Incunabula Library of Congress Info

The Incunabula Collections at the Library of Congress

PETER M. VAN WINGEN

Over its 187-year history the Library of Congress has collected nearly 5,700 fifteenth-century books, the largest collection of incunabula in the Western Hemi-sphere. This paper draws together from many sources the history of the several collections that give the Library this strength. It is a tale of intrigue, good fortune and hard work, of politics, patriotism and philanthropy.

The original Library established by Congress in 1800 and destroyed when the British burned the Capitol in 1814 had no fifteenth-century books. Neither did the collection sold to the Congress by Thomas Jefferson in 1815. This is not surprising-the books in the first Library served the need for general literature, I and Jefferson primarily collected modem, scholarly editions in handy fonnats.

By the 1830s there were me mbers of the Senate Library Committee who had a strong interest in developing a library that wa~ universal in scope. Congress's first opportunity to acquire incunabula and early printed books presented itself on February 9, 1836, when Richard Henry Wilde, a fonner member of the House of Representatives who was in Florence working on a biography of Tasso, infonned the Library Committee that the large library of the late Count Dimitrii Buturlin was availahle for $50,000. A catalogue of this collection had been printed in 1831' It contained 25,000 printed volumes, including 979 incunabula, with special strengths in Greek and Latin c1a" ics, including a fine collection of Aldine editions. The collection was "fullest in those departments in which the Library of Congress is defici ent , particularly ancient authors, belles-lettres, literary history, the fine arts, and the standard productions of France and Italy.'" In 1836 the Library of Congress held 25,000 books which had been acquired at a cost of $100,000. By this one purchase,

Peter M. VanWingcn is Heudofthc Reference and Header Services Section, Rare Book and Special Collections Division. Lihrary o f Congress. This paper was delivered at "Incunabilla in American Lihraries," a symposium sponsored hy the Center for the Book and the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, libraI)' of Congress. April 1-2, 1987.

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the collections could be doubled in size for half that amount. The legislative process to purchase the Buturlin collection began smoothly

enough. On February 18, 1836, William Campbell Preston, Chairman of the Library Committee, submitted a resolution to the Senate empowering the Library Commit-tee to inquire further into the purchase of the Buturiin library" D,miel Webster, among others, expressed his high regard for the collection. The resolution was adopted.' Preston's report, on March 15, 1836, pOinted out that the collection "is especially rich in that species of literature which can be scarcely said to exist in this country, for neither the Library of Congress nor any of the public or private libraries of the United States possess anything in bibliography beyond the occasional speci-men .... There are 119 copies of Aldine editions, 368 from the Bodoni press, many hundred volumes printed in the fifteenth century, and many others illustrative of the early achievements of typography and its progress to perfection.'"

On June 4, the resolution died, the victim of partisan backstabbing at the hands of Senator Henry Clay, who had "Ordered, that it lie on the table.'" Clay, a Whig, remembered that in 1829 the newly-elected Democratic President, Andrew Jackson, had removed the Whig Librarian of Congress, George Watterston, and had installed in his stead John Silva Meehan, a Democrat. The Buturiin bill was tabled because "the Whigs could hardly entrust such a library to a Democratic Librarian.'"

Although the 1839 Catalogue of the Library of Congress . .. 9 lists two incunabula, the Chronecken der Sassen (Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 6 March 1492) and Ranulphus Higden's Polychronicon (Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 13 April 1495), the earliest incunabulum with a recorded date of acquisition is a 1478 edition of Astesanus de As!'s Summa de casibus conscientiae (Venice: Johannes de Colonia and Johannes Manthen, 18 March 1478). This volume, the gift of Obadiah Rich in 1840, is an example of the Library's serendipitous collecting of incunabula in the mid-nineteenth century. Obadiah Rich had been the American consul at Valencia, Spain, from 1816 until 1829 when he moved to London and established himself as a bookseller. The Library of Congress along with many other American libraries and collectors bought Americana from him. Since the Library was certainly not buying fifteenth-century books, Rich must have made a gift to a good customer of an interesting example of the art of printing.

The date that marks the foundation of the incunabula collection at the Library of Congress is April 6, 1867, when the last load of Peter Force's library was received at the Capitoj1O This was a major acquisition for the Library, the beginning of an ongoing interest in early printed books, and a personal triumph for the recently appointed librarian, Ainsworth Rand Spofford.

Over a period of thirty years, Force had assembled a formidable collection of primary documents, incorporated into his work published as American Archives 11 Force was acquainted with book dealers throughout this country and abroad and has been called the greatest American book collector of his time. His personal library held

INCUNABULA COLLECTIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 87

approximately 22,500 volumes. In 1867 Spofford was able to capture the Force Collection when the New-York

Historical Society reneged on its agreement with Force to purchase the collection for $100,000. George H. Moore, Librarian for the SOCiety, wrote to Force on May 30, 1865, to say that the New-York Historical Society had just acquired five acres ofland on Central Park West. The Society had new financial burdens and negotiations with Force ended." On January 25,1867, Ainsworth Spofford submitted a SpeCial Report ... Concerning the Library of Peter Force" to the Joint Committee on the Library. On the following day, the Committee voted unanimously to recommend the purchase of the Force Library and on March 2, 1867, Congress passed an act authorizing the expenditure of $100,000 for the collection.

In his report Spofford pointed out that the Force Library included a group of books illustrating "the progress of the art of printing from its infancy."'' That section of the collection contained 161 incunabula. Spofford, in a later biography of Force, wrote: "It was not alone with reference to Revolutionary history that Mr. Force's zeal as a historical student was enlisted. He had a passion for the art of printing-his own early chosen profession-and had collected a larger library of books printed in the infancy of the art than any public library in the United States could boast of.""

The collection had some important books. The earliest imprint was Clemens V's Constitutiones (Mainz: Peter Schoeffer, 8 October 1467); also included were a copy of Hartmann Schede!'s Liber chronicarom (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 12 July 1493) and jenson's 1472 printing of Pliny's Historia naturalis (Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1472).

Also in 1867, the Smithsonian Institution depOSited its important book collection for safekeeping in the Library of Congress, which had been fire-proofed following a disastrous fire in 1851. These books, including approximately sixty incunabula, are listed in the Library's 1868 catalogue.

A survey of the accession dates written or stamped in the Library's incunabula reveals that there were scattered purchases of fifteenth-century books between the receipt of the Force Collection and the end of the century. We know, for example, that the Library purchased sometime before 1874 Aristotle's Opera (Venice: Aldus Manutius, 1495-98) as a duplicate from the British Museum. It had been Thomas Grenville's copy. HI But gradually, collecting by serendipity changed to collecting with a purpose-to form a collection of fifteenth-century books that would show the invention and development of printing in its infancy. The emphasiS was more on assembling museum artifacts than on acquiring texts unrepresented in the Library, and interest in places and dates of printing took precedence over adding new works. This attitude characterized incunabula collecting at the Library of Congress in the late nineteenth century.

The Library of Congress moved from the Capitol to its first separate building in 1897. The Annual Report for 1898 reported that an exhibit opened during the year


displaying rare and early printed books. The exhibit filled a gallery and included examples of incunabula, representing works printed in every year from 1467 to 1501."17

At the beginning of the twentieth century the count of the fifteenth-century books at the Library stood as follows:

Force Collection 161 Smithsonian Deposit 60 Joseph Toner Gift 10

231

Other 130

TOTAL 361

From these numbers it becomes clear that a majority of the incunabula had come to the Library through a few large transactions, a pattern that was to hold true for future acquisitions.

The Library's small, interesting collection of incunabula contained enough books to support an ambitious exhibit on the beginning of printing, but it was by no means a research collection. The pivotal event which changed the collection from a nineteenth-century gentleman'S gathering of black-letter books to a twentieth-century research collection occurred in 1910.

In that year the Library received on deposit the collection of John Boyd Thacher of Albany, New York. The collection consisted of four parts: incunabula, early Americana (especially Columbiana), autographs of European notables, and manu-sCripts, illustrations, and books relating to the French Revolution. Thacher was born in Ballston Spa, New York, on September 11, 1847. After attending Williams College he entered his father's business, Thacher Car Wheel Works, and eventually assumed its ownership. In addition to his business interests, Thacher was a successful politi-cian. He served as a Democratic state senator and as mayor of Albany for two terms. He was elected to the Grolier Club in 1887. '.8 His first book collecting interest was in early Americana, but he quickly broadened his scope and began to collect incunab-ula. He probably started collecting fifteenth-century books seriously around 1889. It seems likely that his collection was stimulated, at least in part, by the example of General Rush Hawkins.1' Hawkins, the pioneering American collector of incunabula, followed the system originated by Henry Bradshaw and developed by Robert Proctor in which specimens of the first ' or earliest work of fifteenth-century presses are collected in order to demonstrate the diffusion of printing. Proctor determined that by 1501 there were over 238 places where printing had been practiced and about 1,080 distinct presses had operated in these places. Thacher set out to get at least one

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specimen from each press. After ten years of collecting he was able to record:

I bought at Libbie & Co.'s sale, Boston, and paid for it, June 3, 1899, a Benedicti Regula printed by Geoffrey MarneI'. Paris, September 7,1500. This book completed my 500 presses of th" fifteenth century. I take it as a good augury that the first book of my incunabula and the one to round out my five hundredth press should have heen found in America. It is seldom my collection finds specimens of incunabula already hrought to America.

Ten years ago it did not seem possible that 1 should get from one to ten examples of 500 presses of the fifteenth century. No other private collection lias so great a numher of separate presses.211

Thacher retired from business and public life in 1898. The last e leven years of his life were devoted to research and collecting. He and his wife, Emma Treadwell Thache r, traveled throughout Europe searching for incunabula and for materials relating to Thacher's study of the French Revolution. Shortly after his death, Emma Thache r deposited her late husband's c'Oliections at the Library of Congress. The deposit had 904 incunabula, including sixty-four duplicates. Thacher's collecting method hrought in major rarities-Fust and Schoe fl'er's printing of Guillelmus Durant;'s Rationale divillonlm officionl1n ([Mainz]: Johann Fust and Peter Schoef-fer, 6 October 1459)-as well as items unrecorded at that time.'1 The very nature of the collection invites analysis in terms of numbers . Early deSCriptions of the Thacher Collection almost invariably speak in such terms, and comparison with the Hawkins Collection was never far from anyone's mind .

Herbert Putnam included the following long footnote in his Annual Report for 1910:

The extent of the lX)ssihle benefit [of the Thacher Collection] can be estimated only hy an itemized exhibit of the collection in a catalogue. It may, however, be indicated in a superficial way by a comparison: The collection of incunabula formed by Gen. Hush C. Hawkins and now deposited in the Annmary Brown Memorial building at Provi dence, H.I. , is (justly) regarded 'L' offering as excellent an opportunity as could C'Onveniently be found in one place for the study of early printing and the comparison of early presses. The catalogue of it (by M r. A. W. Pollard) shows about 542 entries (including a few later than A.D. 1500 and therefore not strictly incunabula). A similar catalogue of the Thacher Collection would show about 820 incunabula proper. The Hawkins Collection includes some 80 printers (67 of them represented hy 15th century imprints) not in the Thacher Collection (though of these eight, including Le Hoy, Lettou, Pynson, and Wynkyn de Worde, are represented on the Lihrary's general shelves); but the Thacher Collection includes over 140 not in the Hawkins Collection. As against 141 places represented in the Hawkins Collection, there are 126 represented in the Thacher .. ,


By present-day standards the terms of the deposit were hazy, but it was clear that the Library had every reason to believe that the books would eventually become part of an instrument of gift. The Library of Congress stood on the threshold of obtaining a great collection. Mrs. Thacher made a trip to Washington and viewed the materials and seemed pleased. When she died on February 18, 1927, her will bequeathed the entire collection of books and manuscripts to the Library. Putnam told the Washing-ton Post that "the collections are probably the most notable ever presented to the Library through private-benefactors" and went on to declare that the donation was a "signal manifestation of the patriotism of American scholarship.""

But the Thacher family felt differently and in December, 1931, Colonel George Curtis Treadwell, one of the executors and also the residuary legatee of the estate of Mrs. John Boyd Thacher, brought suit against Herbert H. Putnam, claiming that the conditions of the will had not been met. The conditions were: the collections of books, autographs, letters and documents were to be kept together; a catalogue of the materials was to be prepared; finally, all possible precautions for the preservation and safety of the materials were to be observed. The estate claimed that these conditions had not been met and wanted the will nullified. The case went to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia and the United States Supreme Court. In each instance the court decided in favor of the Library. In the end the Library returned to the estate some autograph materials which it later bought back for $1,109.93.24 It was a time-consuming and unhappy episode. At the heart of the Library's victory was the fact that in 1915, while the collection was still on deposit, the Library had published a Catalogue of the John Boyd Thacher Collection of Incunabula, compiled by Frederick W. Ashley.'"

The period between the wars was, of course, a time of great expansion in American library collections. The Annual Reports indicate that the Library of Congress added nearly 100 incunabula from separate sources with the largest numbers coming in 1922 (20 items), 1923 (26 items), and 1924 (21 items). In the mid-1920s the Library embarked on a campaign to attract funds and materials in addition to its congressional appropriation. The timing was good. Americans were wealthy and collectors were active. In 1925, by act of Congress, the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board was formed "to accept, receive, hold, and administer such gifts or bequests of personal property for the benefit of, or in connection with, the Library, its collections, or its service."" The follOwing year the Library published a catalogue listing outstanding items in the collections along with important desiderata. In the foreword, Putnam encouraged monetary gifts, but stated: "Another way would be the direct gift of the material itself from the collection of the donor. The Library has not lacked some such gifts of considerable importance. It hopes for many others, as collectors who have had the relish of collecting, and a suffiCient satisfaction in the possession, may come to consider the permanent dispOSition of their collections, and may tum to the National Library as inevitably as the British collector turns to the

INCU NABULA COLLECTIONS AT TIlE LIIlHAHY OF CONG HESS 91

British Museum. It has, there fore, seem"d worth while to list a few examples of the 'Desiderata' still "Ickin~ from our shelves, limiting the list, for the moment, to the hihlio~raphical monumenta which should indisputably be represented in the Na-tional Lihrary of' tlH' United States.""

The desiderata included seventy-seven incunabula. In addition to a Gutenberg BibI" and any fifteenth-century edition of' the Columbus letter, the list indicated the Library's n('"d for a Mainz Psalter, the 1462 Fust and Schoeffer Bible, the 1476 Jenson Bihl", edition"s principe", of Tacitus, Homer, and Aristophanes, and anything printed hy C,lxton. These arc serious requests and they demonstrate the Library's inten'st in acquirin~ major items. This approach was another manifestation of Putnam's call for the "patriotism of American scholarship," but the Library needed to get into the public's consciousness in order for it to succeed. When the status of the Thacher Coll ection changed from deposit to gift in 1927, long accounts appeared in the Washington papers and The New York Tillles . This helped, but it was not quite the

thin~ to catch the public's imagination. At this point Otto H. F . Vollbehr emerged from the wings. Vollbehr was a

German industrial chemist turned book collector who at the close of World War I found himself with lIlore assets than most. While the rest of Europe was in the throes of revolution and economic depression, he was able to buy early books very cheaply.

Either in his own collection or through conSignment Vollbehr had control of thousands of incunabula. Between 1924 and 1926 he sold the Huntington Library nearly 2,400 fifteenth-century books.'" In 1926 Vollbehr came to the United States, bringing with him a collection of 3,000 incunabula to be exhibited at the Eucharistic Congress in Chicago. Vollbehr stole the show. Interest in the books was so great that Cardinal Mundelein of Chicago tried to buy the entire collection for the religiOUS library at St . Mary-()f~the-Lake . After consulting with several experts Vollbehr set the price at $3,000,000. The efforts of the Cardinal failed, but he gained some solace from Vollbe"r's gift of a choice collection of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manu-sCripts. After the exhibition in Chicago, Vollbehr traveled with the collection by train to several cities, Vollbehr reported that 40,000 people came to see his books during the fourteen days he was in St. Louis. In New York the books were on display at the National Arts Club. Vollbehr's last stop was in Washington, and over one hundred of the books we re exhibited in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress. Two brochures were printed by the Government Printing Office, one providing background on the collection and the collector, the other listing the books on display. Then, in the words of a journalist covering the story, "A widespread hope that was nothing short of a demand, expressed to Dr, Vollbehr verbally, by letter and wire, that the volumes remain in this country, caused him to volnnteer an unusual proposition."'" Vollbehr proposed that if a henefactor would step forward to buy the collection for an American institution for half the ",king price or $1.5 million , he would donate the other half. In addition , he would include a complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible


printed on vellum as one of the 3,000 incunabula. The Gutenberg Bible which crowned Vollbehr's collection received extensive

press coverage, helped by a widely distributed booklet describing this copy.'" Vollbehr never tired of telling how he acquired the Bible. According to his account this copy had had only three owners. The first owner was Johann Fust who took it to Paris and sold it as a manuscript to a representative of the monks of St. Blasius. It resided with the monks in the Black Forest until they had to move to St. Paul in Carinthia in the face of the Napoleonic army. Finally in 1926, Otto Vollbehr purchased the three volumes from the monks for $250,000.

Public imagination was stirred by Vollbehr's offer but no donor came forward. Several sources were tried (among them Edward Stephen Harkness, John Pierpont Morgan, and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.), and there was considerable interest from some parties in negotiating for the Bible alone. No one was interested in paying for the entire package. To his credit Vollbehr refused to break up the collection, reiterating that his books showed a true representation of printing in the fifteenth century from its high points to the schoolbooks and tracts which, though widely available when printed, had been so little regarded in the ensuing centuries that they were virtually unobtainable.

In December 1929, as Vollbehr prepared to set sail for London without having sold the collection, he received a copy of a bill which had been presented to Congress proposing that public funds be used to acquire the Vollbehr Collection for the Library of Congress. The bill had been introduced by Congressman Ross Collins of Missis-Sippi. Collins had never met Vollbehr nor had he ever seen the collection.

At this point things moved quickly. Collins introduced the bill (H.R.6147) on December 3,1929. On February 7,1930, Collins addressed the House of Represen-tatives for over an hour on the merits of the Vollbehr Collection. On March 25, a similar bill was introduced in the Senate; it was returned to the library Committee and killed. On May 29,1930, Collins again introduced a bill to purchase the collection (H.R.12696). It passed unanimously. On June 10, the bill was referred to the Senate Committee on the library. On June 24, it was debated and passed in the Senate. On July 3, 1930, the bill (Public Law 533) was signed into law by President Hoover. The action taken between the bill's first defeat in March and its unanimous passage in June constituted the most amazing instance of public support for a purchase in the history of the library of Congress.

In that three-month period Collins and Vollbehr were able to gamer unprece-dented support for the purchase. Collins's speech was reprinted from the Congres-sional Record'l and sent to universities, libraries, writers, teachers, and the news media. All were told to write or cable their Congressmen and Senators expressing support for the purchase of the 3,000 incunabula including the Gutenberg Bible. The library'S ManUSCript Division has five scrapbooks containing over 2,000 letters personally received by Collins. It was estimated that 25,000 individuals expressed

INCUN ABULA COLLECTIONS AT THE L1BHAHY OF CONGHESS 93

their support of this purchase." The stock market had just crashed. This would not seem like a propitious time to

lobby for a special appropriation for books. But there is an indication in the letters and reports of the Vollbehr Collection that more was at stake than a collection of incunabula. The purchase was seen as an "official recognition of the movement towards an American renaissance."3.") In a column in the Saturday Review of Litera-ture strongly advocating the purchase, E. Paul Saunders concluded:

Congress shouk] pass H.R.6147 without dissenting vote a< a matter of national pride-pride in [the factl that . .. acquisition of the Vollbehr collection would place the Library of Congress on a parity with the national libraries of Europe, including particularly the famous British Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationale, at present the two leading libraries of the world.

Let us have parity in scholarship as well a, in ships, in culture as well as cruisers, in hooks as in hattleships! '"

In the end it was public support which carried the bill. Putnam told the Library Committee that the defeat of this bill would be a "calamity" and that if the public were to perceive any sense of indifference on the part of either the Librarian or the Congress there would be serious repercussions for both. He stated: "There has developed throughout the country an enthusiasm for this project which amounts to an exhilaration-that the Government of the United States may match the other governments of the world in the recognition of cultural objects. You have had evidence of that in the letters and editorials with which you have been deluged.""

On July 3, 1930, the last day of the second session of the 71st Congress, the so-called Collins Bill was enacted into law. On July 15, the Vollbehr books arrived at the Library of Congress. Putnam still had to travel to Europe to bring back the Gutenberg Bible, which finally reached the Library on September 3. In Austria, Putnam and the Library delegation found that with cumulated interest the Bible would cost $325,000. Vollbehr showed that of the $1,500,000 received from Congress, he had a balance of only $300,000. The monastery reluctantly accepted this amount, but later com-plained bitterly when it took another twenty days for Vollbehr's check to clear.

In Decem ber 1930, five months after the Vollbehr Collection arrived, the Library opened a major exhibition entitled, "Exhibit of Books Printed During the XVth Century and Known as Incunabula, Selected from the Vollbehr Collection Pur-chased by Act of Congress 1930." I n one of the more amusing statements ever written in an exhibit catalogue, Putnam noted: "Of the 3,000 items in the collecti9n, it has been possible to include in the present exhibit only about 1,700.""

Unfortunately, the Vollbehr story doesn't stop here. We know that the 1930 sale barely got VoJlbehr out of debt, but he still had 1,500 incunabula which for various reasons were not included in the Library of Congress sale. The Library was interested


in acquiring 1,000 of these books. Again Vollbehr hoped that some public-spilited individual would donate the collection. The books themselves were actually held at the Library of Congress for a few years, but from correspondence it is clear that the chances for acquisition became dimmer and dimmer until the Library found itself in the uncomfortable position of holding books which were in reality collateral owned by the Bank of America. In 1937 V. Yalta Parma, Curator of the Rare Book Collection, wrote to a New York bookseller, who claimed to have recently soldan edition of Marco Polo from the Vollbehr books on deposit:

It is necessary that I understand the situation regarding the books in the collection and I would appreciate your telling me how you could sell the Marco Polo with any advantage to yourself while it is held for security for another loan. The whole difficulty with Dr. Vollbehr's affairs seems to come from a lack of frankness with everybody concerned, so that every move develops unexpected entanglements. This of course you have yourself discovered:"

There was still more to come. On November 30,1934, Vollbehrwas called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities to explain his actions in spending between $5,000 and $6,000 to mail eleven issues of a pro-Nazi publication called Memorandum. Also, he was questioned about his distribution of a financial informa-tion service "full of subtly devised propaganda aimed to stir up anti-Semitism.""

The incunabula were finally sold privately and at auction in 1939 and 1940 in New York. Many of the books found their way into American libraries. Vollbehr himselfleft the country in 1939 under pressure from the FBI. After World War II, Army intelligence officers told Frederick Goff that Vollbehr's house in Berlin had been destroyed by bombs but that he had escaped to Baden-Baden. He died shortly after the war.'"

When Putnam published the Library'S desiderata list in 1926 he hoped that donors of materials would step forward. In 1930 he testified before Congress that the Vollbehr Collection would have a great impact on a group of people never previously associated with the Library:

It is not merely the literati, the scholars-it is also the man on the street, who has been touched and stirred. And among the groups so stirred is one group of exceeding importance to us; that is, the group representing connOisseurship.

Now we are constantly receiving expressions of respect and admiration for the development of the Library, but there is one kind of admiration and respect and interest that we have thus far lacked-that is, the interest of the connoisseur who values books as books. Last fall one of my associates wrote to such a man asking him if he would lend one or two of his rare editions for exhibit in the Library. He wrote back: "Why should I lend them to the Library of Congress? What does Congress care about such books as I care for?" Now that man, stirred by this bill, came down for

INCUNABULA COLLECrIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 95

the hearings. He told the committee, and told me afterwards that if Congress would do this thing it would mean that mllectors such a. he would think of our Library instead of some other as th e place where, a. gifts, their collections would find real appreciation.,1!)

Putnam's instincts were correct. In 1943the Library received the first installment of its greatest rare-book gift-the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection. The story of Lessing Rosenwald's collecting of illustrated books is well-known." Rosenwald began collecting prints in 1926, hut his first major book purchases came in 1928 when he bought from A. S. W. Rosenbach a group of Gennan illustrated incunabula, among them Die Crollica vall der hilUger stat van Coellen [The Cologne Chronicle] (Cologne: Johann Koelhofr. the Younger, 23 August 1499) and Koberger's printing of Jacobus de Vamgille's Legem/a allrea sanc/Onllll (Nuremberg: Anton Koberger, 5 Decemhe r 14HIl)." On the afternoon of March 5, 1929, he spent $404,700 at Rosenbach's OJ) a variety of books ranging from block books to William Blake. Early in 1930 he re turned to Rosenbach's, and for $297,000 Rosenwald bought twenty-six books that he knew would be available only once in a lifetime, including the 1488 Paris edition of Olivier de l~, Marche's Le Chevalier deliber/! (Paris: [Guy Marchand or Antoine Caillaut I for Antoine Verard, 8 August 1488), considered the finest illus-trated French book of the fifteenth century. The Rosenwald-Rosenbach connection was an important one. Not only did Rosenbach convince Rosenwald to focus his collection and to buy only superior copies, he made extraordinary opportunities available. For example, in 1930, knO\ving that Vollbehr was in great financial difficulty, Rosenbach and Rosenwald offered to take the Gutenberg Bible for $400,000. Wh ile the option was pending Rosenwald informed Rosenbach that the sudden f,,11 ill stock prices had made it difficult for him to pay his previous bills. The purchase of the Bihle might prove to be catastrophic, Fortunately, Congress bought the Vollhehr Collection and Rosenwald and Rosenbach "heaved a sigh of relief.""

In 1939 Rosenwald retired as Chairman orthe Board of Sears Roebuck and began to fulllll his dream of involvement with philanthropy and developing his tastes as a collector. Both of these pursuits converged in 1943 when Rosenwald presented his collections to the lIation, retaining possession of them during his lifetime, The prints were given to the National Gallery of Art and the books to the Library of Congress. The initial Hose nwald book donation numbered about 500 choice items. Of these, 200 were incunabula, thirty-seven of which were not reported in other American collections.

The 1943 gilt and the opportunities available after World War II increased Rosenwald's collecting fever. In 1947 he presented to the Library 250 of the books he had acquired he tween 1945 and 1947. The gifts continued until Mr. Rosenwald's death in 1979, the largest in the last two decades being 700 books given in 1964 and 180 in 1978. The catalogue of the collection published by the Library in 1977"

96 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS LIBRARIANS HIP

includes 2,653 entries, of which 559 are incunabula. Several hundred additional important rare books came to the Library when the collection was transferred from Jenkintown, Pa., to Washington, D.C., in 1980.

The Vollbehr Collection contained in-depth representation of every aspect of fifteenth-century printing. The Rosenwald incunabula are books of outstanding importance in extraordinary condition. The 1926 desiderata list included seventy-seven incunabula. Five of these were acquired in the Vollbehr purchase; twelve came through Rosenwald gifts, including Johannes Balbus's Catholicon (Mainz: [Epon. press (Johann Gutenberg?)] 1460), Fust and Schoeffer's 1462 Biblia latina (Mainz: Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer, 14 August 1462), the edition of Dante's La Commdia (Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, Alamanus, 30 August 1481) with copper engravings ascribed to Baccio Baldini, and two of the Caxtons on the list. All together Rosenwald had sixteen Caxton imprints.

The Rosenwald gifts brought the total number of copies of incunabula at the Library of Congress to nearly 5,700. But the acquisition of this one collection was significant for many other reasons. The presence of the Rosenwald incunabula has affected the use of all the Library's other incunabula. Frequently, readers come to the Library of Congress because they know the Rosenwald Collection has a particularly important and well-known book. When they get to the reading room they learn the depth of the collections--{)therworks by the same author, other books from the same printer or place. The great texts of literature, history, religion, and science that came from Force, Thacher, and Vollbehr take on even greater impact in the Rosenwald Collection editions, illustrated with the vigorous woodcuts that constitute such a striking feature of fifteenth-century books.

Acquiring incunabula is only the first step that a library must take with its fifteenth-century books. Cataloguing these books is time-consuming, requires highly skilled personnel, and its costs must be absorbed by the institution. Putnam recog-nized this in his 1901 Annual Report:

SpeCial rules for an incunabula catalogue have been formulated, having regard to their special character and to the demands made upon such catalogues, but the work itself is in abeyance, the time of competent cataloguers being claimed by more pressing duties. So far as catalogued, incunabula are represented by entries adequate for the general catalogue.'"

By 1907 a list of the Library's fifteenth-century books had been prepared by Charles Martel, the chief cataloguer. His list contains 361 titles and, according to Putnam, "covers nearly all the incunabula in the possession of the Library."" Putnam goes on to say that "copies of these titles have been prepared for the Union catalogue of incunabula in American libraries, which is now in course of preparation under the direction ofMr. John Thomson, Librarian of the Free Library of Philadelphia."" This

INCUNA llU LA COLLECrIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 97

is hut the first example of the impetus that the three editions of Census oflllcunaln,za in Amelicll gave to work on incunabula at the Library of Congress. The Library identified. couuted. and catalogued its ineunabula lor the Census published in 1919. When Margaret Bingham Stillwell compiled the second Census in 1940. the Library again cooperated li,lIy and all of the books acquired in the Vollbehr purchase were included. A young ,""istant on the second Census. Frederick R. Goff. came to the Hare Book Division of the LibraryofCongress in 1940 and after serving as an assistan t to Arthur Jl oughton hu m 1941 to 1942. and acting chief from 1943 to 1945. Goff became ch ief in 194.5. remaining in that pOSition until his retirement in 1972. Frede rick Goff made a major contribution to the study of incunabula by compiling and editing [nc,mllh,lill in Americ(Jn Lihraries, (J Third Census. Published in 1964. it is a cr"dit to the Library and to Goffs dedication and persistence over thirty years of his can'("r.

All douors. even donors as generous as M r. Rosenwald. need careful attention. and GolT b"calll(, very close to M r. Rosenwald and the Hosenwald family. In his llecolle('/iolls Host'nwald aeknowledged the part Goff played in his collecting: "He has been a splendid advisor and has aided me in my c-ollecting and in bibliographical knowledge. 1 have seldom gone wrong follOwing his careful advice. In looking back over the years. it is safe to say that Fred Goff shares ,vith Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach the major credit Ii" bringing to me the great pleasure and satisfaction of collecting books alld learning about them."'-

When I give general tours of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and show visitors the stack areas where the fift eenth-century books are shelved. they are surprisf'd that we allow readers to use the hooks and that modem scholars find books of such great age relevant to their research. Our reader records provide firm evidence that the collcetions are used. They also continue to grow. though less quickly than we would like. because of all the competing pressu res for very limited funds. The division depends heavily on gifts now as in the past.

In this paper I have discussed only the incunabula in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. The incunabula in the Hehraic Section. the Law Library. and the Music Division have been included in my numerical totals. but each collection deserves full consideration on its own. The assemblage of the largest collection of incunabula in the Western Hemisphere is the story of strong leaders such as Spofford and Putnam. generous donors sneh as Thacher and Rosenwald, politicians such as Collins. dedicated staff such a., Ashley and Goff, and at lea.,t one scamp. The incunahula collections also demonstrate the essential part played by c-ongressional appropriations and indicate that when circumstances warrant, the Library can turn to Congress for the purchase of major rare-book collections:

The institution itself also played an important role. As the motivations behind collecting ineunabula moved from serendipity to gathering artifacts to developing a research collection. the Library of Congress worked to make these G'OlIections known


and more accessible through catalogues, exhibits, and new facilities. Though the Library built its fifteenth-century book collections in major segments, the collection of reference books and secondary sources was developed through steady growth and constant attention to past and current scholarship. The unparalleled resources of the bibliography collections attest to the Library'S dedication to this principle. The Library of Congress's participation in national and international incunabula projects has benefited these projects Significantly and has had a direct application to the organization and cataloguing of its own materials. A project to compile an Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC) is underway, and scholarship in fifteenth-century books is flourishing." The Library of Congress incunabula collections stimulate and support these efforts, ample tribute to the individuals who contributed to their growth.

NOTES

1. William Dawson Johnston, Histo11j of the Libra11j of Congress; v. 1. 1800-1864 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1904), 49.

2. Dimitrii Petrovich Buturlin, Catalogue cfe 10 bibliotheque (Florence. 1831). 3. National Intelligencer 24, no. 7174 (February 9, 1836), 3. 4. U.S. Congress, Register of Debates in Congress (Washington, Gales & Seaton, 1825-1837).

2,578. 5. Register of Debates. 6. U.S. Congress. Senate, On Purchasing the Library of Late Count Boutourlin. at Florence, 24th

Cong., 1st Sess., S. Rep!. 242, March 15, 1836. 7. U.S. Senate, Journal (Washington, 1828), 405. 8. Johnston, Histo11j, 209. 9. U.S. Library of Congress, Catalogue of the Libra11j of Congress in the Capitol of the United

States of America, December, 1839 (Washington, 1840). 10. Newman F. McGirr, "The Activities of Peter Force," Records of the Columbia Historical

Society of Washington, D.C. , 42-43 (1942), 70. 11. American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers. Debates,

and Letters and Other Notices of Pub lick Affairs, the Whole Forming a Documenta11j Histo11j ofthe Origin and Progress of the North American Colonies ... ([Washington, 1837-1853]).

12. Frederick R. Goff, "Peter Force," Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 44, no. 1 (1950), 14.

13. U.S. Library of Congress, Special Report of the Librarian of Congress to the Joint Committee on the Libra11j Concerning the Historical Libra11j of Peter Force, Esq. (Washington, 1867).

14. U.S. Library of Congress, Special Report, 6. 15. Ainsworth R. .Spofford, "The Life and Labors of Peter Force, Mayor of Washington,"

Records of the Columbia Historical Society 2 (1898), 7. 16. Frederic Vinton, "Book Rarities at Washington," Bibliotheca Sacra 31 (January 1874), 114. 17. U.S. Library of Congress, Annual Report of the Librarian of Congress, 1898, 15. 18. Frederick R. Goff, "John Boyd Thacher." Gralier 75, A Biographical Retroepective to

Celebrate the Seventy-Fifth Anniversa11j of the GraZier Club in New York ([New York, 1959]),39. 19. Goff, 41. 20. From a note in Thacher's copy of Santander's Dictionnaire bibliographique choisi du

quinziemesiecle, v.I., as quoted in Frederick W. Ashley's introduction to U.S. Library of Congress.

INCUNABULA COLLECTIONS AT THE LIBHARY OF CONGRESS 99

Ca/aloglle of the joh" Boyd TIIIlc/wr Collertimi of Il/elHU/lm/a (\Vashington: Library of Congress, 1915). 12.

2 I. For example: Thache r 507 (GolT C533) lind Thache r 766 (GoITT355). 22. U.S. Lihnu)' of' COll~ress. AII/wal Report of the Uvmri(11I of Clmgress. 1910. 23. 23. Washill!!.to/l Post (March 10. 1927).20. 24 . U.S. Library ofCon);ress. "Annnal Heport of the Supe rintendent of Library BUildings. 1934."

4. Photocopy of typescript in Hare Book and Special Collections Division, Tha.cher file. 25. U.S. Library of Congress, Cala/oglw oj the john Boyd Thacher Collection of InCU1lObuia ,

e01l1pilecJ by Frederick W . Ashley (\Vashington: Lihrary of Congress. 1915). 26, U.S. Congress. Statllt('s fit Large. 43 Stat. 1107. 27. U.S. Library of Congress. Ubm11j of C()flgress: Some Nutable Items That It H(Js, Some

Exalllples of Many Dillen; That It Ne('(/.\' (\Vashington. 1926), 2H, "Huntington Lihrary Collections." Huutillgt(H) Library Bulletin . no, 1 (May 1931): 83. 29, E . PUlIl Saunders, "Dr. Vollhehr Pllts 'Incunabula' into American Public's Vocabulary," The

Naticm's Capital Ma{!.a::.illl' 1. no.o (May 1931): 4l. 30, Edwin Emerson, itlclltwlm{um lu c" uwIJUionl1l1: 1'Ju: Gutellberg Bible 011 Vellum in the

VoU/}ehr Colll'cfioll (Nt!w York: Tudor Press. 192H). .'31 , U,S. Congress. C't mgn'ssimw{ Record. 71st Cong.. 2nd Scss .. 1930. v.72. pt.3. p.325 1-3257

Wc hruary 7. W30). 32, SIlUIH:lPTS , "Dr, Vollhchr," 13, 33, Sallnders. "Dr. VolIJwhr." 34. E. Palll Sallndprs , "Tht. Vollhehr Collection," Saturdalj Review of Litemtllre 6 (March 15.

1930): 832. 35. U.S. Congress. Senate. Pu rc/w.m of the Vollbehr Collection of lncwwbllla , 71st Cong., 2nd

Sess .. S. Rep!. 965. 1'.2. 36. U.S. Librnry of Congress. Exhibit oj Books Prillted Durillg the XVih Centun) and Known as

InCtllWbllla Seiecte(lfrol7l the VolibehrCollectioti Purchased by Act of Congress 1930: List o/Books (Wa.,hington. 1930). iii.

37. From c'O!'y of u le tter from V. Valta Parma to Edgar A. Weber. dated August 14. 1937. Rare Book nnd Spc:cial Collections Division Special File, "Vollhehr."

38. Burton H

100 RARE BOOKS & MANUSCRIPTS L1BRARIANSHIP

47. U.S. Library of Congress, Annual Report, 58. 48. Lessing J. Rosenwald, Recollections of a Collector lJenkintown, Penna., 1976), 131. 49. Bibliography and Study of 15th-Centun] Civilisation, ed. L. Hellinga and J. Goldfinch

(London: British Library, 1987).

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