Curiosa: Kore wa utsukushii desu ga ...

[nebroadwe]

It's the end of the fiscal year and everyone's trying to max out their budget, which means that on the book truck full of new acquisitions for our fine arts department I have:

a) an early 16th-century Aldine Press edition of Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo that's worth more than my house;

b) an imperfect early 17th-century edition of Pompilio Totti's guidebook to the ruins of Rome, Ritratto di Roma Antica (the one with the square woodcut vignette of Alma Roma on the title leaf, not the round medallion) that's worth more than I paid for my first car; and

c) an absolutely beautiful 18th-century Japanese manuscript of colored plans of castles in Honshu, compiled, edited and annotated by Yamagata Daini, a philosopher and military historian who ended up on the wrong side of the Tokugawas and got himself executed in 1767. It's actually not very expensive at all, in rare book terms, but still awfully pretty. Sadly, I have neither the language nor the format expertise to catalog it and must hand it off to someone else. Sigh.

Not to mention the little book of photographic views of Tokyo around the end of the Meiji era, including a bicyclist crossing Ginza's main avenue and a view of "Wench Houses, Yoshiwara." Say no more ...

ETA: Also, most of them come wrapped in bubble wrap. My colleagues are very good about ignoring the occasional burst of pop-pop-pop!s from my cubicle.

Comments

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

you get so see some of the neatest things

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

I love my job. Over on the grant-funded project, we're taking pictures of all the neat things, like the solid silver Bible binding and the woodcut tail-piece of a putto riding a hobby horse and waving a pinwheel (not to mention the initial featuring a gentleman mooning the reader), so that we can show off a little. Also play pin-the-identification-on-the-bookplate/autograph/ms. inscription/binder's waste.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that is so neat

[ishte.livejournal.com]

Ooh... I wish I could see that little book of photographic views of Tokyo around the end of the Meiji era. YAY!

[nebroadwe.livejournal.com]

Well, once the East Asia catalogers get through with it ...