meubles de boule, feux & bras de bronze doré, & autres objets de curiosité : qui composent le cabinet de M. l'abbé Le Blanc, historiographe des par J.B.P. Le Brun. Hôtel de Bullion (Paris, France) A Paris : Chez le Sieur Le Brun, peintre, 1781 (l'Imprimerie de Prault, Quai de Gêvres) 40 pages ; 20 cm French 1781 HOLLIS number: 99157865683403941

Die Wiener Genesis : bildgewaltiges Erbe der frühen Christenheit Wiener Genesis (Biblical manuscript) Luzern : Quaternio Verlag, [2019] 48 pages : facsimiles, illuminations ; 35 cm + 1 commentary volume (152 pages : color illustrations ; 29 cm) in case 37 x 32 x 6 cm Greek, Ancient (to 1453) HOLLIS number: 99153759213803941

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Last month, we had a wonderful tour of the current exhibit entitled Hồng-Ân Trương: With love from your Vietnamese sisters at the Radcliffe Institute. Thanks, Meg Rotzel, Curator of Exhibitions at Radcliffe College, for giving us a great tour!Our visit was joined by friends and colleagues from the Harvard Art Museums.

We enjoyed seeing and learning about Trương’s work, which engages deeply with archival materials to examine structures of time, memory, and the production and circulation of narrative histories. For this exhibition, Trương responded to an object held at Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library: a scrapbook created by the Vietnam Committee for Solidarity with the American People and gifted to Angela Davis in 1972.

We were also delighted to hear a story Meg shared about three intergenerational Vietnamese women who had never met before attending a public tour of the exhibit. They ended connecting after the tour and even returned to the exhibit again as a group and get together to cook.

Trương recently received an Anonymous Was A Woman Award. Congratulations to Trương!

Hồng-Ân Trương: With love from your Vietnamese sisters is organized by Caitlin Julia Rubin, a visiting curator at Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

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The Harvard Gazette covered a visit to Houghton last week by the touring company of Hamilton to see the Reynolds Pamphlet and other books and manuscripts related to the characters they play. (That's me on the left!)

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Happy Halloween!

We've been driven batty with delight for this little fellow who is found presenting a image of chaos in this richly illustrated late 17th century Dutch book by Willem Goeree. We have decided this guy is part possum and part Grampa Munster.

Goeree, Willam. Voor-bereidselen tot de bybelsche wysheid, en gebruik der heilige en kirklijke historien. Amsterdam: W. Goeree, 1690.

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Houghton hosted a visit of some of the touring company of Hamilton on Tuesday. I hope to have some video of that to share as well, but for now, enjoy this lovely video of the Harvard Opportunes performing "Wait For It" for the visibly touched cast members.