OLL Blog – Contribuições da OLL ao Projeto Memória Acadêmica da Faculdade de Direito do Recife: a memória de Manoel de Oliveira Lima em sua terra natal – Equipe do Projeto Memória Acadêmica

Equipe do Projeto Memória Acadêmica da Faculdade de Direito do Recife

Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Recife – Brasil

Em 2019, o Projeto Memória Acadêmica da Faculdade de Direito do Recife, atividade extensionista interdisciplinar desenvolvida na Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), firmou importante parceria com The Oliveira Lima Library (OLL) da Catholic University of America. A biblioteca amigavelmente cedeu cerca de 40 exemplares de livros, folhetos, teses e discursos de egressos da Faculdade de Direito do Recife (FDR) para disponibilização digitalizada no site do Projeto Memória Acadêmica. A ação assume contornos de grande relevância para as duas instituições universitárias, uma vez que reforça a conexão de Manoel de Oliveira Lima, intelectual que dá nome à OLL, com o Recife, cidade onde nasceu em 1867.

Ata da 1ª sessão extraordinária da Congregação da FDR em 22 de janeiro de 1924 – página 58

Manoel de Oliveira Lima e a Faculdade de Direito do Recife

A notoriedade de Manoel de Oliveira Lima como professor, historiador e diplomata não passou despercebida entre aqueles que atuavam na Faculdade de Direito do Recife, instituição historicamente responsável por formar grande parte das mentes intelectuais brasileiras do século XIX e início do século XX. Nesse sentido, em 30 de novembro de 1923, em sessão realizada na Congregação da Faculdade de Direito do Recife, é lançada a proposta de concessão do título de professor honorário da FDR ao Dr. Oliveira Lima. O pedido é apreciado e aprovado por unanimidade pelos professores durante a 1ª sessão extraordinária da Congregação da FDR em 22 de janeiro de 1924.

Ata da 1ª sessão extraordinária da Congregação da FDR em 22 de janeiro de 1924 – página 58v

Em consulta à ata referente a esta última sessão, disponível digitalmente no Arquivo da Faculdade de Direito do Recife, nota-se que, como justificativa para o título, considerou-se não apenas a atuação de Oliveira Lima em diversas instituições de ensino estadunidenses, mas também a relação do intelectual com a Faculdade de Direito do Recife, local em que realizou, a convite dos estudantes, diversas conferências de destaque. Nesse mesmo documento, menciona-se, ainda, a indicação de Oliveira Lima para reger a cadeira de Direito Internacional da Universidade Católica de Washington.

O Projeto Memória Acadêmica e a Oliveira Lima Library

A parceria firmada entre o Projeto Memória Acadêmica da Faculdade de Direito do Recife e a Oliveira Lima Library retoma as relações institucionais concretizadas na memória de Manoel de Oliveira Lima. Recordamos, aqui, que as obras em posse da OLL resultam da doação que o diplomata concedeu à Catholic University of America na década de 1920, tornando-se ele mesmo seu primeiro bibliotecário. Entre os títulos doados, encontram-se obras importantes para a história da FDR, fato que justifica o interesse do Projeto Memória Acadêmica pelo acervo da OLL.

Tendo em vista a atuação do Projeto Memória Acadêmica na difusão de documentos que contribuem para a preservação da memória da FDR, muitas dessas obras cedidas pela OLL já estão disponíveis para consulta no sítio eletrônico do projeto. Obras como Reflexões sobre o systema eleitoral seguidas de duas lições sobre as vantagens da eleição directa, de Pedro Autran da Matta Albuquerque (1862) e discursos pronunciados na Faculdade de Direito do Recife como o do Dr. José Hygino Duarte Pereira (1886) estão entre os documentos que atualmente podem ser acessados pelo público.

Capa da obra Reflexões sobre o systema eleitoral seguidas de duas lições sobre as vantagens da eleição directa, de Pedro Autran da Matta (1862).

Não bastasse a contribuição que o acervo da OLL fez ao projeto, enriquecendo o material bibliográfico disponibilizado ao público, o ato mereceu reconhecimento na Assembleia Legislativa de Pernambuco, que pelo Ofício Sec. nº 20926/2019, de autoria do deputado William Brigido, concedeu um Voto de Aplausos ao Projeto em razão da importante parceria estabelecida do Projeto Memória Acadêmica com a Oliveira Lima Library. 

Idos quase cem anos do Título Honorário e da visita à FDR, pode-se dizer que Oliveira Lima se fez novamente presente no Recife, sua cidade natal, através da colaboração entre as duas instituições.

Sobre o Projeto Memória Acadêmica

O Projeto Memória Acadêmica da Faculdade de Direito do Recife, como atividade de extensão interdisciplinar desenvolvida no âmbito do Centro de Ciências Jurídicas (CCJ) da UFPE, tem como objetivo contribuir com a política de preservação do patrimônio cultural da Faculdade de Direito do Recife por meio da realização de uma série de ações, congregando a comunidade acadêmica da UFPE e a sociedade em geral.

Capa do Discurso pronunciado pelo Dr. José Hygino Duarte Pereira, Lente Cathedratico de Direito Administrativo ao abrir a sessão magna litteraria do dia 11 de agosto (1886).

O projeto teve início em 2016, sob a coordenação do Prof. Dr. Humberto Carneiro, do Departamento de Teoria Geral do Direito e Direito Privado/UFPE. Atualmente, a vice-coordenadoria é exercida por Ingrid Rique, servidora do Arquivo da FDR. O projeto conta, também, com a participação de estudantes dos cursos graduação em Direito, História e Museologia, bem como de membros externos à UFPE e servidores lotados no CCJ.

Para além da digitalização e disponibilização de Obras, Memórias e Documentos Históricos da Faculdade de Direito do Recife, o Projeto Memória Acadêmica realiza atividades que visam à integração da instituição com a sociedade, tais como exposições de documentos históricos, visitas guiadas ao prédio histórico da FDR, minicursos e produção e publicação de pesquisas acadêmicas. Durante a pandemia, em razão da suspensão das atividades presenciais, o projeto passou a realizar eventos online, o que possibilitou a participação de pesquisadores de outras cidades do país em nossas atividades.

Informações de contato:

  • Email: memoriafdr@gmail.com
  • Site: https://www.ufpe.br/memoriafdr
  • Instagram: @memoriafdr
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/memoriafdr/

Referência:

Atas da Congregação da Faculdade de Direito do Recife 1923-1927. Disponível em: https://www.ufpe.br/documents/590249/2995131/Atas+da+Congrega%C3%A7%C3%A3o+FDR+1923-1927.pdf/76327750-cb2e-4781-b8c8-e8a69bbe6fed. Acesso em: 21 jun. 2021.

OLL Blog – A selection of gems: nineteenth-century Brazilian Literature and Culture materials from the Oliveira Lima Library collection – Giovanna Gobbi Alves Araujo

Giovanna Gobbi Alves Araújo 

Doutora em Literatura Brasileira, Universidade de São Paulo (CNPq/Fulbright) 

Scholar-in-residence at the Brasiliana Guita and José Mindlin Library (BBM-USP)

giovannagobbi@alumni.usp.br

Cover of A confederação dos Tamoyos…(1857).

 

Manoel de Oliveira Lima’s efforts in curating a personal library throughout the years dedicated to diplomatic service, teaching, and research built a collection of immeasurable value not only for Latin American Studies, but for Brazilian Literature in particular. 

 

Thanks to a Fulbright fellowship, I had the privilege of consulting a number of books and pamphlets related to Brazilian History and Literature at the Oliveira Lima Library, which have greatly contributed to my doctoral investigation of indigenous and Afro-Brazilian representation in nineteenth-century Brazilian epic poetry. Among myriads of holdings, the consultation of A confederação dos Tamoyos (1857), the Souvenir of the “Land of Palms” [1892?], and the Discussão litteraria entre o notavel jornalista bahiano Belarmino Barreto e os Drs. Frederico Lisboa, Arthur Americano e Aquino Fonseca acerca das poesias de Castro Alves, por occasião das manifestações do decennario do desapparecimento deste immortal poeta (1902) were notably significant in establishing the rhetorical-poetic traditions and the socio-cultural practices that underlay the construction of Indianist and abolitionist works committed to the rewriting of national history in the nineteenth century.

A confederação dos Tamoyos is an epic poem in ten cantos by Domingos José Gonçalves de Magalhães (1811-1882) that focuses on Native Brazilians’ resistance to Portuguese colonizers in the sixteenth century and the demise of indigenous peoples following their confrontation with European armed forces. Its mythological narrative, commissioned by the emperor Pedro II, was part of the political project of the Second Reign, which entailed the forging of national symbols through artistic, historiographic, and literary productions. Published in 1856, A confederação dos Tamoyos is not only Magalhães’s most prominent work, but a paradigm of nation-building literature for subsequent poets. OLL owns the 1857 edition, a reprint of the 1856 editio princeps by the same typographer, the Empresa Tipográfica Dous de Dezembro.  

Title page of A confederação dos Tamoyos…(1857).

Souvenir of the “Land of Palms” is an extremely rare pamphlet that presents the poem “Canção do Exílio” written in Coimbra, Portugal, in 1843 by Antônio Gonçalves Dias (1823-1864) and its English version, “The exile’s song”, translated by D. M. Fox in Bornemouth, England, in 1892. The unique material also contains a handwritten French translation of the poem [La chanson de l’exile], possibly transcribed by Manoel de Oliveira Lima himself. There is no mention of the translator’s name in the French version of the poem. Its pages are decorated with sepia illustrations of tropical plants, palm trees in particular, which evoke the Edenic landscape depicted by European travelers to the New World. In a nostalgic mood, “Canção do exílio”, published in “Poesias Americanas”–Primeiros Cantos, inaugurated a particular mode of representation of the Brazilian natural landscape and an emotive viewpoint from which to represent Brazilian indigenous cultures. The publication of “Canção do Exílio” as a souvenir in the late nineteenth century illustrates the interest of anglophone and francophone readerships in Dias’s work, a testament to the longevity of his Indianist writings.

Front page of Souvenir of the “Land of Palms” by Antônio Gonçalves Dias. Translated by D. M. Fox, n.p., [1892?].
Discussão litteraria is a compilation of texts first published in the Bahian periodical press in 1881 concerning the public commemoration of the ten year anniversary of the death of Antonio de Castro Alves (1847-1871),  a republican and abolitionist poet, playwright, and activist. Though some commentators celebrated Alves’s poetry and political reach in his own time, others emphasized the limitations of his writing, which was prone to hyperbolic diction. From the late nineteenth century on, critiques of his work oscillated between praise and repudiation, both of which can be identified in this singular edition. In nearly 400 pages and three volumes, intellectuals Belarmino Barreto, Frederico Lisboa, Arthur Americano, and Aquino Fonseca discuss the (de)merits of Castro Alves’s work and the parameters of literary criticism as well as argue over the literary pre-eminence of various European authors, offering insightful remarks on the cultural atmosphere of nineteenth-century Brazil. 

Title page of Barreto and Lisboa’s Discussão litteraria (1902).

From books and pamphlets to manuscripts, the items related to Brazilian literature and culture in the Oliveira Lima Library (OLL) collection open up avenues of possibility for scholars of the Nineteenth-century and cast light on a complex period of Brazilian history. 

Works cited

Barreto, Belarmino, and Frederico Lisboa. Discussão litteraria entre o notavel jornalista bahiano Belarmino Barreto e os Drs. Frederico Lisboa, Arthur Americano e Aquino Fonseca acerca das poesias de Castro Alves, por occasião das manifestações do decennario do desapparecimento deste immortal poeta. 3 v. Typographia Genesio de Souza Pitanga,1902.

Dias, Antônio Gonçalves. Souvenir of the “Land of Palms”. Translated by D. M. Fox, n.p.,[1892?].

Magalhães, Domingos José Gonçalves de. A confederação dos Tamoyos; poema. Rio de Janeiro: Empreza Typographica Dous de Dezembro, 1857.

OLL Blog – Autonomous Native Peoples in the South American Borderlands – Heather Roller

Heather Roller

Associate Professor of History

Colgate University

 

It was the dry season of 1845, and the Guaikurú were on the move again. Some groups rode on horseback across the grasslands, while others navigated in canoes along the Paraguay River or its tributaries. These Native peoples had been visiting Brazilian and Paraguayan forts and garrison towns for more than a half century, following a series of fragile peace agreements negotiated between Guaikurú leaders and Spanish or Portuguese representatives. Much had changed over those decades, but the Guaikurú remained powerful actors in this borderlands region. One outsider who described them in these terms was the French naturalist Francis de Castelnau, who led a scientific expedition to the interior of South America.

“Guaycuru Warrior,” 1845. Portrait from Francis de Castelnau, Vues et Scènes, vol. 2 of Expédition dans les parties centrales de l’Amérique du Sud, de Rio de Janeiro à Lima et de Lima au Para (Paris: P. Bertrand, 1852), Plate 37, Oliveira Lima Library, The Catholic University of America.

Two remarkable illustrations of the Guaikurú appear in a volume of Castelnau expedition “views and scenes,” which can be found at the Oliveira Lima Library. The first is a portrait of a warrior whose path crossed with that of the French naturalist at the garrison of Albuquerque in 1845 (figure 1). Castelnau gathered that this group of Guaikurús had arrived from the Chaco region only a few days before: “They told us that they had massacred the population of a Spanish town [in Paraguay] and that, being pursued, they came to place themselves under the protection of the Brazilian garrison.” A subgroup, which Castelnau characterized as a “much more savage” band of Kadiwéus, had similarly just crossed into Brazil from Paraguay, to escape retribution from an Indigenous enemy.[i] Both groups were eager to trade some horses for liquor and other supplies. Castelnau was fascinated by the appearance of the Kadiwéu visitors, who—like the man in the portrait—“paint the body with genipapo [ink], covering it with precise figures made of concentric lines and beautiful arabesques…They also frequently paint their hands black, giving the impression of wearing gloves.”[ii]

The second illustration depicts an encampment near Albuquerque that Castelnau described as inhabited by another subgroup of Guaikurús, featuring open-walled shelters arranged in a semicircle (figure 2). Although this subgroup was described in his account and in official reports from the 1840s as “aldeado”—or settled in a state-run village—other evidence makes clear that they remained mobile and autonomous. Indigenous raiding in the borderlands remained common in this period, and the lands between forts in Brazil and Paraguay still effectively belonged to the Guaikurú and Kadiwéu. After the Frenchman visited the Paraguayan fort at Olimpo, he was escorted back to Coimbra Fort on the Brazilian side by a group of soldiers who were terrified to venture into the open terrain. On high alert for Native raiders, “every grass mound of the Chaco seemed to them a Guaikurú ready to attack.” The Paraguayan soldiers’ fears, as it turns out, were justified: upon Castelnau’s return to Brazil, he was told that the Guaikurús had been tracking the party and would have attacked it, had it not been for the presence of the French travelers. He also discovered that the Guaikurús had already given the Brazilian commander at Coimbra a precise account of the trip to Olimpo, fulfilling their longstanding roles as borderland spies and informants.[iii]

“Encampment of Guaycuru Indians,” 1845. From Castelnau, Vues et Scènes, Plate 21, Oliveira Lima Library, The Catholic University of America.

I included both of these illustrations in my recent book, Contact Strategies: Histories of Native Autonomy in Brazil. The central argument, as suggested by the book’s title, is that Indigenous groups took the initiative in their contacts with Brazilian society. Rather than fleeing from that society, they actively sought to appropriate what was useful and powerful from the world of the whites. (In this context, “white” was broadly defined as non-Indigenous.) At the same time, many Indigenous people chose not to live like whites. Groups like the Guaikurú refused permanent settlement, rejected most missionary overtures, and continued to move and gain their subsistence in the old ways—even as they acquired new, useful things like axes, guns, and horses. They also aimed to control the pace and extent of contact: they might open up to outsiders for a period of time and then decide to limit interactions for as long as was collectively deemed necessary. At the time of Castelnau’s expedition, the Guaikurú were using strategies of alliance and warfare in an effort to maintain their autonomy and to reassert authority over people and territory.

[i] Francis de Castelnau, Expedição às regiões centrais da América do Sul (Rio de Janeiro: Itatiaia, 2000), 365, 366.

[ii] Castelnau, Expedição, 366-367.

[iii] Castelnau, Expedição, 386 (quotation), 388.

 

 

 

Latin American Independence: a guide to resources at the Oliveira Lima Library and Catholic University’s Special Collections

In anticipation of the upcoming celebrations of the bicentennial of the independence movements of many Latin American countries, the Oliveira Lima Library has collaborated with Special Collections on a guide to relevant source material. 

Holland, William, active 1782-1817. General Miranda, an accurate likeness taken at Barbadoes (1806).

 

While the materials presented focus on Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela, we cannot overstate just how much impact these independence movements had throughout the whole of the European continent, particularly in the ever more powerful British Empire. Readers will thus note the presence of many materials written in English. It should also be noted that the materials contained in this guide do not merely relate to portrayals of the great figures of the time, though figures like Agustín de Iturbide, Simón Bolívar, Francisco de Miranda and Dom João VI are certainly present. In many instances, readers will also gain insight into daily life in the erstwhile colonies.

We hope you enjoy this guide as much as we did working alongside the staff at Special Collections! To access the libguide, please visit the following link: https://guides.lib.cua.edu/c.php?g=1163778

Chamberlain, Henry, Lieutenant, 1796-1843. Views and costumes of the city and neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1822). Plate 4: A market stall.

To access materials in the Oliveira Lima Library, please schedule a visit with us via email at cua-limalibrary@cua.edu.

OLL Blog – Engraved Illustrations of Jesuit Martyrdoms During the Persecution of Christianity in Early Modern Japan – Jan Levin Propach

Dr. Jan Levin Propach

Postdoctoral Researcher at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich – Department of Catholic Theology

 

The Oliveira Lima Library contains a collection of engraved illustrations showing Jesuit martyrdoms during the persecution of Christianity in 17th century Japan. Even though these illustrations were made in Europe in a propagandistic manner, they tell a story which is not well-known in the West: the rise and fall of Christianity in Early Modern Japan.

In 1549 Francis Xavier S.J. (1506–1552)—one of the first disciples of Ignatius of Loyola S.J. (1491–1556)—arrived at Japan’s southern Island Kyushu together with two other Jesuits and a former Samurai. What political context did the missionaries enter? Since the Ōnin War (1467–1477), Japan was no longer reigned by the emperor and a shogun (Muromachi Shogunate). Instead, dozens of small local rulers (daimyō and kunishū), different Buddhist monasteries fought for their supremacy. The three Great Unifiers Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582), Toyotomi Hideyashi (1537–1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616) attempted to bring the Age of Warring States (sengoku) to an end and to unify the country under the reign of a shogun again.

Martyrdom of Augustinus Ota S.J. (1572-1622). IN: Cardim. Elogios e ramalhete de flores… (1650)

The destiny of Christianity in Japan is neatly wedded into this Age of Warring States. Many Japanese local lords allowed the Jesuits to proselytize their subjects, because they benefited from the Portuguese trade and weapon technologies. They also perceived in Christianity an instrument against the influence of different powerful Buddhist sects. On the other hand, Christian missionaries were seen as representatives of foreign powers trying to increase their influence in Japan.

Despite this, the early Japanese missions were highly successful: about 150.000 Japanese were converted in 1583; 75 Jesuits organized the Japanese mission; there was a novitiate in Usuki, seminaries in Arima and Azuchi and about ten Jesuit residences throughout Japan. However, missionaries would be increasingly perceived as antagonists to the efforts to reach the country’s unity, especially after the donation of Nagasaki to the Jesuits in 1580. Thus on July 24th, 1587 Hideyoshi issued an edict that expelled the Jesuit missionaries. This first edict had only a limited impact on the Japanese mission, although it caused the confiscation and demolition of Christian buildings, such as the college in Funai and the novitiate in Usuki. From this moment on, the Jesuit mission focused on Kyushu.

Martyrdom of Emmanuel Borges, S.J. IN: Cardim. Elogios e ramalhete de flores… (1650)

The pragmatic politician Hideyoshi only reluctantly tolerated the Jesuits’ bidding out of an interest in and dependence on trade with the Portuguese. These economic relations could only be achieved with the help of the Jesuits. Tokugawa Ieyasu, who followed Hideyoshi after his death in 1598, tolerated the Jesuits’ missionary activities for economic reasons too, but once he issued a trade permit for the Dutch (1609) and the English (1613), he limited the Portuguese ships to the port of Nagasaki. There was no further need of tolerance for Christianity to get involved in the profitable European trade. And when in 1612 a court intrigue—involving Okamoto Paulo Daihachi and Arima Harunobi who were both Christians—was disclosed, Ieyasu’s aversion against the Christian missionaries increased considerably.

In 1614, the bakufu, or military government, announced the expulsion of all missionaries from Japan. This edict was renewed under Ieyasu’s successor Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632) in 1616. The great martyrdoms in Kyoto 1619 (88 martyrdoms), Nagasaki in 1622 (55 martyrdoms) and Edo, now Tokyo, in 1624 (50 martyrdoms) all attest to the serious commitment of the shogun’s government to this new policy. Between 1614 and 1650, 2,128 Christians died under the persecution, 71 of whom were European missionaries (1). The following illustrations from Antonio Francisco Cardim’s Elogios e ramalhete de flores… (1650) in the Oliveira Lima Library depict the martyrdoms of Emmanuel Borges S.J., Augustinus Ota S.J. (1572–1622) and Diego Yuki S.J. (1574–1636) by anatsurushi (2) and by smiting with a sword.

Martyrdom of Diego Yuki S.J. (1574-1636). IN: Cardim. Elogios e ramalhete de flores… (1650)

By 1643, after all of Japan’s missionaries were forced either to flee to China and the Philippines, were killed or apostatized, about one hundred missionaries had secretly entered Japan to maintain the religious, and especially the sacramental life of the Church. Between 1714, the year of the death in Edo of Giovanni Battista Sidotti (1668–1714), the last priest to enter Japan secretly, until the enactment of religious freedom in 1889, Christianity survived in the underground, disconnected from the Church hierarchy. Many of those Hidden Christians rejoined the Catholic Church in the late 19th century. However, down to the present day some Christian communities remain hidden in the underground, opting not to reenter the Catholic Church in order to keep their own religious identities in contact with the greater Japanese religious environment. (3)

 

(1) For a list of all Japanese martyrdoms see Boxer, Charles Ralph. The Christian Century in Japan (1549–1650). Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951, 448.

(2) Anatsurushi was a method of torture by facing the victim upside down in an Excrement-filled hole in the ground; a lid closed on the neck. Slow death made it possible for those who were tortured to renounce their faith and thus save their lives.

(3) Cf. Turnbull, Stephen. The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan. A Study of Their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day. Richmond: Japan Library Press, 1998; Harrington, Ann M. Japan’s Hidden Christians. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1993 and Pella, Kristian. The Kakure Kirishitan of Ikitsuki Island. The End of a Tradition. Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2013.

OLL Blog – Tracing John Locke’s path to the Oliveira Lima Library

Tracing John Locke’s path to the Oliveira Lima Library

Henry Widener

Despite our living in the Digital Age,  Tumblr Share Your Shelf and articles such as the Washington Post’s These Books Spark Joy assert that a person’s bookshelf still has a lot to say about them. Peter Knox perhaps said it best: ‘Only a bookshelf can truly hold a reader’s history and future at the same time…Bookshelves are universal in that almost everyone has one, and unique in that no two collections are the same. They reflect much more than just the book-buying habits of their owner…” and can reveal our accomplishments, aspirations, associations, personal development, guilty pleasures, escapes, memories, interests and so much more.

The recognition of the deep connection between a person and their book collection is as old as the printed book itself. Just how intimately a book collector identifies with his collection can be observed most strikingly when that collector begins to sense the end of their bodily life approaching. Some collectors, such as Manoel de Oliveira Lima, desire to keep their collections entirely intact in perpetuity, somewhat of an attempt to communicate with posterity through a dialogue unadulterated by the passing of time. Other book collectors, whether by the constraints of economy, space or unsympathetic heirs, are forced to part with part or all of their books. Whatever their fate, book collections are inevitably linked to the memory of their former owners.

It is in this light that the personal library of John Locke has drawn attention from scholars. The most comprehensive study of the contents of Locke’s library is John Harrison and Peter Laslett’s The Library of John Locke (1971). This foundational text has served as a point of departure for an exploration into the intellectual influence of Locke’s library on his thinking, such as Richard Ashcraft’s John Locke’s Library: Portrait of an Intellectual (1969) and Ann Talbot’s The Great Ocean of Knowledge: the Influence of Travel Literature on the Work of John Locke (2010). Given Locke’s immense contribution to Modern Western thought, one might venture to say that the keener our knowledge of Locke’s personal library, the more we may understand about some of the thought processes that have influenced the world we live in today. 

However, Locke’s library as he knew it did not remain intact after his passing. In his will, John Locke divided his collection into two parts, the first going to his cousin Peter King, the other going to Francis Cudworth Masham, son of Sir Francis and Damaris Masham, on whose Otes estate Locke spent the last 13 years of his life after returning to England from his voluntary exile in the Netherlands. These two parts of Locke’s library, known respectively as the King and Masham moieties, would experience very different fates. The King moiety would eventually find its way to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, where Locke himself had studied and taught. The Masham moiety, following the course of the disintegrating funds of the Masham family’s decadent successors, would be gradually dispersed throughout the world via auctions and other sales, leading Harrison and Laslett to conclude, in an almost wistful admission of defeat, that “We shall never set our eyes on more than a score or two of the Masham moiety” (Harrison and Laslett, p. 61)

Figure 1 – François Pyrard’s ‘Voyage…’ (1679)

Various institutions have been doing their part to assuage the gloom of these Locke scholars. Just last year the New York Academy of Medicine revealed that its copy of De Miraculis Occultis Naturae (1581) was part of the Masham Moiety. Today, it is the Oliveira Lima Library’s honor to contribute to these efforts to bring the Masham moiety further into light. Though unbridled my giddiness might lead me to prattle on forever, I would like to briefly relate how OLL came to discover that it possesses one of John Locke’s books.

Several months ago – eons in pandemic terms – we here at OLL decided to comb through Ruth Holmes Bibliographical and historical description of the rarest books in the Oliveira Lima collection at the Catholic University of America (1926). If nothing else, we hoped to familiarize ourselves with the only description of the Oliveira Lima Library’s holdings published under the guidance of Manoel de Oliveira Lima himself, a greatly useful resource for the various projects on provenance currently underway here at OLL, such as research into our Camiliana

Figure 2 – The bookplate of Richard Palmer, Esq.

Entry n.102 in Holmes for Voyage de François Pyrard, de Laval, contenant sa navigation aux Indes orientales, Maldives, Moluques, & au Bresil (1679), (Fig. 1) states that “the fine copy in the Lima Library belonged to John Locke, and bears his autograph.” I immediately rushed to our Gale database to inspect every single page of the Oliveira Lima Library’s copy. While I did see the bookplate of a Richard Palmer Esq. (Fig. 2) I was unable to find any other provenance markings, much less an autograph, that could establish previous ownership by one of Modernity’s preeminent thinkers. 

The Oliveira Lima Library’s previous cataloger seems to have reached the same results, for at the time, the book’s bibliographic record contained a note that the Oliveira Lima Library’s copy ‘supposedly’ contained John Locke’s signature. As other projects came about, I decided to file this tantalizing little conundrum away in hopes of someday getting back to it.

Months later, I opened David Pearson’s Provenance research in book history : a handbook (2019), which has become required reading at OLL for its straightforward yet in depth approach to provenance studies. In his chapter on inscriptions and manuscript additions, Pearson notes ‘a multiplicity of different marks and signs that can be used to detect the ownership of the philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) is described in the published reconstruction of his library’ (p. 37) accompanied by a footnote directing readers to Harrison and Laslett.

Figure 3 – Entry n. 2411 in Harrison and Laslett.

 

My interest was piqued again. A bit of Google sleuthing put me in contact with Sarah Wheale, Head of Rare Books at the Bodleian Library, who not only confirmed to me that François Pyrard’s Voyage (1679) did appear in Harrison and Laslett’s inventory, entry n. 2411 (Fig 3), but  also attached Harrison and Laslett’s addendum on identifying Locke’s markings.

Figure 4 – Underlining on the last two digits of the publication year.

As I checked Harrison and Laslett’s addendum against the Oliveira Lima Library’s copy, my heart started beating quicker. Just as Harrison and Laslett state, on the title page the last two digits of the year of publication were underlined (Fig 4). Likewise, the page number on the last page of each of the book’s three parts was overlined. (Fig 5; Fig 6; Fig 7) After relating my findings to her through email, Sarah Wheale suggest I speak to Dr. Felix Waldmann, who confirmed that OLL’s Pyrard did previously belong to John Locke. At this point I was (figuratively) doing backflips!

Apart from all of the markings I had matched to Harrison and Laslett’s addendum, Dr. Waldmann pointed out that the bookplate of Richard Palmer, Esq. was further evidence of its having been part of the Masham moiety, for Palmer had been a creditor to the late Lord Masham and had thus taken possession of Masham’s library upon his death. Dr. Waldmann also provided me with a wealth of resources on Locke’s personal library, many of which I have cited here.

Figure 5 – Overlining on the final page of part 1

As a young professional, this incredibly gratifying process has given me firsthand experience of how exciting the field of bibliography and provenance studies can be, though they require a vast network of resources and often a meticulous attention to detail. It has also taught me some important lessons.

First of all, one should never hesitate to talk to colleagues in the field. It took me a good bit of time to build up the courage to send emails to the Bodleian Library, mostly out of fear that I might be bothering them with the pedestrian concerns of such a plebeian librarian as myself. However, I got over that fear by reasoning that there was potential mutual benefit to each of our institutions in locating another piece of John Locke’s library. To my delight, both Sarah Wheale from the Bodleian Library and Dr. Waldmann were incredibly helpful, vastly knowledgeable and just a joy to correspond with. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly express my gratitude to them both.

Figure 6 – Overlining on the final page of parrt 2

Secondly, I learned that one should think long and hard before rebinding their books. As I learned in conversation with Dr. Waldmann, OLL’s Pyrard may have been deprived of at least two other markings of Locke’s simply because it was rebound. For starters, John Locke’s unique shelf listing system – almost a dead giveaway for Locke provenance – is visible on the spines of all books from his library which have retained their original binding. Apart from the exterior of the book, rebinding can also alter the book itself. Oftentimes, and as is the case with OLL’s Pyrard, a book’s cover will be discarded and replaced with new endpapers once it has been rebound. This might explain the absence of Locke’s signature on OLL’s copy because, as Harrison and Laslett note, on the occasions that Locke did sign his books, his signature was always located on the back of the front cover. 

Figure 7 – Overlining on the final page of part 3

Lastly, and this has become somewhat of a mantra among myself and OLL Director Dr. Nathalia Henrich, just because the Oliveira Lima Library’s holdings are strongest on the subject of Luso-Brazilian history does not mean that they are only of use to students of Portugal and Brazil. The Americas, both broadly as an immense swath of land rich in natural and cultural resources and more specifically as colonies, were inextricably linked to their European metropoles and inflamed the imaginations of the most diverse array of people throughout Europe, moving the march of history on either side of the Atlantic. Furthermore, the product of a life’s worth of collecting by a dedicated bibliophile, the Oliveira Lima Library has much to offer the fields of provenance research and bibliography, areas of research which in turn give proof that every collection is unique and deserving of study. The digitization of one copy of a book may provide access to the general contents of an edition, but it is no substitute for the study of the book as artifact. I can think of no better testament to this than the Oliveira Library’s copy of François Pyrard’s Voyage, a 17th-century description of travels through the New World written by a Frenchman and formerly owned by one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment in England.

 

OLL Blog — My path to librarianship and the Oliveira Lima Library

Earlier this month, Fine Books & Collections posted an interview with me as part of their series Bright Young Librarians. While my tendency toward self-deprecation would lead me to question those qualifiers – months of sheltering-in-place I has got me feeling particularly dim and old – I was nevertheless thrilled to be featured in a publication of such note among my colleagues. It was a wonderful chance to speak about both the work Dr. Nathalia Henrich and I have been doing at the Oliveira Lima Library and the circumstances that brought me here. In the interest of highlighting the immense value of our collection and our role in maximizing that value, I’d like to take this opportunity to expand a bit on my remarks.

Apart from my love of history, what most drew me to the the field of librarianship was the social commitment of the library, the idea that the guarantee of access and use of library materials should be the driving force behind the development and implementation of theory and practice. To me, that idea is best expressed in the concept of stewardship. As Sharon Farb puts it, stewardship is, among other things, ‘service on behalf of users and on behalf of society.’ As library professionals such as Daniel Greenstein and Meg Bellinger have noted, while the Digital Age has challenged us to rethink our notions of preservation and ownership, it has also offered us opportunities to think of documented cultural memory in terms of interconnected networks, where the movement and exchange of knowledge takes precedence over the mere guardianship of materials.

This idea of stewardship has greatly eased my own personal anxieties and insecurities as a professional still relatively wet behind the ears. I often agonize over just the right content and structure of catalog records, wading through the mire of numbers and codes. In publishing a new record to our online catalog, I hope to create something laudable and unassailable by my peers. While these are certainly worthy goals, they should never get in the way of access. If I am uneasy about a record I have just created, I can rest assured that by making available to the public materials previously unknown, I am starting a conversation that will never end. Whatever gaps in my knowledge will be filled by those who come to use our collection. Nothing, certainly not my work as a cataloger, is written in stone. Beyond that, if our society’s current discussion has taught me anything, monuments to the past neither are nor should be protected from serious conversations.

In a way, this last point informs the work of Dr. Henrich and I. To be sure, we have been bestowed with the responsibility of keeping alive the memory of Manoel and Flora de Oliveira Lima; we are not, however, in the business of apotheosizing their memory nor the materials in their collection. The purpose of our work is to offer our holdings to the scrutiny of those wishing to undertake the serious and responsible endeavor of scholarship, regardless of their academic titles and honors. I find this in keeping with the legacy of Dr. Oliveira Lima, a man who was neither diffident in debate, intransigent in his political and social views, nor lacking in humor, even when it came to the caricatures of himself which often exaggerated his corpulence.

OLL Blog – Visual Depictions of Amazonian Boundary Commissions – Jeffrey Erbig

Visual Depictions of Amazonian Boundary Commissions

Jeffrey Erbig

Assistant Professor

University of California Santa Cruz

Department of Latin American & Latino Studies

Within the walls of the Oliveira Lima Library there sits a unique collection of watercolors attributed to Spanish mapmaker Francisco Requena y Herrera. The watercolors depict Luso-Hispanic mapping expeditions commissioned under the 1777 Treaty of San Ildefonso to draw a border between Brazil and Spanish South America. Requena was the ranking official of a Spanish mapping team sent to the Amazon, one of many that stretched the ten-thousand-mile border. His watercolors are perhaps the only visual records that portray the labors of the boundary commissions and were likely part of Manoel de Oliveira Lima’s original donation to the library. Oliveira Lima reportedly purchased them in 1914 from Dutch poet and essayist, Martinus Nijhoff, who in turn had acquired them in Spain (Smith, 33). If this account holds true, then Requena most likely brought them with him upon his 1795 return to Spain. Meanwhile, Requena’s maps are scattered across libraries in the United States and Europe, and while some include the same figures as the watercolors, most omit them entirely (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1: Francisco Requena, Mapa geográfico de la mayor parte de la América Meridional, 1796. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center Collection.

Beyond being a unique media, Requena’s watercolors are significant for the information they present. Whereas the boundary commissions’ maps provide little indication of the labor involved in their production, these watercolors affirm what is more readily apparent in the diaries of demarcation officers, the expeditions’ account books, and administrative records of the spaces through which they traveled. They demonstrate complex sociocultural interactions that go far beyond Luso-Hispanic diplomacy or scientific knowledge (Siquiera Bueno and Kantor, 253-61). More specifically, they point to the actions of Indigenous and African Americans in response to Iberian efforts to partition the continent. Whereas several dozen diplomats, geographers, cosmographers, astronomers, engineers, and other royal officials produced the expeditions’ documentary corpus, each of the dozens of mapping teams included as many as several hundred guides, contracted laborers, slaves, and armed escorts. Moreover, they traveled through lands claimed and controlled by Indigenous peoples, who alternatively offered resistance or aid (Costa, 117-23).

Take for example the ninth watercolor in the series, titled Cascadas del Río Cuñaré (Fig. 2). From left to right, Requena identifies “Indios Omaguas” rowing a canoe full of provisions, Portuguese officers surveying the landscape with the support of numerous laborers, and Requena himself consulting with an Indigenous man while an African descendant interpreter conversed with two Native women. The image alone provides few details to explain the scene, but in his correspondence, Requena recounted having consulted with Omaguas men and women via a guide (prático do país) named Fernando Rojas. According to Requena, Omaguas communities maintained deep ties to nearby Franciscan missions, trading frequently with them in captives and in goods, and ostensible animosity toward the Portuguese (Quijano Otero, 192-93). Rojas, along with Juan de Silva, were Black men who had reportedly escaped slavery in the Brazilian captaincy of Pará, were fluent in nearby Indigenous languages, and had become principal guides for the Spanish demarcation teams (Roller, 119-20).

Fig. 2: Francisco Requena, Cascadas del Río Cuñaré. Oliveira Lima Library, The Catholic University of America.

Cascadas del Río Cuñaré captures much of what I found in the research for my book, Where Caciques and Mapmakers Met: Border Making in Eighteenth-Century South America, and for that reason I chose it as the cover image. While Requena’s teams and their Portuguese counterparts surveyed the Amazon, most of the expeditions worked farther south, in the Pantanal (Mato Grosso, Paraguay, and Bolivia) or in the grasslands and forests of southeastern South America (Santa Catarina/Rio Grande do Sul, Argentina, and Uruguay). By situating the southern expeditions within a deeper spatial history of this last region, I found that Native peoples engaged the boundary commissions with their own territorial imaginaries. Rather than part of an ever passing landscape or mere informants, as Iberian mapmakers depicted them to be, Indigenous peoples engaged the boundary commissions to advance their own interests. Guaraní mission-dwellers tend to garner the most attention in this regard, due to a three-year war that they waged against Spanish and Portuguese armies in response to the first attempt at partition. Yet all throughout the purported border, sovereign Native nations asserted their own claims, a fact that forces us to reframe border-drawing not merely as interimperial politics, but rather as interethnic affairs.

 

Bibliography

Costa, Maria de Fátima. “Viajes en la frontera colonial: Historias de una expedición de límites en la América Meridional (1753-1754).” Anales del Museo de América 16 (2009): 113–126.

Quijano Otero, José María. Límites de la República de los Estados-Unidos de Colombia, vol. 1. Sevilla: Francisco Alvarez y Cía, 1881.

Roller, Heather F. “River Guides, Geographical Informants, and Colonial Field Agents in the Portuguese Amazon.” Colonial Latin American Review 21, no. 1 (2012): 101–126.

Siquiera Bueno, Beatriz Piccolotto, and Iris Kantor. “A outra face das expedições científico-demarcatórias na Amazônia: o coronel Francisco Requena y Herrera e a comitiva castelhana.” In Oliveira, Francisco Roque de, ed. Cartógrafos para toda a Terra: Produção e circulação do saber cartográfico ibero-americano. Lisboa: Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, 2015, 243–64.

Smith, Robert C. “Requena and the Japurá: Some Eighteenth Century Watercolors of the Amazon and Other Rivers.” The Americas 3, no. 1 (1946): 31–65.

 

OLL Blog – Brazilian Incunables?

The word ‘incunable’ comes from the Latin incunabula, which means ‘swaddling clothes’ or ‘cradle’. In the context of books, the term refers to the printed word in its infancy, which began with Gutenberg’s invention of movable type some time around 1450 and was first manifested in 1455 by Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible. Starting in Mainz, printing presses with movable type quickly spread from Germany to all of Europe throughout the 15th century: Spain in 1474, England in 1476 and Portugal in 1487. Strictly speaking, the period of incunables ends in Europe in 1501, a date by which many of the trappings of a printed book as we know it today – title page, numbered pages, illustrations and, importantly for catalogers, publication information – had been firmly established in European printing.

Montalboddo’s ‘Paesi Nouamente Retrouati….’ (1507)

However, beyond this restricted sense the word incunable is often adjectivized to describe early printing in a specific geographic or cultural area. In Margaret Bingham Stillwell’s opinion, it is eminently proper to speak of incunabula in the context of the Americas because both Gutenberg and Columbus “altered the course of history more effectively than anyone since the birth of Christ.” (p. x) This seems especially apt when we consider that history itself is nothing more than the documentary record of human memory and furthermore, that during the Age of Exploration the printed word was essential to publicizing the so-called discoveries of the various European powers in the New World, both enabling them to stake their claims and igniting the imaginations of rival European monarchs with the possibility for commerce and evangelism and goading them into the fray of imperial conquest.

We may thus initiate the period of American incunables with Columbus’ arrival in the Americas and the subsequent publication in 1493  his Epistola Cristofori Colom… In 1500 the first Europeans, led by Pedro Álvares Cabral, set foot on the land that would come to be called Brazil. The first printed account of Cabral’s voyage is to be found in Fracanzano da Montalboddo’s Paesi Nouamente Retrouati…. in Venice in 1507. It is the oldest printed book in the Oliveira Lima Library’s holdings.

As Stillwell notes, throughout the 16th century the majority of works on the Americas were still being printed in Europe, but by 1700 “the art of bookmaking…had become an established and influential factor in colonial life” in both North and South America. For many bibliographers, the various independence movements in the colonies during the late 18th and early 19th centuries mark the end of early printing in the Americas.

‘Warhafftige Beschreibunge aller und mancherley sorgfeltigen Schiffarten…’ (1567)

So when did printing begin in Brazil? How long did its period of early printing last? The answer to this question, like that of so many others, is deceptively complex and provides one of a host of examples of Brazil’s truly unique and cosmopolitan development.

Rocha Pitta’s ‘Historia da America Portugueza’ (1730)

The history of printing in Brazil offers a peculiar example within the context of the other European colonies in the New World, for whereas printing presses appeared within decades of the establishment of colonies in Spanish and English America, none would be officially recognized in Brazil until the arrival of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro in 1808, a full 300 years after the arrival of Europeans in Brazil.

That is not to say that this Portuguese colony did not pique the interest of learned Europeans throughout its first three centuries of existence, nor that the inhabitants of Brazil did not publish works during the colonial period. The Oliveira Lima Library’s holdings provide a wealth of material as evidence to the contrary, such as Hans Staden’s Warhafftige Beschreibunge aller und mancherley sorgfeltigen Schiffarten… published in Frankfurt am Main in 1567 and Sebastião da Rocha Pitta’s Historia da America Portugueza, desde o anno de mil e quinhentos de seu descobrimento, até o de mil e setecentos e vinte e quatro, the first history of Portuguese America written by a Brazilian, published in Lisbon in 1730. Yet the fact nevertheless remains that it took 300 years for printing to be officially established in Brazil. Why is that?

Van Baerle’s ‘Rerum per octennium in Brasilia’ (1647)

At the risk of nuance, the lack of publishing houses in colonial Brazil can be attributed to two major factors. The first was the Portuguese crown, which jealously guarded the benefits of the mercantilist system which maintained Lisbon as the center of political, economic and cultural power of Portugal’s immense and far flung empire. Though this apprehension on the part of the Portuguese metropole was shared by Spain, Portugal’s policies seemed particularly restrictive of the production or entry of books into its colony. The second force at play was that of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, whose censorial power focused on ensuring that no publication run afoul of the Inquisition’s moral strictures.

Despite these eminently unfavorable conditions, three attempts were made at establishing printing houses in Brazil prior to 1808. The first was initiated by the Dutch during their brief reign over northeastern Brazil in the 17th century. It was fruitless, for Pieter Janzsoon, the printer hired for the task, died weeks after his arrival in Brazil in 1643. While unsuccessful in producing any books inside of Brazil, Dutch rule did produce many accounts of Brazil published in Europe, including Caspar van Baerle’s wonderfully illustrated Rerum per octennium in Brasilia… printed in Amsterdam in 1647.

A second attempt at establishing a press was made in Recife, Pernambuco, though the only evidence of its existence lies in two royal orders, the first from 1706 and the second from 1747, to seize the press’s materials.

The last and only successful attempt at printing in Brazil before 1808 was undertaken by Antonio Isidoro da Fonseca, who, for reasons as of yet uncertain, departed Lisbon in 1746 to found a publishing house in Rio de Janeiro. This daring endeavor would last a mere two years, from 1747-1749, producing a few pamphlets and the first book ever printed in Brazil, Relaçaõ da entrada que fez o excellentissimno, e reverendissimo senhor D. Fr. Antonio do Desterro Malheyro Bispo do Rio de Janeiro. According to Jerônimo Estrada de Barros (2012), the Oliveira Lima Library’s is one of less than ten known copies in the world.

‘Relaçaõ da entrada…’ (1747)

The arrival of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro in 1808 led to the founding that very same year of Brazil’s first officially sanctioned publishing house and resulted in an explosion of books in the colony. Indeed, between 1808 and 1822, the Impressão Régia (Royal Publishing House) “would print nearly 1,500 books and over 700 laws, decrees, alvarás, royal letters, etc” an output which exceeded that of its counterpart in Lisbon. (Gauz, p. 43) Among the Oliveira Lima Library’s many books and pamphlets printed by the Impressão Régia during the waning years of the colonial period is Reflexões sobre alguns dos meios propostos por mais conducentes para melhorar o clima da cidade do Rio de Janeiro, the first book printed by the Impressão Régia in 1808.

‘Reflexões…’ (1808)

By 1822, Brazil had all but achieved independence. No longer beholden to the colonial metropole or the censorship of the Inquisition, publishing would greatly expand, marking the end of the period of early printing in Brazil and the beginning of a period of growth in the book industry in which academics and bibliophiles such as Manoel de Oliveira Lima surely must have reveled.

Bibliography

Borba de Moraes, Rubens. Bibliographia brasiliana: rare books about Brazil published from 1504 to 1900 and works by Brazilian authors of the Colonial period. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1983.

Estrada de Barros, Jerônimo Duque. Na oficina de Antônio Isidoro da Fonseca: levantamento e análise das obras produzidas pelo primeiro tipógrafo da América portuguesa. Fundação Biblioteca Nacional, 2012

Gauz, Valéria. Early Printing in Brazil.

Stillwell, Margaret Bingham. Incunabula and Americana, 1450-1800: a Key to Bibliographical Study. New York: Cooper Square, 1961