EN :

During the 1520s and 1530s, humanism continued to define itself with regards to research, re-discovery, edition, and commentary of ancient texts. However, it also entered a more critical phase, one that is more reflective, or conscious of its own existence. The De disciplinis appeared at Antwerp in July 1531, published by Michaël Hillen. Contrary to the traditional compendium of “authority,” Vivès affirms that it would be better to form an opinion on the writing of great authors according to what you have read, than to depend only on their expertise and to always accept the words of others. Secondhand knowledge is secondrate. Yet, not all authority is criticized in the same manner; there are both great and inferior authors, and it is important to consider their hierarchy. This article studies in depth the system of references and readings in the De disciplinis, in the context of the development of humanism and the calling into question of traditions surrounding the concept of “authority.” The paradox facing the critical undertaking would then be the danger of becoming itself a discourse of authority.

EN :

The appearance of printed text resulted in changes to the way text is accessed, which leads to the question of whether these changes modified scholarly practice; and if so, how? The following article examines this question in a particular context—that of dictionaries and encyclopedias, referencing classical citations as guarantors and examples. The article defines the evolution of three important witnesses in this domain from the end of the fifteenth century to the first part of the sixteenth: the Cornu Copiae by Niccolo Perotti, the Commentarii linguae latinæ by Etienne Dolet, of which two tomes appeared in 1536 and 1538, and the Thesaurus Latinae Linguae by Robert Estienne, in its three versions from 1531, 1536, and 1543. These three books represent the same type of object: language dictionaries, aimed towards a specific public of advanced learners, or the learned. In fact, the material weight of book fabrication, the difficulty from then on of collecting masses of texts, the new study conditions, the sheer quantity of texts available, and the famous temptation of universality, made the practice of regulation and of precise referencing an urgent necessity. The position of learned printers of Estienne’s generation was crucial: they helped create and then make commonplace certain material norms that are now so much part of our intellectual habit that we sometimes forget their material origin.

EN :

Even if one can discover lists of books that were printed in France before 1555, the Nomenclator seems to be the first work solely devoted to bibliographic inventory ever printed on French soil. Yet it is a relatively unknown publication – issuing from an unfamiliar hand. This thin volume, of fewer than 200 pages has not interested critics until now. Before presenting the materiality and problematic of this small in octavo, so modest when compared to the enormous in folio published by Gesner ten years earlier from which it derives, this article describes the personality and the works of R. Constantin, a preeminent Hellenist, born at Caen in 1530, and author of the Nomenclator, his first printed work. A friend of Daléchamps and a man interested in medical works, Constantin is linked to the new humanist scene. The precise analysis of the bibliographic work, title, sources, and references present in the Nomenclator show the scholarly tastes and reformed convictions of its author. This analysis also brings to light the hierarchy of bodies of knowledge and authors. Lastly, it demonstrates the ambition of its young author, namely: recognition within the humanist environment. This article concludes with a study of the reception of this first bibliography, once famous in the past.

EN :

This article proposes to take inventory of and examine, in the abundant vervilienne production, the absent works, non-existent or “disguised.” Reflecting upon the relationship between title and identity, as well as our aptitude to deduce from a title the content and character of a work, the author of this article defines the process of “bibliographical illusion,” used frequently by Verville, who, in his bibliography, multiplies these ghosts. Hence, this article sorts the works while considering, in an approximately chronological order, virtual books (announced, but not published and perhaps not written), fictitious books (those whose title suggests camouflage or forgery), and invented disguises; because the science of the book is fueled by invention. This article concludes with the unexpected restoration of a book as real, from the category of fictitious works. Bibliography is then not only the art of listing titles, but also the art and the science of linking titles with works the art of testing the game of bookish inventions and trickery.

EN :

In November 2007, l’École nationale supérieure des sciences de l’information et des bibliothèques—France’s national school for information and librarianship—launched an ambitious project, following William Kemp’s proposal: establishing, in electronic form, an exhaustive, retrospective bibliography of books printed at Lyons during the sixteenth century. The implementation of this project was the object of numerous reflections, mostly upon the way the history of the book and the history of philology complement each other. Professional and disciplinary specificities concerned the identification of the types of users of such a base, the needs of these users, the norms regularly used, and the different levels of description considered to be necessary. This article recounts these conceptual progressions as they helped define bibliography in the twenty-first century. With precise comparisons to existing databases, and with concise and detailed definitions of methodology and issues, the author exposes the necessary decisions required of any bibliographic undertaking. Public, descriptions, corpus, standardization, and use are approached with reference to both conception and concept.

FR :

Josephus Justus Scaliger, né en 1540 à Agen près de Bordeaux, accepta l’invitation de la nouvelle université de Leyde, et s’y installa en 1593 et y exerca comme professeur jusqu’à sa mort en 1609. De sa prise de fonction jusque son trépas, il ne quitta plus Leyde, où il fut enterré et sans cesse célébré depuis. En 2008, l’Institut Scaliger initia le projet, toujours en cours, de compiler la bibliographie des livres en langues orientales « et étrangères » légués à la Bibliothèque Universitaire de Leyde par Josephus Justus Scaliger en 1609. Cet article décrit ce projet, ses buts et ses enjeux, ainsi que les questions méthodologiques posées par la démarche : rencontrant en chemin des ambiguïtés et imprécisions de descriptions anciennes fort inattendues, il propose de catégoriser les types de témoignage touchant ce fonds. La bibliographie de cette collection allie l’histoire de la bibliothèque et l’histoire des anciens possesseurs, donateurs, acheteurs, passeurs de chaque manuscrit ou livre imprimé. Elle touche tout autant l’histoire de l’humanisme et la naissance des études orientales. L’analyse d’exemples précis montre que l’attribution de manuscrits et de livres à cette collection demeure incertaine en bien des cas. Néanmoins, une étude de la collection dans son ensemble, que le catalogue méthodiquement établi rendra possible, mettra en lumière les liens entre possession et transmission tout comme ceux qui unissent bibliothèque et savoir.

EN :

How does one gauge the reception of French Renaissance authors in the Netherlands? Auction catalogues from private libraries are certainly the most useful tools for this endeavour, and we have knowledge of them thanks to studies by many scholars. The project Book Sales Catalogues of the Dutch Republic—by the Royal Library of The Hague and of the University of Leiden—made available to researchers a large corpus of sales catalogues from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Currently, the microfilm is being digitized by Brill editions and will soon be available on the Internet. After having studied the Dutch reception of Marot, Rabelais, Montaigne, Du Bartas, Desportes and Molière, the author of this article proposes the synthetic review of this approach for the study of literary reception. The author evaluates the material and methodological problems, the established knowledge and new perspectives, focusing on the importance of these catalogues to both contemporary and modern bibliographical practice. The present article treats mainly sales catalogues from private libraries, saving sales catalogues of bookstore stock, printers’ stock, and other assorted bookseller catalogues for another study.