eBLJ 2017

The Journal is published continuously throughout the year, with one volume per year. Articles undergo production as soon as they are ready, to ensure minimal delays in publication.

Collection Details

Creator (organisation)

British Library

ISNI

Language

English

Related collection

Electronic British Library Journal

Now showing 1 - 10 of 11

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Reflections on 'The Annotated Amleth: Belleforest in the British Library': The Identity of the Annotator
(2017)
Casson, John
This study discusses the authorship of the manuscript annotations in the BL copy of François de Belleforest's Le Cinquiesme Livre des Histoires Tragiques (C.8.a.5).
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The Incunabula of Sir Charles Frederick
(2017)
Rhodes, Dennis E.
This study identifies the twenty-two incunables collected by the politician and antiquary Sir Charles Frederick (1709-1785) and listed in the sales catalogue of his library.
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The Theodore Psalter and the Rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem
(2017)
Hennessy, Cecily
The Byzantine decorated psalters form a particularly rich source of knowledge about cultural life. One such manuscript is the Theodore Psalter (London, BL Add. MS 19352), which was made in Constantinople in 1066. It is one of a group of psalters that have been studied in various contexts, including that of the depiction of sites in the Holy Land. Previous studies have not noted, however, that two illustrations in this manuscript appear to mark a highly important contemporary event: the rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
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A Collection of Georg Rhau's Music Editions and Some Previously Unnoticed Works
(2017)
Charteris, Richard
Georg Rhau (1488–1548) was an important figure in the Reformation, the beginning of which is celebrated in this quincentenary year. Rhau published for the famous German theologian, author and teacher Martin Luther (1483–1546) and his circle a substantial body of works, many of which enjoyed considerable popularity. A close friend of Luther and other Reformation leaders, Rhau was based in Wittenberg and his publications played a central role in the foundation of Lutheranism. The dimensions of Rhau’s achievements can be determined from the materials in the British Library, which owns a broad cross section of his published works dealing with religious subjects and music. In particular, his music editions in the British Library encompass all the genres used by Luther and his followers and represent a significant repository of compositions used in Lutheran institutions. The works are scored for voices and were composed by a variety of early musicians, several of whom achieved much fame during their lifetimes and whose music continues to be performed, including that of the first Lutheran Kantor Johann Walther (1496–1570). Until now it has not been realised that Rhau’s British Library music editions contain invaluable new material, such as: thirty-five previously unnoticed printed hymn settings which have long been concealed in an unrelated edition and date from the early 1540s; many sixteenth-century handwritten extra verses, scattered throughout various editions, which transform specific through-composed printed hymns into strophic settings; and handwritten annotations in a number of partbooks from five editions, now distributed among seven shelfmarks, which reveal that they were once owned by the eminent German musicologist and Lutheran scholar Otto Kade (1819–1900). The discoveries enhance the importance of the collection and emphasize the vital role of hymns in early Lutheran Churches and Schools.
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The Riverside Mansions and Tombs of Agra: New Evidence from a Panoramic Scroll Recently Acquired by The British Library
(2017)
Koch, Ebba
;
Losty, J. P.
The riverfront at Agra once formed one of the great sights of Mughal India. As well as the fort and the Taj Mahal, both banks of the River Yamuna were lined with great mansions, palatial garden houses and imperial gardens. When the Mughal capital was moved the Delhi in 1648, the city decayed and it was repeatedly sacked in the course of the eighteenth century. A panoramic scroll over seven metres in length recently acquired by the British Library shows the buildings and gardens on each side of the River Yamuna at Agra as it appeared about 1830. The authors analyse the scroll in detail for its evidence in putting together the complex topographic history of the city.
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St Edward’s Chair in the Queen Mary Psalter
(2017)
Smith, Kathryn A.
The Queen Mary Psalter (British Library, Royal MS. 2 B. VII), probably made c. 1310-20 for a royal recipient, is among the most lavishly illuminated manuscripts produced in late medieval England. This study focuses principally on a single picture in the Psalter’s Old Testament preface showing the prophet Nathan’s reproof of a repentant King David, and it identifies in that picture what is ostensibly the earliest surviving depiction of St Edward’s Chair, now commonly known as the Coronation Chair, made at the end of the thirteenth century on the order of Edward I. The drawing and its Anglo-Norman French caption are examined for the evidence they offer concerning a range of artistic and political issues, among them the chair’s possible use in the coronation of Edward II in 1308. This study then widens its focus to consider the depiction in the preface of a second artifact associated with the coronation rite: the dove-topped rod or virga, held by the Egyptian pharaoh in a scene in the Joseph story. The essay concludes with speculations concerning the messages that these two topical treatments of biblical history might have conveyed to their presumed royal reader-viewer(s) about the nature and limits of royal authority.
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'I am sending herewith' – First World War Ephemera at the British Library
(2017)
Foster, Ann-Marie
This article explores two guard books containing First World War ephemera (shelfmark Tab.11748.aa.4) held at the British Library that were catalogued as part of a PhD placement during the summer of 2016. It examines the acquisition of ephemera during the war, what the collection held at the British Library comprises of, and offers some comments as to why the items preserved are of scholarly interest.
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An Overlooked Connection of Anne Boleyn's Maid of Honour, Elizabeth Holland, with BL, King's MS. 9
(2017)
Zupanec, Sylwia Sobczak
BL, King's MS. 9 is one of only three Books of Hours with a connection to Henry VIII's second wife, the controversial Anne Boleyn. This prayer book provides an intimate insight into Henry VIII's courtship of Anne, but its historical significance does not end here. It has been hitherto overlooked by historians that the BL, King's MS. 9 was also owned by one of Anne Boleyn's maids of honour, Elizabeth Holland, and her husband, Henry Reppes. This paper delves into this overlooked connection and provides information on Elizabeth Holland's royal service, marriage and tragic death.
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Nautical Charts, Texts, and Transmission: The Case of Conte di Ottomano Freducci and Fra Mauro
(2017)
Duzer, Chet Van
The article addresses an unstudied nautical chart made by Conte di Ottomano Freducci in 1529 (British Library Add. MS. 11548) which is unusual for its long and non-traditional legends (descriptive texts). Following a discussion of what we know about Freducci and a survey of all his surviving works, I supply a full transcription, translation, and study of the legends on this chart, and compare them as far as possible with those on the other two charts by Freducci that have very similar long legends (Lucca, Biblioteca Statale, MS. 2720, and a chart sold at Christie’s on 20 May 1998). Study of these legends reveals that some of the information in them came from the maps and notes of Fra Mauro, the Venetian cartographer who was active almost a hundred years before Freducci made these charts. While Freducci was willing to set aside traditional nautical chart legends, instead of composing legends with information about new discoveries, he wrote texts with recondite pieces of information culled from older sources, including Fra Mauro, probably in part out of respect for Fra Mauro’s cartographic work. The appearance of information from Fra Mauro is also discussed in maps by Angelo Freducci, son of Conte di Ottomano Freducci, and in a map by Giorgio Calapoda made in 1541. I also argue that a nautical chart in the Vatican (BAV Borgiano V), which is known to have legends similar to those on Fra Mauro’s mappamundi and had been attributed to Fra Mauro’s workshop, was actually made by Conte di Ottomano Freducci. The article allows us a glimpse into the world of early sixteenth-century chartmaking, and into the life of a cartographer about whom we otherwise know almost nothing.
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Willie King: One of Angus Wilson's 'Old Men at the Zoo'
(2017)
Wright, C. J.
From 1937 until 1955, when he left to write full-time, Angus Wilson worked in the Department of Printed Books at the British Museum. His 1961 novel, The Old Men at the Zoo, was a roman à clef based on many of the people he had known there. The character of Matthew Price, the Curator of Birds in the book, was modelled on Willie King, a ceramics expert in the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities. As well as being a distinguished scholar, King together with his wife, Viva, were colourful characters who occupied a prominent place in the bohemian society of their day. This article explores the circle in which they mixed and the consequences of their enduring friendship with Angus Wilson.
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eBLJ 2017

eBLJ 2017

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