When soldiers retired from the Roman Imperial army, they were issued diplomas guaranteeing their status as veterans. These engraved bronze tablets were presented to them at their dismissal. This tablet, issued to a veteran from Skopje (Yugoslavia) in March 204, is inscribed on both sides, the text appearing once in capital script and once in cursive.

The Provincial Prior of the Dominicans in England writes to the Abbot of Malmesbury, excusing the abbot, on account of his infirmities, the masses, prayers, sermons, fasting, and vigils of the order. Written during the War of the Roses, the letter employs a gothic hand which became popular in the latter half of the thirteenth century and is a rare example of a dated illuminated manuscript.

This Latin and Italian manuscript, which combines a number of classical and humanistic works, must have been assembled by a Florentine humanist in the 1460s. The volume includes poems by Persius and Ovid, accompanied by humanist commentaries, as well as works by Petrarch, Niccolo Perotti, Poggio, and Bruni. The most remarkable work in the volume is Brunellescho's Geta e Birria, an Italian translation of a twelfth-century Latin comedy by Vitalis de Blois. The medieval Latin play, a remaking of Plautus's Amphytrio, ridiculed the scholastic philosophy of the schools of Paris. Brunellescho's Italian translation of the work was an important step in the dissemination of Plautus in the Renaissance and had a considerable impact on the development of Italian drama of the period.

This is the only known complete copy of this collection of 117 dance songs written by Lorenzo de' Medici and members of his inner circle of literary friends for performance at the Medicean court festivals and Carneval celebrations. The popular fame of Lorenzo "il Magnifico" was based to a large extent on the cultural splendor of his reign, including the public performances he supported of poetry, music, and dance. The pieces included in the present volume, widely disseminated in the sixteenth century, influenced popular dance and song throughout Italy. Since all subsequent printings of these songs are reprints of this edition, the volume has extraordinary textual importance.

The significance of this copy is even further amplified by the manuscript annotations added in the margins in a mid-sixteenth-century hand. The author of these annotations records that they are based on a manuscript that belonged to Baccio Ugolini, a friend of Lorenzo and of Poliziano, and a participant in some of the contemporary theatrical performances of Poliziano's works. The annotations record variant readings and supply, as well, a verse missing in all printed versions of the work.

More than a decade ago Axel Erdmann, proprietor of Gilhofer & Ranschburg in Lucerne, began collecting sixteenth-century books written by, for, or about women. His principal aim was to document the presence of women in sixteenth-century printing--as writers, readers, printers, illustrators, and publishers of books. He included within his scope as broad a range of European printing as possible, geographically, religiously, and intellectually. The collection eventually numbered 138 items and encompassed such subjects as law, medicine, pedagogy, literary criticism, poetry, epistolography, oratory, religion, design and fashion, prostitution, witchcraft, and cosmetics. The writings of more than forty women of the sixteenth century are represented, including some of the best known of the period: Laura Terracina, Tullia d'Aragona, Vittoria Colonna, Isabella Cortese, and the Madames des Roches.

Among the highlights of the collection are François Rousset's New Treatise on Cesarian Births (Paris, 1581); Jean Baptiste de Glen's Duties of Young Ladies (Liége, 1597), which includes a suite of plates illustrating lace patterns; Jost Amman's The Women's Closet (Frankfurt, 1586), the first book devoted to women's fashion; The Pharmacy of Women and Children (Strassburg, ca. 1535), a practical guide for future mothers, midwives, and wet-nurses; three of the misogynist satires of Hans Sachs (Nuremberg, 1553 and 1554); Jean Bodin's On the Devilry of Sorcerers (Paris, 1580) as well as treatises by Gödelmann, Spina, and Weyer on witches; Johannes Stradanus' Silk Worm (Antwerp, ca. 1590), a collection of engravings illustrating the manufacture of silk; Isabella Cortese's Secrets (Venice, 1595), the first printed work on cosmetics by a woman; and the complete printed works of Madeleine and Cathérine des Roches (Paris, 1579, 1583, 1586).

Another major focus of the collection is women in the printing business. Books printed by women in Antwerp, Lyons, Paris, Nuremberg, Rome, and Venice are included.

The Erdmann collection is described in an extensive catalog that includes commentary on each of the books and numerous bibliographies, including lists of women writers and printers of the sixteenth century. The collection was acquired in its entirety by the Beinecke Library in 1998.

I Suppositi. Florence, ca. 1509.

Ariosto's two earliest dramas, the Chassaria and I Suppositi, were composed in 1507 and 1508 for performance at the court in Ferrara. The staging of these plays is considered by some scholars to constitute the beginning of Italian Renaissance drama. For the early productions, elaborate stage designs were prepared by Pellegrino and Raffael. Actors in the plays stole copies of the text and had them published in Florence in 1509, against the wishes of the author. Ariosto did not authorize editions of the plays until the 1520s, and unlike the later authorized editions, these early versions are in prose. They are of the greatest rarity; there are no other copies in North America.

Minizio Calvo, among the most cultured and learned printers of the early sixteenth century, had personal contacts with the leading literati of the day, including Erasmus, Amerbach, Froben, Grolier, Amaseo, Alciati, and Giovio. He printed more than 160 editions during his career in Rome between 1521 and 1535. Among the few vernacular works he published were a series of seven separately printed Italian comedies, produced in identical format, in 1524 and 1525. The plays, most of them first editions, are among the most important Italian plays of the Renaissance: the anonymous Aristippia, the Cassaria and Suppositi of Ariosto, the Mandragola of Machiavelli, the Calandra of Bibbiena, the Eutychia of Niccolò Grasso, and the Formicone of Publio Filippo. All seven are present in the two newly acquired volumes, one of the volumes preserving its original Roman binding of the 1520s with the name of the original purchaser, Antonio Camillo, stamped on the cover.

Giambologna's Rape of the Sabine Women, unveiled in the Loggia dei Lanzi in 1583, is a landmark of Mannerist sculpture. The composition, which resolves the problem of relating three figures in violent activity, requires viewing in the round for complete comprehension. This collection of verses praising the statue was published shortly after the unveiling and includes woodcuts showing the sculpture from both sides as well as in its placement in the Loggia, along with Michaelangelo's David, Donatello's Judith, Bandinello's Hercules and Cacus, and Ammannati's Neptune.

Bertelli's costume book, present here in its first edition, is one of the rarest of the sixteenth-century collections of fashion designs. Unlike other contemporary costume books, Bertelli's provides plates in paired sets, showing either male and female costumes from the same social strata, or town and country costumes from the same regions. Another innovation is the use of moveable flaps on some of the engravings, a sixteenth-century forerunner of pop-up books. One of the engravings so treated shows the Venetian courtesan, whose dress one may lift in order to view her hidden secrets.

This manuscript inventory of a great country house describes the contents of 94 rooms, ranging from the Great Chamber and the Long Gallery to various offices and servants' quarters. Fourteen vellum skins were joined together to form a roll, approximately 25 feet in length. Compiled at the death of Robert, 3rd Lord Peter, on behalf of his widow, the inventory documents a great house at a time of rapid social and cultural change.

One of the interesting consequences of the Counter-Reformation in 17th-century Italy was the development of theatrical activities in schools and seminaries under the impulse of the Jesuits, gradually followed by other religious orders. This development is documented by a collection of 18 scenarios dating from 1619 to 1730. Religious themes dominate the earlier plays, some of which are celebrations of the local martyr or protector, such as S. Virgilio (Trento, 1629) and Santo Alessandro (Bergamo, 1619), whereas many of the later ones are purely profane comedies, such as L'inganno della fantasia (Rome 1696) and I litiganti (Rome, 1697), adaptations of Moliére's Le malade imaginaire and Racine's Les plaideurs respectively. Other themes include mythology--Minerva sotto la persona di Mentore, a cantata for which date and location are unknown--, ancient history--Agrippa (Rome, 1697, after Josephus), Piero Corsetto's Constantino (Palermo, 1653)--, or medieval history--Luigi Altoviti's La Svevia, performed in Rome in 1629 during the carnival, or Eraclio (Bologna, 1672, probably after Corneille's 1664 tragedy).

These printed scenarios are of the greatest rarity--most of them totally unrecorded and unknown to most bibliographers. Some contain indications revealing an elaborate scenography, such as La Teodelinda (Parma, 1690). Others include information on the music and danced intermezzi interspersed in some plays: the choreographer's name is occasionally given, as in I litiganti (Gabriele Dalmazzo) and in L'Evilmero, a distant forerunner of Verdi's Nabucco, performed at the Jesuit Collegio imperiale of Palermo in 1730, to music by Giovanni Statella and choreography by Gianandrea Mongiardino.

Birken was the third member of the Shepherds of the Pegnitz, a poetry society founded in 1644 by Georg Philipp Harsdörffer in Nürnberg and named for the river that flows through that city. This volume brings together many of Birken's previously published works, including pastoral poems, occasional poetry, a few prose pieces, and three pattern poems (a book, a wreath, and a scale). In later life, Birken turned more to scholarship, producing several genealogies of prominent families.

Manuscript accounts of Sir Edmund Andros as governor of New York, 1682. Notarial accounts of the town of Jamaica, Queens, N.Y., 1660-1840.

Appointed governor of the province of New York by James, Duke of York, in 1674, Andros remained in this position until 1681, when he was recalled to England. Upon the accession of James II, he became governor of the dominion of New England, where his unpopularity led to his removal and a near-trial. He was more successful as governor of Virginia between 1692 and 1698 and governor of Jersey between 1704 and 1706. The present accounts, covering his New York tenure, were written in October 1682.

The first volume of the notarial accounts of Jamaica begins shortly after the first English settlers moved in from Massachusetts and Eastern Long Island and secured a pattern from the Dutch authorities. By the time the English took control in 1683, the small town was the seat of Queen's county and housed the court and the office of the county clerk. The second volume covers the years 1706-1749. The third volume opens in 1752, stops in 1758, resumes in 1772 (apart for a few entries for 1763) and stops again in 1778 to resume in 1785--an interruption that corresponds roughly to the occupation by British troops. The rest of the volume records the town's incorporation in 1814 and the building of the Long Island Rail Road in 1836, and stops in 1844.

This gift of 13 titles hitherto not at Yale was made in connection with the international conference on Françoise d'Happencourt de Graffigny which took place here in early April, sponsored by the Department of French, the Beinecke Library, and the Lewis Walpole Library. The collection comprises Graffigny's first appearance in print, the anonymous Recueil de ces messieurs (Amsterdam [i.e. Paris] 1745), to which she contributed an "histoire espagnole" entitled "Le mauvais example produit autant de vertus que de vices"; two of the nine 1747 printings (one of them possibly the first) of her immensely successful epistolary novel, Lettres d'une Péruvienne, both bound with the earliest of three apocryphal continuations; two English editions of the Peruvian Letters (1768 and 1782, the latter with illustrations by Thomas Stothard); and several bilingual French-Italian editions published between 1777 and 1833: this use of a best-seller as an instructional linguistic tool has been compared to that of Albert Camus's L'étranger in American schools and universities in the second half of this century.

Sonette. Berlin, 1853.

The philologist, diplomat, and educational reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt was a lifelong friend of Goethe and Schiller. In his essay about Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, Humboldt endeavors to define the general character of epic poetry while describing Goethe's particular genius. The autograph initials A.v.H. on the front flyleaf may be those of the author's younger brother, the scientist and traveler Alexander von Humboldt.

Wilhelm von Humboldt's sonnets were gathered and published after his death by his brother Alexander, who, in his introduction, notes that the 352 poems were the product of the last few years of Wilhelm's life. The volume includes an engraved portrait.

A collection of song texts compiled by Goethe's composer friend Zelter for the use of the Berlin choral society he founded in 1809. Zelter issued three editions of the collection during his lifetime, each an expanded version of its predecessor. This is the middle edition and contains the first printing of three texts by Goethe as well as poems by Brentano, Novalis, Tieck, and Uhland, among many more.

This anonymously published pamphlet is a typical Beckfordian jeu d'esprit. It consists of 24 verse epitaphs purportedly collected, as stated in the short preface signed "Viator," from church-yard tombstones during rambles in the neighborhood of Bath. It is, however, highly likely that some, if not most of them, are of Beckford's own invention. The rarest item in the Beckford bibliography, this pamphlet was hitherto recorded in two copies, one in the Dyce Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and one in the Beckford papers. This copy belonged to Lady Lincoln, Beckford's granddaughter, and bears the contemporary bookplate of Mannington Hall, seat of Lord Walpole. It came with a copy of Vathek (London, 1837), also presented by Beckford to Lady Lincoln.

Typical of its time and genre, this literary almanach for women readers contains a mixture of fiction, historical narrative, and poetry, illustrated at the front with a suite of engravings. The unusual paper slipcase is printed with an Escher-like geometric design.

California: San Francisco views, dry dock at Hunters' Point, wharves and monitor, landscape views, coast range, valley lands and foothills, and Sierra Nevada. This selection of Houseworth & Co.'s Photographic Views to John Prince Smith, Dedicated by Edward Vischer. [San Francisco: Houseworth & Co., ca. 1870].

An album of 183 albumen photographic prints; 9.5 x 11 cm. and smaller. Manuscript captions on mounts, with manuscript numbers on the prints.

Thomas Houseworth (1829-1915) established his San Francisco photographic studio in the mid-1860s. Photographers who worked for him include George Fiske, Charles L. Weed, and Martin M. Hazeltine. John Prince-Smith was a German political economist, the founder and leader of the German Free Trade Party. Edward Vischer, who appears to have been responsible for creating this unique presentation album, was a pioneer California merchant, artist, and author who published several works depicting the redwood forests, the Yosemite Valley, and the Spanish missions.

The 183 photographs in the present album depict early San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton, the dry dock at Hunter's Point, the iron-clad monitor Comanche, and the sinking of the Aquila carrying the Comanche, the Mendocino lumber region, geysers in Sonoma County, the Calaveras mammoth tree groves, the Yosemite Valley, scenes in the Sierra Nevada, including Lake Tahoe, and views of the Central Pacific Railroad.

Donald Gallup has given the Beinecke Library the first three T. S. Eliot titles, the third in two states:

Prufrock and Other Observations. London: The Egoist, Ltd, 1917. First edition in original wrappers; in case. Gallup A1. Author's presentation copy to Susan Jepson, inscribed by him on the half-title: "Susan Jepson / One of twenty five numbered / copies of which this is / No 3 / Justification de tirage / TSE." Frieda (Susan) Holmes Jepson was the wife of Edgar Jepson and, with Eliot, a member of the New Georgians and other literary clubs.

Ezra Pound His Metric and Poetry. New York: Knopf, 1917 [i.e. 1918]. First edition; original boards in (original) plain dust-jacket. Gallup A2.

Poems. Richmond: Hogarth Press, 1919. First edition, first state, with misprints on p. [13]. Original wallpaper wrappers with label printed in red; in case. Gallup A3.

Poems. Richmond: Hogarth Press, 1919. First edition, second state, with corrected text on p. [13]. Original wallpaper wrappers, with label printed in black; in case with first state. Gallup A3.

Born in Russia in 1882, Marie Scheikevitch was the daughter of a prosperous lawyer (the King of Saxony stayed with them when attending the coronation of Nicholas II) who settled in Paris at the end of the nineteenth century. She was unhappily married for a short while to the son of the fashionable painter Carolus-Duran, who took her under his wing and introduced her to the artistic and literary circles of the day. From 1912 onwards, she was close to Marcel Proust, and when Du côté de chez Swann appeared in 1913, she was able to arrange, through her friend Adrien Hébrard, director of the daily Le Temps, an exclusive interview with Proust, whose subsequent letters to her contain some of the most revealing comments he made on his own work. In 1935, she published an autobiography, Souvenirs d'un temps disparu, which contains an important memoir of Proust. She died in the mid-1960s.

The papers consist in about 1,000 letters from a large number of correspondents. Those from Proust, which have long been known, are no longer in the collection, but the list of distinguished names includes, from the world of literature, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Maurice Barrès, Jean Cocteau, Georges Feydeau, Anatole France, Fran ois Mauriac, André Maurois, Henry de Montherlant, Paul Morand, Anna de Noailles, and Henri de Régnier; from the world of the arts, Sarah Bernhardt, Jacques-Émile Blanche, Gustave Charpentier, Gabriel Fauré, Reynaldo Hahn, and Jules Massenet; and from the world of politics, Louis Barthou, Léon Blum, Paul Boncour, Aristide Briand, and Paul Painlevé.

The archive also includes Marie Scheikevitch's writings, especially a long diary which covers most of her life, with interruptions that seem to correspond to periods of depression, as well as texts of unpublished public or radio talks she gave on personalities she knew: Proust, Cocteau, Sarah Bernhardt, Lord Balfour, and Boni de Castellane, among others.

William Shakespeare. Timon of Athens. London, 1914.

In October-December 1912, Wyndham Lewis exhibited at the Grafton Galleries in London a series of drawings depicting various scenes from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, intended for an illustrated edition of the play to be published by Max Goschen to coincide with the show. Difficulties and delays intervened and the book never came out. The drawings were eventually published separately as a portfolio, which Goschen issued in a limited edition in December 1913 under the imprint "The Cube Press" (of which this is the sole occurrence): the portfolio was, in fact, Lewis's first separate publication.

What was hitherto unknown is that a maquette of the book, with the printed text of the play and all the illustrations in place, had actually been printed. This unrecorded item, containing captions and notes in Lewis's hand concerning the printing and placement of the illustrations, passed into the possession of Ezra Pound, who sold it to John Quinn in 1917. The front wrapper bears a presentation inscription from Pound to Quinn which states: "So far as I know this is the unique copy of the Timon text printed with the designs."

Igor Terent'ev. IU: Rekord niezhnosti. Tiflis, 1919.

Le frére mendiant, o, Libro del conocimientolos viajes en Africa publicados antiguamente por Bergeron, Margry y Jimenez de la Espada e illustrados ahora y compaginados por Pablo Picasso e Iliazd. Paris, 1959.

The first book is one of the earliest publications bearing the "Degree 41" imprint which made Iliazd famous as one of the century's greatest modernist artists of the book. "Rekord niezhnosti" can be rendered as "affectionate reminiscences": it is portrait of Iliazd by his friend Terent'ev, illustrated with tiny vignettes by Iliazd's brother Kirill Zdanevich.

The second book combines two distinct texts: the African portion of a travel narrative by a 14th-century Franciscan, preceded by a fragment from Bontier's and Le Verrier's account of Jean de Bethencourt's voyage to the Canary Islands in 1402. It is a fine example of Iliazd's typographic virtuosity and is illustrated with sixteen drypoint etchings by Picasso, including eight double pages, one of which is also printed on the cover.

Paul Zech (1881-1946) worked in the theater before emigrating to South America in 1933. The author of poems, fiction, and plays, Zech wrote two other, biographical books about Rilke, whom he greatly admired. This lyrical eulogy, published in the year after Rilke's death, was hand printed at the Officina Serpentis.

Hans Carossa (1878-1956) was a writer and medical doctor who belonged what the Germans call the "inner emigration," people who opposed National Socialism but chose silence instead of emigration or open dissent during the Nazi period. Most of his novels and shorter fiction are autobiographical in character. The three limited edition pamphlets displayed today are all signed by the author. The best known of the three is the long poem Verse an das Abendland, which circulated secretly in manuscript copies during the war.

The collection consists of first editions of all her novels, from Under the Net (London, 1954) to Jackson's Dilemma (London, 1959, signed copy), including a presentation copy of A Severed Head (London, 1961) and limited, signed printings of The Good Apprentice (London, 1985) and The Message to the Planet (London, 1989).

Presumptions of Death. Woodcuts by Leonard Baskin. Rockport, Maine: Gehenna Press, 1995. Number 23 of 50, signed by poet and artist.

Flight among the Tombs. Wood engravings by Leonard Baskin. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996. Signed by the author.

Gehenna Florilegium. Poems by Anthony Hecht. Woodcuts by Leonard Baskin. Rockport, Maine: Gehenna Press, 1998. Copy 19 of 50.

Bestiary. Lithographs by Aubrey Schwartz. Poetry by Anthony Hecht. Los Angeles: Kanthos Press, 1962.

Venetian Vespers. Etchings by Dimitri Hadzo. Boston: David Godine, 1979.

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