Page:The American Bookmaker - Volume 5-6.djvu/92

82 during the first half of the sixteenth century, so that by the time Aldus and his confréres were at the height of their prosperity, nearly the only ones left in a font of Roman type were æ, œ, ff, ffi, fi, fl, &, and possibly a few others. Even these few remaining specimens of peculiarities in the early use of movable type are destined before many years to yield their places to single type, for in the modern book beautiful the trained eye will object to any running together of letters simply because the usage has the approval of good printers in good old days.

ESCANTING on the qualifications of a well-known American librarian for the position which he fills, his wonderful book knowledge and great memory, a contemporary of calls him "a would-be Magliabechi."

Who was Magliabechi? Antonio da Marco Magliabechi was a Florentine, born October 29, 1633. It may be safely asserted that in point of book-lore and bibliographical erudition his was the ultima thule of the human mind. The son of a goldsmith, his first thought was to follow his father's calling, but so strongly did the study of literature attract him, and such extraordinary power of application did he manifest, that he succeeded in drawing upon him the notice of Michael Ermini, the librarian of the Grand Duke Cosmo III., whose successor he was destined to become. Ermini taught him Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and turned his mind so strongly in the direction of books and learning that in a few years he became one of the wonders of the age. One of the Church fathers constructed the following anagram of his name, Antonius Magliabechus—Is unus bibliotheca magna. Magliabechi's love of books was a wild and unreasoning one. It was a genuine triumph of spirit over flesh. He literally entombed himself alive, piling the books about him in the wildest confusion, and when at last, after many hours of intense and unbroken application he crept out from his hiding-place, his face and form showed the terrible marks of mental strain and lack of food.

Even when resting during large periods of literary toil he permitted himself no better bed than an old wicker chair and a threadbare cloak for a coverlet. Magliabechi's memory was more than human. So prodigious was its strength that when occasion demanded he could not only refer an inquirer to page and paragraph, but he could supply the text verbatim et literatim. Notwithstanding his prodigious learning he published nothing under his own name, although he contributed largely to the great bookmaking undertakings of his day, such as encyclopædias, catalogues, codices, &c.

A peculiar weakness—hardly pardonable in one with a mind so miraculously endowed as his—led him to sneer at the literary attainments of others, no matter how potent their merit, and this intolerance involved him in bitter contentions with his contemporaries touching the character of some of the books of the day.

But so deeply is the world indebted to this king of bibliophiles for his splendid services in printing valuable Latin manuscripts and reprinting rare works, that the ages coming after him should pass over his faults lightly and forgivingly. He died on July 4, 1714, bequeathing his vast book treasures to his princely patron, whose library, enriched by many valuable gifts of books and manuscripts, was made public in 1747. In 1859 the Magliabechi and Palatina libraries were united, becoming the National Library, the largest in Italy, particularly rich in early printed books, codici of Dante and other eminent authors, and ancient manuscripts and palimpsests. The annual increment of the Biblioteca Nazionale is about 12,000, owing to an ancient law by which a copy of every book printed in Tuscany must be sent to the Magliabechi Library.

N spite of the most energetic disapproval on the part of the government, often evidenced by arrests of the publishers and confiscations of entire editions, France always has been and still is the favorite home of the prophetic almanac. Here the spirit of prophecy has run riot, and here, too, the prognosticators have had their most astonishing successes. In vain, too, have been the efforts of the Church to control the publication of these folk-booklets and turn them to its own advantage by excluding superstitious hocus pocus and including religious teachings. Not only does the French peasant insist upon his almanac, but he insists upon a full quantum of astrology, prophecy and medicine. One of the most remarkable survivals of seventeenth century love of the supernatural is a French almanac entitled "Almanach Liégeois," first published in 1636. Among the French peasantry its popularity continues unabated. One Matthew Laensburgh figured as the originator of this famous folk-booklet, but, as one may readily suppose, this was an assumed name. Specially constructed for popularity, it is so arranged that even the most uneducated can master the superstitious parts. That the moon has reached a stage when it is advisable to take a draught is represented by a phial; a lancet uncompromisingly suggests blood-letting; a pair of scissors intimates the advisability of a visit to the barber. This remarkable book predicted, in 1774, that in April of that year the reign of a royal favorite would abruptly terminate. Madame Du Barry very properly took this prediction personally and spent an uncomfortable thirty days in consequence, constantly repeating: "I wish this villanous month of April was over." When Louis XIV. died in May the reputation of the "Almanach Liégeois" went up considerably.

In France, as in other parts of the world, satirical authors, like Rabelais, hurled their fiercest invective and most trenchant ridicule upon the heads of almanac readers, but to no purpose. Not until the dawn of the nineteenth century, when the valiant army of bookmakers advanced upon these strongholds of ignorance and superstition, bombarding them with volumes of healthy and instructive reading matter—from the grapeshot of the 32mo to the roundshot of the imperial quarto—did these little fascicles of absurdity lose their hold upon the people. And even now, so hard is this long-inherited love of the supernatural in giving up the ghost, we find scattered over the pages of our almanacs the most ridiculous weather prophecies, which when considered inn calm reflection must, it would seem, appear in the light of "screaming farce," even to the most faithful of almanac lovers.

In England, particularly in the seventeenth century, the demand for this style of publication was so skillfully met and encouraged that it was not an uncommon thing for a popular almanac, filled with a most astounding mélange of divination and quackery, to reach a circulation of one hundred thousand copies. James I., that literary popinjay, well described as the "wisest fool in Christendom," himself a writer on Demonologie, was the patron of almanac makers. He actually granted a