Journal of the History of Collections Advance Access originally published online on June 29, 2006
Journal of the History of Collections 2006 18(2):105-136; doi:10.1093/jhc/fhl011
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
Libraries, memory and the space of knowledge
This paper examines the claim current in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that a library housed in a single space with bookcases arrayed along the walls makes its contents immediately perceptible, as if to a single look of the eyes, and thus provides a general overview of knowledge. This overview was held to function as a memory aid, as were similar overviews, both metaphoric and diagrammatic, in early modern encyclopaedic texts. The argument is supported by close reading of primary source texts on libraries, consideration of encyclopaedic discourses on the nature of learning, and a new understanding of the ancient memory tradition's continuing relevance into the eighteenth century. Linked to order and memory, the display of books was central to the library's functionality not only in promoting retrieval of books but also by guiding scholars in their use.
1 For specific examples that support this overview see L. Buzas, German Library History, 800–1945, trans. W. D. Boyd (Jefferson, North Carolina, 1986), pp. 267–73; G. Leyh, ‘Aufstellung und Signaturen’, in G. Leyh (ed.), Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft (Wiesbaden, 1961), pp. 700–8. How smaller, especially private, libraries were housed and arranged is largely impossible to determine.
2 Buzas, op. cit. (note 1), p. 293; H. Kunoff, The Foundation of the German Academic Library (Chicago, 1982), p. 122; H. Zedelmaier, Bibliotheca universalis und Biliotheca selecta. Das Problem des gelehrten Wissens in der frühen Neuzeit (Cologne, 1992), pp. 117–8; M. V. Rovelstad, ‘Two seventeenth-century library handbooks: two different library theories’, Libraries and Culture 35/4 (2000), pp. 542, 549; C. Jolly, ‘Bâtiments, mobilier, decors’, in C. Jolly (ed.), Histoire des bibliothèques françaises, vol. II: Les bibliothèques sous l'ancien régime 1530–1789 (Paris, 1988), pp. 361–72; G. Leyh, ‘Das Haus und seine Einrichtung’, in Handbuch der Bibliothekswissenschaft, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 845–78. See also E. Garberson, Eighteenth-century Monastic Libraries: Architecture and Decorations (Baden-Baden, 1998), pp. 48–9, and pp. 2–5 for examples of art-historical scholarship. H. Petrosky, The Book on the Bookshelf (New York, 1999) offers few new insights. For the continuing dearth of studies on library architecture, see D. Varry, ‘L'histoire des bibliothèques en France. État de lieux’, Bulletin des Bibliothèques de France 50/2 (2005), p. 4.
3 J. Garrett, ‘Redefining order in the German library, 1775–1825’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 33 (1999), pp. 103–23. See also his ‘The legacy of the Baroque in representations of library space’, Library Quarterly 74/1 (2004), pp. 42–62; M. Foucault, The Order of Things (New York, 1970).
4 F. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago, 1966). More recent work on memory is introduced below.
5 Most notably L. Bolzoni, ‘Das Sammeln und die ars memoriae’, in A. Grote (ed.), Macrocosmos in Microcosmo: Die Welt in der Stube (Opladen, 1994), pp. 129–68; and ‘Arte della memoria e collezionismo’, in her Stanza della memoria (Turin, 1995), pp. 245–70; as well as the passing references in P. Findlen, ‘The modern muses: Renaissance collecting and the cult of remembrance’, in S. Crane (ed.), Museums and Memory (Stanford, 2000), p. 162; and J. C. Westerhoff, ‘A world of signs: Baroque pansemioticism, the Polyhistor, and the early modern Wunderkammer’, Journal of the History of Ideas 62/4 (2001), pp. 646–7. Two studies attempt to go beyond Yates: L. Schmitt, ‘Ordnung im Gedächtnis: Alternative Überlegungen zum funktionalen und theoretischen Kontext des frühneuzeitlichen Sammlungswesens im deutschsprachigen Raum’, in W. Reinink and J. Stumpel (eds.), Memory and Oblivion (Boston, 1999), pp. 183–90; and D. Meijers, ‘The places of painting: the survival of mnemotechnics in Christian von Mechel's gallery arrangement in Vienna (1778–81)’, in Reinink and Stumpel, op. cit., pp. 205–11.
6 In identifying these texts, I have drawn on my own earlier research in Garberson, op. cit. (note 2), and A. Serrai's ten-volume Storia della Bibliografia (Rome, 1984–99), which assembles a corpus of bibliographic texts, widely defined, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century. Whenever possible I have consulted original editions or reprints, as indicated in the notes. In most cases I cite the relevant volume of the Storia, because the originals are often not widely available, as a source for further literature, and for the often helpful commentary. While Alfredo Serrai is the series editor, each volume has its own editor, whom I credit as the author of the relevant commentary. To avoid confusion, however, I refer to the series as Serrai and give the appropriate volume number.
7 The best study of early modern texts on libraries is M. Palumbo, ‘Storia della biblioteconomia’, in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V (1993), pp. 13–21. She identifies an intimate relationship between biblioteconomia bibliographica and biblioteconomia bibliothecaria, beginning in the mid-sixteenth century and diverging in the early eighteenth century. This divergence occurred in the early nineteenth century, as I argue below. See also Buzas, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 244–55; and C. Jolly, ‘Naissance de la "science" des bibliothèques’, Jolly, in op. cit. (note 2), pp. 381–5; and the merely descriptive discussion in Rovelstad, op. cit. (note 2).
8 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. I am indebted to Paul Pascal for his generous assistance with many extensive and difficult Latin passages. Any remaining errors of translation or interpretation are my own.
9 C. Gessner, Bibliotheca Universalis (Zurich, 1545–8); the best source on Gessner is Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2).
10 F. Trefler, Methodus exhibens per varios indices, et classes subinde, quorumlibet librorum, cuiuslibet Bibliothecae, brevem, facilem, imitabilem ordinationem (Augsburg, 1560); for extensive excerpts and commentary by M. Cocchetti, see Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, pp. 23–32. Cochetti notes that because it was so rare and inaccessible, this text was frequently misrepresented by subsequent writers. In the present context, its significance lies in the fact that Trefler's accomplishment clearly met needs identified by his contemporaries as pressing.
11 G. Naudé, Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (Paris, 1627), cited here from the 1879 reprint of the 1644 edition and the translation published by A. Taylor (Berkeley, 1950). I have emended the translation as noted. A Latin translation, by an unknown hand which Taylor calls ‘less than certain’ was published in A. Smid, De Bibliothecis nova accessio collectioni Maderianae adiuncta (Helmstedt, 1703). For significant excerpts and a consideration of Naudé's importance see Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 295–331. Of the scholarship on Naudé by far the best study is P. Nelles, ‘The library as an instrument of discovery’, in D. R. Kelly (ed.), History and the Disciplines (Rochester, 1997), pp. 41–57.
12 H. Conring, De Bibliotheca Augusta Quae est in arce Wolfenbüttelensi (Helmstedt, 1661); reprinted in J. J. Mader, De Bibliothecis atque archivis virorum clarissimorum ... libelli et commentationes (Helmstedt, 1702); cited here from the reprint in H. Conring, Opera (Braunschweig, 1703; reprint Aalen, 1973). Summary and excerpts (with significant ellipses) in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 376–86, with commentary by M. Palumbo.
13 J. Garnier, Systema bibliothecae collegii parisiensis societatis jesu (Paris, 1678); Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 549–62; J. D. Köhler, Sylloge aliquot scriptorum de bene ordinanda et ornanda Bibliotheca (Frankfurt, 1728); Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 522–3. On Köhler, see D. Schmidmaier, ‘Bibliothekswissenschaftliche Bestrebungen an der Altdorfer Universitätsbibliothek zwischen 1630 and 1800’, Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 98 (1984), p. 19.
14 C. Middleton, Bibliothecae cantabrigensis ordinandae Methodus (Cambridge, 1728); reprinted in his Miscellaneous Works (London, 1752); Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. VIII, pp. 28–31.
15 P. Lambeck, Commentarii de Augustissima Bibliotheca Caeserea Vindobonensi (Vienna, 1665–1779), vol. I, pp. 69–71; quoted in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 68–9.
16 H. Hottinger, Bibliothecarius Quadripartitus (Zurich, 1674). Long passages with commentary in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 415–45.
17 D. G. Morhof, Polyhistor literarius (Lübeck, 1688–92; subsequent editions Lübeck, 1707, 1714, 1732, 1747); the book's complex publication history is discussed by G. Maggiano in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. VI, pp. 41 ff.
18 O. Legipont, Dissertationes philologico-bibliographicae (Nuremberg, 1747); excerpts and commentary by M. Menato in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. VIII, pp. 92 ff. Menato mistakenly calls the Dissertationes the first comprehensive examination of the relation between collection, space, and users, ignoring the continuities with earlier texts outlined here and setting up a false continuity with nineteenth-century biblioteconomia. J. G. Becker, ‘Bibliotheksreisen in Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Geschichte des Buchwesens 21 (1980), cols. 1372–3, notes that Legipont is not cited in travel accounts and by those visiting libraries in the later eighteenth century, which does not discount his significance in the present context.
19 Leibniz's many texts on libraries and books have not been published as a group, and a thorough analysis of them is beyond the scope of the present essay. The best general studies are M. Palumbo, Leibniz e la res bibliothecaria. Bibliografie, historiae literariae e cataloghi nella biblioteca privata leibniziana (Rome, 1993); and, albeit somewhat outdated, L. M. Newman, Leibniz and the German Library Scene (London, 1966).
20 Palumbo, op. cit. (note 19), pp. 11–2, 22–3. For the dual sense of bibliotheca see M. Cocchetti in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, p. 11.
21 In the considerable literature on encyclopaedias and encyclopaedism the most helpful have been the following, which provide the basis for the present very abbreviated discussion. N. Kenny, The Palace of Secrets: Béroalde de Verville and Renaissance Conceptions of Knowledge (Oxford, 1991), especially ch. 1; R. Yeo, Encyclopaedic Visions: Scientific Dictionaries and Enlightenment Culture (Cambridge, 2001); and C. Vasoli, L'enciclopedismo del seicento (Naples, 1978). For bibliographies see Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2) and R. Chartier, The Order of Books (Stanford, 1994).
22 For the medieval and classical background see Kenney, op. cit. (note 21) and Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2). The principal study of the impact of printing remains E. Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe (New York, 1979), although many have noted her overstatement of the impact of printing. See for example A. Grafton, ‘The importance of being printed’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 11/2 (1980), pp. 265–86.
23 This is particularly true in some of the literature on collections, as for example, Westerhof, op. cit. (note 5); Findlen, op. cit. (note 5); and most notably B. Stafford, Artful Science, Enlightenment Entertainment and the Eclipse of Visual Education (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1994), ch. 4.
24 Along with Zedelmaeir, op. cit. (note 2), the most useful sources are M. Gierl, ‘Bestandsaufnahme im gelehrten Bereich: Zur Entwicklung der "Historia literaria" im 18. Jahrhundert’, in Denkhorizonte und Handlungsspielräume. Historische Studien für Rudolf Vierhaus zum 70. Geburtstag (Göttingen, 1992), pp. 53–80, and J.-M. Chatelain, ‘Philologie, pansophie, polymathie, encyclopédie: Morhof et l'histoire du savoir global’, in F. Waquet (ed.), Mapping the World of Learning: The Polyhistor of Daniel Georg Morhof (Wiesbaden, 2000), pp. 16–29. These sources show, although not systematically, both the errors and the still valid contributions in other, mostly earlier studies: A. Grafton, ‘The world of the Polyhistors: humanism and encyclopaedism’, Central European History 18 (1985), pp. 31–47; H. Jaumann, ‘Was ist ein Polyhistor? Gehversuche auf einem verlassenen Terrain’, Studia Leibnitziana 22/1 (1990), pp. 76–89; F. Waquet, ‘Le Polyhistor de Daniel Georg Morhof, lieu de mémoire de la République des lettres’, in V. Kapp (ed.), Les lieux de mémoire et la fabrique de l'oeuvre (Paris, 1993), pp. 47–60; A. Blair, ‘The practice of erudition according to Morhof’, in Waquet, Mapping the World of Learning, op. cit., pp. 60–74; Conrad Wiedemann, ‘Polyhistors Glück und Ende. Von Daniel Georg Morhof zum jungen Lessing’, in H. O. Burger and K. von See (eds.), Festschrift Gottfried Weber (Bad Homburg, 1967), pp. 215–35; W. Schmid-Biggemann, Topica Universalis, Eine Modellgeschichte humanistischer und barocker Wissenschaft (Hamburg, 1983), pp. xiii, 249–72; and, very problematic, P. Vakkari, ‘Reading, knowledge of books, and libraries as a basis for the conception of scholarship in eighteenth-century Germany’, Libraries and Culture 26/1 (1991), pp. 66–86.
25 Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 297–304.
26 On pansophia see P. Rossi, Logic and the Art of Memory: The Quest for a Universal Language, trans. S. Clucas (Chicago, 2000), originally published as Clavis Universalis (Bologna, 1983), pp. 61, 130; Chatelain, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 18–21.
27 The best distinction among the terms is found in Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 297–8; but see also Gierl, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 55–8, and Wiedemann, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 218 ff. By contrast, Grafton, op. cit. (note 24) and Jaumann, op. cit. (note 24) subsume historia literaria into polyhistoria and are thus less than successful in moving beyond Enlightenment critiques of polyhistoria. The distinction drawn here is supported by a comparison of the articles ‘Polyhistorie’ and ‘Gelehrtenhistorie’ in Zedler's Universallexikon (vol. XXVIII, col. 1319; vol. X, cols. 724–30); Jaumann cites the first, Gierl the second, but neither makes the comparison. Morhof, Polyhistor litterarius ..., i, i, 1-2. For Morhof's adamant rejection of pansophia as mere charlatanery, see Chatelain, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 18–21.
28 The centrality of these metaphors in early modern scholarship has not been explored, and doing so is beyond the present scope. On the importance of metaphor in shaping modes of thought and disciplinary practices, see the essays in P. Mirowski (ed.), Natural Images in Economic Thought, ‘Markets Read in Tooth and Claw’ (Cambridge, 1994).
29 Grafton, op. cit. (note 24), p. 38.
30 For Naudé see Nelles, op. cit. (note 11). On Conring and his contacts with Boineburg, Hottinger, and Lambeck, see M. Palumbo, ‘Johann Christian von Boineburg’, Il Bibliothecario 23–24 (May–June, 1990), pp. 181–215; and M. Stolleis, ‘Die Einheit der Wissenschaften – Hermann Conring (1606–81)’, in M. Stolleis (ed.), Hermann Conring 1606–1681 Beiträge zu Leben und Werk (Berlin, 1983), pp. 11–31. Gierl, op. cit. (note 24), p. 58, cites Conring as an exponent of the shift from polyhistoria to historia literaria. On Legipont see Menato in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. VIII, pp. 92–3. From the vast literature on Leibniz see Palumbo, op. cit. (note 19).
31 In addition to the literature cited in note 24, see Findlen, op. cit. (note 5).
32 J. P. Small, Wax Tablets of the Mind: Cognitive Studies of Memory and Literacy in Antiquity (London and New York, 1997), passim, but see especially pp. 81–3.
33 W. J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (London and New York, 1982), sees both rhetoric and mnemotechnics as remnants of a primitive oral culture that last well into the early modern period. This view was widely accepted until fairly recently, as for example by Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2), p. 73.
34 M. Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990), passim, but see especially ch. 5.
35 Rossi, op. cit. (note 26); and Schmid-Biggemann, op. cit. (note 24).
36 A similar but less comprehensive point is made by Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 73–4.
37 Yates, op. cit. (note 4); Small, op. cit. (note 32), chs. 7 and 8.
38 Small, op. cit. (note 32), pp. 87–94; Ong, op. cit. (note 33), pp. 110–1, for the idea of analytic and cumulative. See also A. Moss, Printed Commonplace Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought (Oxford, 1996), ch. 1.
39 Small, op. cit. (note 32), passim, especially ch. 14 on ‘indirect’ applications of the art of memory.
40 Xenophon, Oeconomicus, A Social and Historical Commentary with a new English Translation by S. B. Pomeroy (Oxford, 1994); see p. 94 for the early modern editions.
41 Xenophon, Oeconomicus, 8–9, partially cited in Small, op. cit. (note 32), pp. 227–9, omitting the passage on the Phoenician ship. For the full text see the edition by Pomeroy, op. cit. (note 40), 148–57. From internal evidence Small concludes that Xenophon was writing at a time when the place system, as later developed by the Romans, was unknown to the Greeks. She identifies his text a precursor to later mnemotechnics.
42 Small, op. cit. (note 32), pp. 229–30.
43 Aristotle, Poetics, 1450b34–1451a7 Cf. Garrett, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 46–7.
44 Small, op. cit. (note 32), pp. 230, 109; Yates, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 107–17, for Renaissance examples.
45 Rossi, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 61 ff., 130 ff.; see also Yates, op. cit. (note 4).
46 For Quintilian, see Small, op. cit. (note 32), p. 110. For the changing role of the place system, see Moss, op. cit. (note 38), p. 225, note 13; Rossi, op. cit. (note 26).
47 Rossi, op. cit. (note 26), passim; Anne Blair, The Theatre of Nature: Jean Bodin and Renaissance Science (Princeton, 1997), pp. 65–81 (although with surprisingly little attention to the larger memory tradition). For encyclopaedias see Yeo, op. cit. (note 21), ch. 4; for bibliographies see Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 64 ff. Schmitt, op. cit. (note 5), has briefly suggested that the topics are more important than the loci for the history of collections in the sixteenth century, while Meijers, op. cit. (note 5), has signalled their importance for the new arrangement of the Imperial painting collections in eighteenth-century Vienna.
48 Moss, op. cit. (note 38), pp. 128–9, translating P. Melancthon, Elementa Rhetorices (in Opera, vol. XIII, p. 155). See also Schmid-Biggemann, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 249 ff., and Christoph Meinel, ‘Enzyklopädien der Welt und Verzettlung des Wissens: Aporien der Empirie bei Joachim Jungius’, in F. Eybl et al. (eds.) Enzyklopädien der Frühen Neuzeit (Tübingen, 1995), pp. 162–87.
49 Quoted in Moss, op. cit. (note 38), p. 191. For Seneca see Moss, pp. 12–3. The passage is from his Epistulae morales, no. 84.
50 E. Richer, Obstetrix Animorum (Paris, 1600), pp. 229–36. Translated and discussed in Moss, op. cit. (note 38), pp. 224–6.
51 See, for example, the essays in M. Schabas and N. De Marchi (eds.), Oeconomies in the Age of Newton (Durham, 2003), and especially the editors' Introduction, pp. 4–6.
52 Tantum potest commodus & distinctus ordo, ut quae diffusa latissime patent, in angustum concludantur, quod in diligenti patrefamilias animadvertitur, qui cuncta suis convenientibus locis ita collocat, ut minimum loci capere uideantur. Itaque huic ordini inesse deprehendi poterit, quam quis existimet. C. Mylaeus, De scribenda universitatis rerum historia (Basel, 1551), p. 308; quoted in Schmid-Biggemann, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 29–30. See also Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, pp. 18–23.
53 Yeo, op. cit. (note 21), p. 105, citing J. M. Lechner, Renaissance Concepts of the Commonplaces (Westport, Conn., 1962), pp. 130, 137, 151. Walter Ong, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue from the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1958). Carruthers, op. cit. (note 34), p. 32 and ch. 5; see also T. Reiss, Knowledge, Discovery, and Imagination in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997), ch. 4; and the essays in N. Rhodes and J. Sawday, The Renaissance Computer. Knowledge Technology in the First Age of Print (London and New York, 2001), and P. H. Saenger, The Space Between Words (Stanford, 1997), who challenges Ong's idea that print caused words to be perceived as individual visual units.
54 See for example, the passages from Gessner, Zwinger, and Alsted cited by Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2), p. 91, and the importance of order for Morhof as discussed by Chatelain, op. cit. (note 24), p. 24.
55 For Camillo, see Yates, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 129 ff., and for another immediately perceptible memory theatre see Meinel, op. cit. (note 48), pp. 184–5. Blair, op. cit. (note 47), pp. 161 ff., provides a survey of the theatre metaphor but does not explore the memory connection. From Blair's survey, it appears that outside the occult systems the theatre metaphor was often used in a somewhat formulaic manner and did not carry the same weight as the others discussed here.
56 Hottinger, op. cit. (note 16), n.p.; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, p. 417: Quemadmodum enim praecellentiorum, in qualibet scientia, Authorum nomina habere in promtu, nec postrema laus est, nec minima exquisitae eruditionis pars, ita publica gratia dignissimi erant, qui una quasi mergite offerrent, quicquid per amplissimum literaturae campum erat diffusum. Vix majorem artificiosus Apelles expectare poterat laudem, cum exigua tabella vastam expressit vel urbem, vel regionem, quam ubi ingeniosus Bibliothecarum Artifex, uno comprehendit pugno, quod vix ingens caperet spatium. On Gessner, Simmler, and Fisius see Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. II.
57 F. Bacon, Works (Boston, 1860), vol. VI, pp. 181, 183; and vol. II, pp. 184, 199, for the same passages in the De Augmentis.
58 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, i, 18–20. See also Blair, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 60–1, who minimizes the importance of order for Morhof, and Chatelain op. cit. (note 24), pp. 19–20, for further uses of the speculative map vs. actual exploration by other writers, including Leibniz.
59 Gierl, op. cit. (note 24), p. 65, citing from N. H. Gundling, Kurtzer Entwurf eines Collegii über die Historiam Literariam vor die Studiosos Juris (n.p., 1703). Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, ii, 3. For Morhof, see Blair, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 60–1.
60 Zedler, op. cit., (note 27), col. 729–30. See Gierl, op. cit. (note 24), p. 64, for the prevalence of this simile.
61 For alphabetical vs. systematic order see Yeo, op. cit. (note 21), pp. 25–6; he debunks the view that the adoption of alphabetical order reflected doubts about systematic order.
62 E. Chambers, Cyclopedia: Or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 5th edn, vol. I (London, 1741–3), p. ii.
63 J. L. d'Alembert, ‘Discours Préliminaire’, in Textes Choisis de l' Encylopédie, (Paris, 1962), pp. 110–3. The literature on the Encylopédie is vast, but see recently Yeo, op. cit. (note 21) and C. Albert, ‘Imitation de la nature? Probleme der Darstellung in der Encyclopédie’, in Eybl et al., op. cit. (note 48), pp. 200–11, for a strain of scholarship that questions claims made for the overview and the cross references.
64 C. Mylaeus, Theatrum scribendae historiae universitatis rerum (Basel, 1557), fol. 30, quoted in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, p. 23: quod spectabilis rerum ordo, ut est a supremo Deo constitutus, intuenti protinus sese offeret. See also the examples cited by Blair, op. cit. (note 48), p. 163.
65 P. Lambeck, Prodromus literariae historiae (Leipzig, 1710), n.p.
66 Rossi, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 117–23, citing Partis Instaurationis secundae delineatio of 1607, the New Organon (ii, x) and the Cogitata et visa of 1607, which gives the most detailed discussion of the tables. Bacon, op. cit. (note 57), vol. VII, pp. 139–41.
67 Rossi, op. cit. (note 26), pp. 124–8. The passage from the Regulae is quoted on p. 124.
68 D. Wellbery, Lessing's Laocoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 23, 38.
69 C. Linnaeus, Systema Naturae (Leiden, 1735), quoted in Foucault, op. cit. (note 3), p. 159. Rossi, op. cit. (note 26), ch. 7, especially the summary on p. 171. Although he touches only briefly on the question of memory in The Order of Things (p. 158), Foucault also reads natural history classification as the ordering of dispersed elements (ch. 5) and universal languages as a comprehensive system for ordering thought.
70 Foucault, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 82–4.
71 Foucault, op. cit. (note 3), ch. 3.
72 C. Linnaeus, Philosophia Botanica (Stockholm and Amsterdam, 1751), p. 77, cited by Meijers, op. cit. (note 5), p. 208. Although the literature on natural history classification is extensive, historians of science have paid more attention to the structure of that classification than to the specifics of its memory function. See, for example, P. F. Stevens, ‘Mind, memory and history: how classifications are shaped by and through time, and some consequences’, Zoologica scripta 26/4 (1997), pp. 293–301; and M. P. Winsor, ‘Non-essentialist methods in pre-Darwinian taxonomy’, Biology and Philosophy 18 (2003), pp. 387–400.
73 Wellbery, op. cit. (note 68), ch. 1, ‘The framework of Enlightenment semiotics: Christian Wolff’, provides the basis for the present much condensed discussion.
74 Gessner, op. cit. (note 9), vol. II, fol. 21v; quoted in Zedelmaier, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 109–12, and by Cochetti in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. iii, p. 352. Cocchetti provides a detailed interpretation of Gessner's very difficult text. The Latin nidus (nest, niche) originally referred to the wall niches that held papyrus rolls, but was adopted by early modern writers for shelves; see Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), p. 37.
75 Trefler, op. cit. (note 10), quoted in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, p. 25: Laudo (ut ingenue fatear) eam librorum thecam, quae non spectabili tantum aedificio, non librorum tum copia, tum splendore relucet. Quaeve non solum praeclaram ostendit suppellectilem, & incomparabilem thesaurum, sed quae eundem communicabilem exhibet, reddidit accomodam dispensationi, docet methodum, ac ordinem locandorum, inquirendorum, inveniendorum librorum. For the catalogues, Serrai, op. cit (note 6), vol. III, p. 26; for his attempt to follow Gessner, p. 28.
76 La bibliothèque D'Antoine Verdier (Lyon, 1584), p. xxiiii; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, p. 234: J'ay donné a ce mien liure tiltre de Bibliotheque, parce aussi que Gessner a ainsi intitulé le sien: &ce, pour autant que comme en la Bibliotheque sont ordonnés diuers liures, où ils sont gardez comme en leur propre lieu: ainsi tant de diuers auteurs et liures sont ici mis par tel ordre, qu'au premier regard ont les peut trouver en leur place: ainsi s'en souvient-on. Translation from Chartier, op. cit. (note 21), p. 87.
77 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 86–7; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), p. 63. Given Naudé's classical education and wide reading, it is safe to assume that he knew Xenophon's text.
78 C. Coler, Oratio Auspicalis cum habita solemni panegyri Bibliothecae Mario-Magdalenae Vratislavae (Leipzig, 1646), unpaginated; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 367–8.
79 Hottinger, op. cit. (note 16), p. 3; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, p. 421.
80 D. Moller, Disputatio circularis de bibliotheca (Altdorf, 1700, reprinted in Köhler, op. cit. in note 13); full passage quoted in Garberson, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 44–5.
81 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 86–7; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 63–4: aussi faut-il croire que pour entretenir nostre esprit il est besoin que ses objects et les choses desquelles il se sert soient disposées de telle sorte, qu'il puisse toutes fois et quand il luy plaira les discerner les uns d'avec les autres, et les trier et séparer à sa fantaisie, sans labeur, sans peine et sans confusion. Taylor identifies the line ‘neither plans nor completes anything without order’ as a paraphrase of Aristotle, Politics 1256b, 21; and Physics 252a, 11 ff.
82 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 88–9; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), p. 65: je croy que le meilleur est toujours celuy qui est le plus facile, le moins intrigué, le plus naturel, usité.
83 Hottinger, op. cit (note 16), p. 79; in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, p. 433.
84 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, v, i.
85 Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), 44.
86 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), p. 88; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), p. 65 (translation emended): Car tout ainsi que pour trop presser l'anguille elle eschappe, que la Mémoire artificielle gaste et pervertit la naturelle, et que l'on manque souvent de venir à bout de beaucoup d'affaires pour y avoir trop apporté de circonstances et précautions: aussi est-il certain qu'il serait grandement difficile à un esprit de se pouvoir régler et accoustumer à cet ordre, lequel semble n'avoir autre but que de gesner e crucifier éternellement la Mémoire sous les épines de ces vaine poinctilleries et subtilitez chymériques. Taylor, p. 99, notes that Mabun remains unidentified.
87 For discussion of Camillo's memory theatre see Rossi, op. cit. (note 26) pp. 74–6, and Yates, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 129 ff.; Yates also discusses the similar projects of Robert Fludd and Giordano Bruno. The quotation is on p. 74 of Rossi.
88 F. Grudé, Sieur de la Croix du Maine, ‘Desseins, ou projects, du sieur de la Croix du Maine, presentez au très chrétien roi de France ...’, in Bibliothèque du Sieur de la Croix du Maine (Paris, 1583), pp. 507–12; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, pp. 221, 229. Ironically, La Croix du Maine's plan was not, as has been supposed since the seventeenth century, an actual library of books, but rather of manuscript volumes composed by Croix du Maine himself, ‘a giant encyclopaedia of indices, extracts, citations and references’, as explained by Cocchetti in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. III, p. 224.
89 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, v, 2; Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), p. 46.
90 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 86, 89–90; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 63, 65–6: parce qu'en ce faisant la mémoire est tellement soulagée, qu'il seroit facile en ce moment de trouver dans une Bibliothèque plus grande que n'estoit celle de Ptolomée, tel livre que l'on pourroit choisir ou désirer.
91 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 89 ff.; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 65 ff.
92 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 92–3; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 67–8: un catalogue fidèlement dressé suivant toutes les Classes et Facultez subdivisée jusques aux plus précises et particulières de leurs parties.
93 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), p. 107; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 77–8.
94 Adrien Baillet, Jugemens des Savans (Paris, 1722), vol. II, p. 144; quoted in D. McKitterick, ‘La bibliothèque comme interaction: la lecture et le langage de la bibliographie’, in M. Baratin and C. Jacob (eds.), Le Pouvoir des bibliothèques: La mémoire des livres en occident (Paris, 1996), p. 113.
95 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), p. 107, Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 77–8: si précisément disposéz suivant les diverses matières et Facultez, que l'on peust voir et sçavoir en un clin d'oeil tous les Autheurs qui s'y rencontrent sur le premier sujet qui viendra en fantaisie.
96 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 109–10; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 79–80, assigns a similar function to the loan-book every library owner should maintain. Looking over the list of those who have borrowed books, the owner will gain a picture of his engagement with the world of learning and will judge by ‘finger and eye’ (au doigt et à l'oeil) the glory accruing to him through others' use of his library.
97 Small, op. cit. (note 32), p. 229.
98 Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), p. 67. For views on figural decoration in the library texts see Garberson, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 106–7. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries figural decoration served more general purposes and was usually not connected to the disposition of the books (p. 102).
99 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, i, 18. For the purchase of catalogues by students Grafton, op. cit. (note 24), 40.
100 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), p. 95; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), p. 69; translation significantly emended: lequel un chacun d'ordinaire veut establir à sa fantaisie, suivant qu'il le trouve plus à propos par son bon sens et jugement tant pour satisfaire à soy-mesme, que pour ne vouloir pas suivre la trace et les opinions des autres.
101 Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), p. 67.
102 Naudé, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 96–101; Taylor, op. cit. (note 11), pp. 70–3.
103 U. Steierwald, Wissen und System. Zu Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz' Theorie einer Universalbibliothek (Cologne, 1995), pp. 30–1, citing a well-known passage from the New Essays on Human Understanding. For Leibniz's own library, G. E. Guhrauer, ‘Bibliothekarisches aus Leibnizens Leben und Schriften’, Serapeum (1851), p. 11.
104 Steierwald, op. cit. (note 103), pp. 30–1 and 39–40; G. Scheel, ‘Leibniz’ Beziehung zur Bibliotheca Augusta in Wolfenbüttel (1678–1716)', Braunschweigisches Jahrbuch 54 (1973), pp. 172–99, especially pp. 189–90 for Leibniz's non-existent role in the design. Although she argues that Leibniz rejects ‘die raumorientierten Ordnungstableaus’ of his time, Steierwald, pp. 66–77, credits Leibniz with the round library and offers a highly problematic interpretation of it as a representation of knowledge. Although citing the ‘unresolved debate regarding authorship of the design’, the most recent study continues to credit Leibniz: Barbara Arciszewska, ‘Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach and the Wolfenbüttel Library – the Hanoverian connection’, in A. Kreul (ed.), Barock als Aufgabe (Wiesbaden, 2005), p. 111.
105 Hottinger, op. cit. (note 16), pp. 3–6, 77; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 421–4, 432.
106 Hottinger, op. cit. (note 16), p. 79; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 432–5, with further discussion.
107 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, v, 9. On Vogel's library see Guhrauer op. cit. (note 103), pp. 7–8.
108 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, v, 2.
109 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, xxi, 1.
110 P. Nelles, ‘Historia litteraria and Morhof’, in Wacquet, op. cit. (note 24), pp. 52–3, citing p. 15 of the Prologue to vol. II of the Polyhistor. As Nelles points out (pp. 50–1), Morhof's activities as university librarian in Kiel are largely unknown but probably negligible given that library's moribund state.
111 Lambeck, op. cit. (note 15), vol. I, pp. 69–71, quoted in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 68–9. On plans for a new library see L. Strebl, ‘Die Barocke Bibliothek (1663–1739)’ in J. Stummvoll (ed.), Geschichte der Oesterreichischen Nationalbibliothek, vol. I (Vienna, 1968), pp. 168–71.
112 Morhof, op. cit. (note 17), i, v, 9.
113 Conring, op. cit. (note 12), pp. 577–8; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, pp. 583–4.
114 For these see Sammler, Fürst, Gelehrter. Herzog August zu Braunschweig und Lüneburg 1597–1666, exh. cat., Herzog August Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel, 1979), nos. 708 and 711, and C. P. Warncke, ‘Bibliotheksideale. Denkmuster der architektonischen Darstellung Frühneuzeitlichen Büchereien’, in C. P. Warnke, (ed.), Ikonographie der Bibliotheken (Wiesbaden, 1992), pp. 160–9, for an exhaustive discussion of the building history and its documentation.
115 Conring, op. cit. (note 12), p. 577; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, p. 583: Est vero & jucundum valde, uno prope momento infinita quasi sic addiscere; perinde scilicet atque alias etiam venire usu solet, si multa subita detur intelligere.
116 My thanks to A. A. Donohue for transcribing and identifying this passage, which Conring gives without a reference and in somewhat corrupted form.
117 Conring, op. cit. (note 12), p. 577; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. VI, p. 583: qua scilicet efficitur, ut patrisfamilias oculis omnia magis sint exposita.
118 A. A. Donohue (personal communication) brought the Budé edition to my attention and explained the verbs in the original. In French the Budé translation reads: ‘La coutume perse voulait que le maître en personne donnât tous les ordres et qu'il eût l'oeil à tout’. The Loeb translation renders the passage ‘Under the Persian system, the master himself undertook the entire disposition and supervision of the household’, thus losing the visual sense so important to Conring.
119 Garnier, op. cit. (note 13), pp. 1, 13: Ut quisquis dispositionem intuitus fuisset scientiae librorum evaderet peritor. Partially quoted in Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, p. 549.
120 Köhler, op. cit. (note 13), n.p.; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. V, p. 562: qui tam exacte non solum responderet naturae, verum etiam doctrinae et cuique libro suo debitum locum in forulis tam apte attribueret, ut spectator Bibliothecae solo intuitu in scientia peritus redderetur, ut prompta cuiusque libri inventio daretur.
121 Middleton, op. cit. (note 14), p. 56; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. VIII, pp. 28–9: quemque vel intuendo doctiores evadere valeamus.
122 Middleton, op. cit. (note 14), p. 56; Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. VIII, p. 29: Haec itaque tot, tantaque nullo sane labore, atque uno quasi temporis momento ediscere jucundissimum sit oportet.
123 Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), p. 51; ea nobis compendio exhibeant, quae authores tractarunt, rerumque imagines menti impressas ad perfectiorem formam suo nexu reducant, atque ad germanam doctrinae speciem revocent.
124 Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), p. 54: atque id efficit, ut uno veluti conspectu totius supellectilis literariae nexus, & oeconomia comprehendi queat.
125 Legipont, op. cit. (note 18), p. 64: aemulatur namque Persicam illam supellectilis domesticae seriem Aristoteli in Oeconimico laudatam, qua a particularibus, & minoribus, ad universaliora, dignioraque, ac vissim, gradum faciendo, efficitur, ut spectatorum oculis omnia magis apposite sint exposita, & Eruditis ita obvia, ut, qui disciplinas discere, vel repetere cupiunt, easdem hic, velut in speculo per opticen concentratas, simul intueri ac perlustrare possint.
126 I. Kant, Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht (1798), Akademie Ausgabe, vol. VII, p.184; trans. by V. L. Dowdell (Carbondale, 1978), p. 75: ‘die Topik, d.i. ein Fachwerk für allgemeine Begriffe, Gemeinplätze gennant, welches durch Classeneintheilung, wie man in einer Bibliothek die Bücher in Schränke mit verschiedenen Aufschriften vertheilt, die Erinnerung erleichtert’ (translation slightly altered). I was directed to this important text by Meijers, op. cit. (note 5), p. 207. Kant also used a Baconian mapping metaphor when in the Critique of Pure Reason he described the ‘territory of pure understanding’ as the ‘land of truth ... surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean’ (A236/B296).
127 Garrett op. cit. (note 3), p. 107.
128 Garrett, op. cit. (note 3), p. 107; Foucault, op. cit. (note 3), p. 131. How much my discussion of the memory tradition challenges Foucault's larger argument is a question beyond the present scope.
129 Garrett, op. cit. (note 3), p. 110.
130 S. Conn, Museums and American Intellectual Life 1876–1926 (Chicago, 1998), ch. 1, has placed the movement of original research from museums to universities in the United States around 1900, and this phenomenon is observable in European museums as well.
131 Garrett, op. cit. (note 3), p. 107.
132 This question is not considered in the existing literature. The standard source is still J. W. Clarke, The Care of Books (Cambridge, 1901), but see also P. S. Morrish, ‘John Willis Clark revisited: aspects of early modern library design’, Library History 3/3 (1974), pp. 87–107.
133 Buzas, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 467–76; Leyh, op. cit. (note 2), pp. 878–958; J.-F. Foucard, ‘De la Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève à la Bibliothèque Impériale’, in J.-M. Leniaud (ed.) Des palais pour les livres: Labrouste, Sainte-Geneviève et les bibliothèques (Paris, 2002), p. 38; J. Bleton, ‘Les bâtiments’, in D. Varry (ed.), Histoire des bibliothèques françaises, vol. III: Les bibliothèques de la Révolution et du xixe siècle (Paris, 1991), pp. 183–237.
134 Buzas, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 431–3; Leyh, op. cit. (note 1); Serrai, op. cit. (note 6), vol. X; all of which challenge Garrett's view, op. cit. (note 3), pp. 112–20, that systematic ordering died with the nineteenth century.
135 I am currently working on an article that examines some of the issues raised in this concluding section.
Address for correspondence Dr Eric Garberson, Department of Art History, Virginia Commonwealth University, P.O. Box 843046, Richmond, VA 23284–3046, USA. profgarb{at}hotmail.com