A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies

e Bibliography o

ontain the first bibliography of bibliographies. Here we find a list of nine me

then letters. Among the Greeks some have done the same thing: Hermippus Peripateticus,[2] Antigonus Carystius,[3] the learned Satyrus,[4] and Aristoxenus, the m

ery useful, and then concludes with an allusion to Cicero, whom few would now think of as a bibliogr

Roman eloquence, has not disdained to compile a list of orators in the Latin language in his Brutus,

can infer that St. Jerome saw a common element in the works of all these men. This common element is the idea of a list or bibliography. Had he cited only writers of general biobibliographies, we might imagine that he thought of them as his

tions, put it in alphabetical order. He could not find a proper place for it in his own bibliography of bibliographies, the Bibliotheca bibliothecarum of 1664, and buried it without any apparent reason immediately af

arystius, Aristoxenus, Artemon of Magnesia,[12] the Carthaginian Charon,[13] Clearchus of Soli,[14] Hermippus of Smyrna, Satyrus, Timagenes of

rome had done, in the introduction and failed to find any other logical place for it. St. Jerome's list obviously interested Labbé, for he quoted it again in the article "Sanctus Hieron

t did not set anyone to writing bibliographies of bibliographies, and no example has been reported in

ome related matters. Pars i, "Greek and Latin Writers of Miscellanies and of Books Containing Critical Comments on More than One Author," is well described by its title. Gesner divides it into two parts: "Greek Miscellanies," including such works as Aelian, Varia historia;[19] Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae;[20] Clement of Alexandria, Stromata;[21] and Johannes Tzetzes, Historia varia.[22] Books of this sort were reference works consulted for information on almost any subject. To this alphabetical list Gesner adds three titles: the accounts of marvels found in various works by Aris

tely printed treatise can be easily found but the information in a miscellany is likely to be overlooked.[25] He then names some fifteen Latin miscellanies of various dates according to the first names of the authors. Among them are the writings of Angelo Poliziano, Aulus Gellius, the Adagia of Erasmus, the Varia of Cassiodorus, the Saturnalia of Macr

oncerned with the words and deeds of famous men will be found in Caelius Rhodiginus,[28] and epistolographers, who may be thought of as authors of books of a miscellaneous character, will be found in a later section.[29] In a subdivision indicated by a paragra

o Landi, d. 1562), Epiphyllides[30] and including the manuscript notes of his contemporary, the Neapolitan grammarian, L. J. Scoppa. Since the Epiphyllides does not seem to have been printed and a contemporar

bout page numbers and chapter numbers.[31] A paragraph sign sets off a list of indexes to various books, chiefly editions of the classics and Biblical or patristic writings. This list would have been very useful to H. B. Wheatley in writing What i

rs vi lists some forty collections of commonplaces (fols. 27b-28a). Among them are Antonius Corvinus's arrangement of Erasmus's Apophthegmata in commonplaces,[34] Stobaeus, Thomas Hibernicus,[35] Maximus Planudes (who expurgated and arranged the Greek Anth

liographical history. It is entitled Bibliographies, i.e. alphabetical list of catalogues of books, the classification of books, the care of them, mottoes, and the buildings.[37] This titl

libraries. He carefully separates these notes from the following bibliography of

] Amphicrates de viris illustrib. scripsit, Athenaeo tes

ome and the continuations into a single volume; and Sophronius, who translated it into Greek. He cites contemporary legal bibliographies, one by Bernardinus Rutilius (Bernardino Rutilio, 1504-1538), who dealt with men of his own time, and another by Johannes Fichardus (Johann Fichard, 1512-1581), the often published Juris consultorum vitae veterum quidem,

bably lost. He has commented occasionally on the quality of a book or has told how it was arranged. For example, he says that Rueff's astrological bibliography contains pictures of men and instruments and comments in German verse. He does not give the dates and places of publication, but bibliographers have been slow to learn the importance of citing these details. No doubt he expec

bviously regards such works as collections of odds and ends and therefore akin to miscellanies. He says, for example, that geographers tell strange tales about the shapes and manners of men and the nature of countries, skies, and seas. He could, he says, have given here references to ancient statues and inscriptions, but has preferred to classify them under history. Poetry and inven

cially, why his bibliography of bibliographies has not been noticed. Even A. G. S. Josephson, who had a very sharp eye for bibliographies of bibliographies concealed as chapters in subject indexes, did not come upon Gesner's work. Josephson's study will be mentioned in its proper place at the end of this essay. Gesner's subject bibliography w

tute a biobibliographical dictionary. The Pandectae and the Partitiones are a subject index that lacks a promised section on medicine. The dictionary and the index have no close relations to each other, except to the degree that the dictionary gives additional information about books cited by authors' names in the index. In

mphasis lies on contemporary works. Although he mentions the medieval continuators of St. Jerome, he does not mention St. Jerome himself. Inasmuch as these continuators were brought together in Johannes Tritheim, De viris illustribus, which he cites,[42] he could have dispensed with them. He begins with Antoine du Verdier's supplement (1585) to Gesner's Bibliotheca universalis and then mentions Apollodorus, whose Bibliotheca was still unpublished. Apollodorus and Claudius Ptolemy, Sententiae (also unpublished) are the only two bibliographers of classical times that he names. Spach knows general works like Conrad Gesner's Bibliotheca, Robert Constantin's compilation (1555)

ary,[47] a famous catalogue of Greek manuscripts at Augsburg.[48] Titles such as Wolfgang Lazius, Catalogus partim suorum, partim aliorum scriptorum[49] do not indicate clearly the contents of the book. Spach has thrown his net wide and has caught some fish that we can not call bibliographies. Nevertheless, all the works that he cites deal with books, and we shall not quarrel with him for including treatises on the Frankfurt book fair or the Vatican library. Two titles show how widely he ranged in the search for materials. John Boston's fourteenth-c

the latter half of the century. When taken in conjunction with Gesner's earlier bibliography, which reviewed classic

y, history, and philosophy between 1614 and 1622, publishing in the latter year a supplement to his theological bibliography. Petzholdt rightly commends (pp. 458-459) the Bibliotheca philosophica as superior to Spach's Nomenclator but curiously fails to see that Bolduan's notion of philosophy was in general use in the first half of the seventeenth century. A bibliotheca philosophica of that time would include as a matter of course everythi

naries of various subjects and the religious orders. Like Spach, whose list he seems to have taken over completely, he has heard of John Boston's catalogue and, like Spach, is ignorant of the author's first name and is compelled to cite it under "Bostonus." He corrects Spach's misspelling of Muzio Pansa's name. He does not, however, include any classical Greek or Latin bibliographers. We can therefore infer that he did not find Gesner's bibliography of bibliographies, where they were mentioned. He might have omitted them o

s, therefore, the first classified bibliography of bibliographies. Except in five instances with such headings as "De Bibliothecis" and "De Vitis & Scriptoribus Ord. S. Dominici," the subjects are to be inferred from the typographical arrangement. Although he has not completely worked out a scheme of organization, he progresses from general works on libraries and books to special bibliographies of theology, law, and medicine. He is less careful than Spach and Bolduan about the bibliographical details of place and date of publication, but the need for this information was just beginning to be recognized at the time when he wrote. He adheres

and his successors. Instructive technical developments are evident in these first four compilations. Gesner cites both classical Greek and Latin works and contemporary bibliographies. Spach, Bolduan, and Sweerts adopt the modern practice of preferring to list bibliographies of contemporary usefulness. Gesner, Spach, and Bolduan do not separate their work from the larger task of writing a general subject index. Sweerts