Bibliotheca universalis

Not to be confused with Taschen Bibliotheca Universalis.

Bibliotheca universalis (in four volumes, 1545–49) was the first truly comprehensive "universal" listing of all the books of the first century of printing. It was an alphabetical bibliography that listed all the known books printed in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew.

History

The Swiss scholar Conrad Gesner started to compile this extensive work on Bibliotheca universalis at the age of 25. He first visited as many of the Italian and German libraries as he could find. His motivation was partly a fear of the loss of precious manuscripts, such as the destruction of the library at Buda, by the Turks. He described the project in its title, as involving works "extant and not, ancient and more recent down to the present day, learned and not, published and hiding in libraries". He published the completed work in 1545 in Zurich, after some four years of research. At the time, he wrote "In truth I rejoice and thank God because I have finally gotten out of the labyrinth in which I was trapped for almost three years". It included his own bio-bibliography. Bibliotheca universalis was the first modern bibliography of importance published since the invention of printing, and through it, Gesner became known as the "father of bibliography."

The work attempted to be an exhaustive survey of known writing in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and included approximately three thousand authors The authors’ forenames were listed alphabetically according to mediaeval usage, with a reverse index of their surnames. It was intended as an index by subject of all known authors. Gesssner listed the writers together with the titles of their works, short biographies, and publication details including place of printing, printers and editors. He added his own annotations, comments, and evaluations of the nature and merit of every entry. It included about 12,000 titles.

Gessner followed Johannes Trithemius’s work of placing works in systems of cataloging. Gesner admired Trithemius’s systems and used them as guidelines and templates; however Gesner carried the idea of cataloging and systems a step further. Theodore Besterman, in The Beginnings of Systematic Bibliography, suggests that Gerner’s work to organize knowledge was the forerunner of Francis Bacon’s works and other encyclopedias that followed. Though called "universal", it was intended to be selective.

Additions

In 1548 Gesner followed with a companion thematic index to Bibliotheca universalis, a large folio, Pandectarum sive Partitionum universalium Conradi Gesneri or Pandectae (1548–1549), with a further supplement in 1555. This contained thirty thousand topical entries. Each of these entries were cross-referenced to the appropriate author and book, arranged under headings and sub-headings, which were associated with various branches of learning. The full planned scope was never completed.

The Pandects had nineteen sections, each devoted to a scholarly discipline and contained dedications to the best scholar printers of Gesner's time. He listed their publications and accomplishments. Gesner made full use of any publishers' catalogues and booksellers' lists which were available in the 16th century that were printed when he was doing his research. These included use of printed catalogues supplied by firms like Aldus Manutius of Venice and Henri Estienne of Paris.

Bibliotheca selecta

Gesner's work, with its heterodox principles and advanced Protestant scholarship was a direct challenge to the authority of the Catholic Church which soon banned the work in the Index librorum prohibitorum. The Counter Reformation's response took another generation of Catholic scholarship to produce and appeared on the Vatican press in Rome in 1593 under the programmatic title, Bibliotheca selecta. This updated "Anti-Gesner" was assembled in 18 books covering the bibliography of the traditional scientific disciplines (Theology, 1-11, Law, 12, Philosophy, 13, Medicine, 14) and the liberal arts, 15-18, by the Mantuan Jesuit humanist and bibliographer Antonio Possevino.

Bibliography

• Blair, Ann M. (2010). Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-16849-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Eisenstein, Elizabeth L., The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1979, ISBN 0-521-29955-1
• Grout, James. "Conrad Gessner". Encyclopaedia Romana. University of Chicago. Retrieved 28 September 2017.
• Norman, jeremy (21 May 2014). "Conrad Gessner Issues the First Universal Bibliography Since the Invention of Printing (1545 – 1555)". History of Information. Retrieved 30 September 2017. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Raven, J. (2004). Lost Libraries: The Destruction of Great Book Collections Since Antiquity. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN 978-0-230-52425-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gesner, Konrad Bibliotheca universalis und Appendix. With a Postscript by Hans Widmann, Osnabriick, Otto Zeller, 1966
• Anzovin, Steven et al., Famous first facts, international edition: a record of first happenings, discoveries, and inventions in world history by H. W. Wilson Company (2000), ISBN 0-8242-0958-3

External links

• Gessner, Conrad (1545–1549). Bibliotheca Universalis, sive Catalogus omnium Scriptoum locupletissimus, in tribus linguis, Latina, Græca, & Hebraica; extantium & non extantium, veterum et recentiorum in hunc usque diem ... publicatorum et in Bibliothecis latentium, etc. Zurich: Christophorum Froschouerum. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)