Notable Purchases, 1960-61

ROLAND BAUGHMAN

In all, the Columbia University Libraries placed more than
30,000 purchase orders for books, manuscripts, pamphlets, and
periodicals during the year 1960-61. To select for discussion in
this limited space those items that add particular prestige and un¬
usual depth to our collections is by no means an easy task — per¬
sonal judgment and taste are bound to bias the selections. The
effort here, therefore, will be to include only such items as are
above question.

Book manuscripts

Among nearly a dozen book manuscripts that were purchased
during the year, ranging in date from the early 15 th century to the
20th, perhaps the following are of the greatest note:

A fine unpublished and apparently unnoticed popular history,
in Italian, of Rome and the Empire, which was compiled from
ancient and medieval sources by an unidentified 14th-century
author. On 125 vellum leaves, this handsome manuscript was
written in southern Italy about 1400. From the collection of Sir
Thomas Phillipps, no. 239.

An Italian translation by Andrea Cambini of Cicero's De se-
nectute, De amicitia, etc. Manuscript on paper (105 leaves), writ¬
ten possibly in Florence about 1530.

An apparently unpublished volume of poetry by the Ferrarese
poet, Lorenzo Pisa, dated May 29, 1627. In a fine contemporary
binding of russet morocco, richly gilt.

A substantial corpus of materials connected with Washington
Irving's The Chronicle of the Oinmiades, including notes, tran¬
scripts, drafts, and the like. The materials dovetail nicely with
manuscripts already at Columbia (see the article by Andrew B.
Myers in Columbia Library Columns, November, 1958).

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