Title page of the libretto for Jacopo Peri and Ottavio Rinuccini's L'Euridice, Florence, 1600.

A major collection of Italian opera libretti is now accessible through an online database. The collection of 3,421 items was donated in 1969 by New York rare book dealer Hans P. Kraus. The collection consists primarily of texts of Italian operas but also includes Italian cantatas, serenatas, oratorios, dialogues and Passions. The collection, which dates from the 17th through the 20th century, documents musical performances by Italian, French, German and Austrian composers performed in numerous Italian cities and elsewhere. Learn more about the collection.

Micah Erwin is a student in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin specializing in rare books and special collections librarianship. He earned a masters degree in medieval studies, and his research interests include the preservation and cataloging of medieval manuscripts and early printed books. He shares some discoveries he made about a medieval manuscript in the Ransom Center’s collections. HRC 44 is the unique number assigned to this particular manuscript in the Center’s Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Collection. Early manuscripts in the Ransom Center’s collections are often identified by a unique number called a shelfmark that is assigned during the cataloging process.

There were many manuscripts produced in the Middle Ages whose scribes remained anonymous.…

Photo by Pete Smith. Click on image to view larger version.

We recently received a reference question regarding our copy of The Farewell Address of Gen. George Washington (Keene, N.H.: Printed by John Prentiss, 1812). The question had nothing to do with the work but with the possibility that our copy might be bound in boards covered with sheets from a supposedly suppressed edition of John Cleland’s 1748 novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (commonly known as Fanny Hill). And in fact, our copy is bound thus. (It is not uncommon to find “printed waste” in early bookbindings. Paper, being an expensive commodity, was reused whenever possible in the production of books.)

The text of the sheet used in our binding is not…

The Ransom Center’s spring calendar is now available on the Ransom Center’s website.

Highlights include programs with visiting writers John Banville, Iain Sinclair, Peter Carey, and Kenneth Brown.

The calendar also features programming related to the spring exhibition Making Movies, including a Music from the Collections program about film music, talks by film scholars, and a summer film series showcasing films highlighted in the exhibition.

Learn more about these programs (and download a PDF of the calendar) on the Ransom Center’s public programs page. Information about live webcasts of many programs will be noted closer to the date of the events.