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An tSeachtain Ghlas 2013/Green Week 2013

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John Johnson’s ‘Catalogue of garden seeds and flower roots …’

As part of the activities for Trinity College Green Week, the Department of Early Printed Books and Special Collections has mounted a mini-exhibition of plant-themed books. These are on display in the foyer of the Berkeley Library.

The most recent title on show is Caleb Threlkeld’s Synopsis stirpium Hibernicarum alphabeticæ dispositarum published in 1726/7. It is the first important botanical work published in Ireland and includes a comprehensive listing of native plants in the Irish language. The appendix contains Thomas Molyneux’s comments and observations on plants growing in Ireland.

The herball or Generall historie of plants by John Gerard had mass appeal. Similar to Threlkeld’s Synopis it includes the virtues of the various plants and herbs. Chewing a thistle, it appears, guards against stinking breath while the pilofella cures all internal and external wounds! The work includes more than 1800 woodcuts, of which only sixteen were original.

We have also included John Johnson’s Catalogue of garden seeds and flower roots from c.1705. It was presented to the Library by Nottingham University in 1933 and is the earliest known printed Irish seed catalogue.  Unfortunately it was used in later life as printer’s waste to line other volumes and as a consequence the left margin is cropped.

Throughout the week the Trinity College Library blog will feature a selection of green-themed posts.

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Love – An Exact Science?

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The path of true love rarely runs smoothly, and it seems not much has changed since 1824. William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865), child prodigy, scientist, polymath and Astronomer Royal of Ireland, suffered badly in matters of the heart. Despite remarkable success in his professional life, his most noteworthy achievement being the discovery of Quaternions in 1843, (still used by computer experts today), he was much less fortunate in love. He met a young woman named Catherine Disney in 1824 while still an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin, fell head over heels in love, only to hear some months later that she was to marry a more suitable and established gentleman, and Hamilton was left feeling ‘darkly changed’.  On hearing she was betrothed to another, he indulged himself in a period of poetry writing lamenting the loss of his beloved and, although not worthy of any awards, the anguish reflected in his poem The Enthusiast is very real. He never recovered fully from losing Catherine.  Hamilton went on to marry Helen Bayly in 1833 and start a family but, because she was married to a disappointed romantic and constantly living in the shadow of Catherine Disney, the marriage was not a blissful union for Mrs Hamilton.

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Hamilton’s papers, one of the most important collections in Trinity College Library, can be consulted in the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library (TCD MS 1492 and TCD MS 1493).

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Aisling Lockhart

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No one expects the Roman Inquisitions…

TCD MS 1245 36rThis document, from the so-called ‘Roman Inquisitions’ dates from 1626.  It bears the signature and seal of the Franciscan historian Luke Wadding, and contains a statement by him regarding an accused Belgian man.  Several documents of Irish interest exist within the collection, including those referring to Irish men and women accused of various transgressions against Church regulations, as well as Irish clergy involved in the bureaucracy of the investigations.

The Records of the Roman Inquisition and Dataria (TCD MSS 1223-1277) is one of the lesser-known collections in the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library.  It is one of the largest gatherings of documents of this type in any European or American repository, and forms part of a larger collection of Church-related documents taken from the Vatican to Paris in 1813 by Napoleon, who dreamed of a central archive for the empire in the French capital.

The documents include papal bulls and letters from the time of Boniface IX (1389) to Pius VI (1787), sentences of trials regarding heresy, sorcery, bigamy and other matters from the 16th and 17th centuries, and other reports – sent to Rome – on litigation before provincial tribunals.   The documents found their way, via a circuitous route, to Trinity College Library in 1854, ultimately through the aegis of the then Vice-Provost Charles W. Wall.  Much of the rest of the collection was lost or destroyed, a fact which makes the TCD documents all the more historically valuable.

The Preservation and Conservation Department plan to carry out conservation work on many of the collection’s volumes in need of repair, and funding is currently being sought for this project.

Ellen O’Flaherty

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African and African Diaspora Manuscripts in Trinity College Library

MS2179_053_HI-1Prof Nikolay Dobronravin, St Petersburg State University, will deliver a lecture on the West African manuscripts in Trinity College Library on Monday 28th January. Prof Dobronravin conducted his research in M&ARL during his term as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Trinity Long Room Hub in 2012. Here he writes on how this collection opens new horizons in his field:

‘The West African manuscripts of Trinity College Library are not just curios; they certainly deserve more attention from those interested in African and Islamic art, history, languages and theology. A few manuscripts are unique in content – for example, the creation story of the ‘ten Adams’ (from ‘Adam of birds’ to the first human being in MS 2689) – or had a dramatic acquisition history (as in the case of MS 2258 which was found on a battlefield in modern Nigeria).

Two manuscripts (MS 2179 and part of MS 2689) represent a standard reference work on Islamic law, ‘Risala’ of Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī. But even these texts are of particular interest, as they contain a number of glosses, both in Arabic and in an African language which has been described as ‘Old Mande’ (close to, but different from, modern Mande languages spoken in Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and other West African countries) . Some of the glosses remain enigmatic, such as an Arabic commentary to kanā’is ‘(Christian) churches’,  masjid al-h[i]yūd[u]s (literally, ‘mosque of al-Hiyudus’, MS 2179, f.26a). Other marginalia tell us about the history of the Caliphate, Islamic cosmology, and give examples of West African calculation techniques (MS 2179, f. 25a).’

The lecture ‘African and African Diaspora Manuscripts in the Trinity College Library: Authors, Scribes and Collectors’ will take place in the Long Room Hub 19.00 Monday 28th January

Nikolay Dobronravin and Estelle Gittins

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Room to Improve?

TCD MS 11183-V-119ab_58v Courtown

If you were to conjure an image of a drawing room in a great Irish house circa 1822, what would spring to mind? Book shelves stacked with very fine bindings, perhaps? An orderly arrangement of expensive furniture and ornaments, maybe? An elegant chaise longue, a clutter free writing desk and neatly arranged cupboards? Not quite the case at the residence of the Earls of Courtown, County Wexford.  A tongue-in-cheek letter, with an accompanying numbered room plan sketched by Lady Charlotte Stopford, describes something a little different. Among other descriptions of junk and clutter she writes‘…Bookcase the height of Door, only two shelves kept with books, the rest filled with James’s rubbish…; …Green chairs with the backs knocked off, & thus gives a careless effect to the whole…; …A long couch, no particular shape, or character except that of being very ugly… ‘My writing table, usually chaos; …A most blackguard table with painted legs, & pepper & salt jacket, devoted to rubbish; …A huge ugly cupboard, painted a sickly yellow…’ Bizarrely, she also records ‘2 wooden sculls (sic), one under jaw of a real man with a real tooth in it and a buzzard’s foot…’ resting atop ‘a very handsome Glass over the Chimney.’ (TCD MS 11183/V/119a-b/58). The original letters can be consulted in the Manuscripts & Archives Research Library, and the full transcription of IE TCD MS 11183/V/119a-b can be consulted on our online catalogue.

Aisling Lockhart