Bibliotaph. Burier of books. Although this word, composed of βιβλιοσ, book , and ταφοσ, I enclose , is not found in ordinary dictionaries, it must find a place in this one, because it calls for the privilege of the bourgeoisie just as much as bibliograph , and above all because bibliotaphs only collect books in order to prevent others from acquiring and making good use of them.

Bibliotaphia is the bibliomania of the greedy or the jealous, and consequently bibliotaphs are in more than one way the disease of letters. For it should not be believed that these sorts of people are few in number: Europe has always been infected with them, and even today he is not very inquisitive who does not bump into them from time to time on their way. Casaubon complains about them bitterly in a letter to Hoeschelius: Non tu imitaris , he says to him, ineptos quosdam homines, quibus nulla adeò gloriatio placet, quam siquid rari habent, id ut soli habere, & sibi tantum dicantur. Odiosum, importunum , αυθεκαστον, and a musis alienum genus hominum. Tales memini me experiri aliquotes magno cum stomacho meo. [1] There is an uninterrupted tradition on this point, so that one might start with Lucian and end with Father Le Long. [2] The citizen of Samosata issued a violent attack against one of these ignoramuses who believe they pass for clever just because they have a sizeable library and have excluded some gentlemanly fellow from it; he ends by comparing him to a dog who keeps a horse from eating barley that he can neither eat himself, οι νον αλλω etc.

Since Lucian, we find only like complaints. If you read the letters of Ambrose of Camaldule, [3] the good and learned religious man, who not only spent his life helping the advancement of the sciences with his works, but who also voluntarily loaned out his most precious manuscripts, you will see that he often met up with bibliotaphs who, unable to make use of the manuscripts that they had in their hands, would refuse to make them available to those who asked for them solely for the reason of public gratification. Philelphe [4] also found himself in these same circumstances, and his letters are full of curses against men of this type.

It's hard to imagine that learned men of the character of Father Le Long should have been exposed to their harshness. Nevertheless he was [so exposed], but he was not able, in spite of the sweetness that was natural to him, to contain his displeasure against these book-buriers, after having thanked those who had opened to him their libraries. If Father Le Long, who was always ready to make available the beautiful and voluminous library that was at his disposal, suffered refusals of this sort, then it can be judged what might happen to less considerate men of letters.

But in general, there are countries where this harshness is rare. In France, for example, where we have many libraries for the convenience of the public, one is always received perfectly kindly and foreigners have every opportunity to borrow on the politeness that we show to them. Gronovius declared to the young Heinsius that his friend Vincent Fabricius had written to him from Paris that nothing equaled the obliging manner of the French in this respect. [5]

Vossius [6] found the complete opposite to be the case in Italy. It is not just in Rome that entry to the libraries is difficult, it's the same way in the other cities. The Library of Saint Mark in Venice is impenetrable. Don Bernard of Montfaucon tells how the holy man Augustine from Carbonnaria in Naples, who had opened up to him the library of the monastery, had been given penitence as a reward for this act. [7]

M. Menchen is one of the moderns who has argued with the greatest indignation against the bibliotaphs ; so much is obvious from his preface at the head of the edition which he procured of the treatise of Bartholin: de libris legendis . [8] Those who are in a position to establish libraries will not do ill to consult him and to follow the maxims he gives for making effective use of them. The chief maxim is to make use of them for oneself and for others, as much in furnishing them graciously with the selections that one can have concerning the matters that form the object of their work, as in lending them all of the books that they need. Let us say to the honor of literature as well as men of letters, that the majority of librarians are of this beneficent character, and that for each Saldierre one counts several Pinellis, Peireses and de Cordes'. [9] The latter pushed his desire to make his library useful so far that he dictated in his will that it not be sold piecemeal, but in batches, and put in a place where the public would be readily able to consult it.

M. Bigot [10] had taken the precaution of willing the same thing; but he was less fortunate than M. de Cordes, whose library passed whole and entire to the Cardinal M. Mazarin, [11] who spared no expense acquiring all the good books which it was missing. Naudé, [12] who was charged with the catalogue of this library, made several trips to Germany and to Italy expressly for the purpose of buying whatever it had of the most rare items, and it is easy to imagine that it received by his hands considerable increases. Such cares were rendered futile by the wars of the Fronde during the minority of Louis XIV. The parliament, which only wished to signal its anger against the prime minister, had his library seized and in a ruling of February 8, 1652 ordered that it be sold at the auction block. Naudé, in desperation at seeing all of his pains go to waste, explained to the court in vain the harm that the dismemberment of this library would cause the world of letters. The parliament remained inflexible and its orders were executed.

Learned men have painted in vivid colors the behavior of the parliament. The Abbé de Marolles [13] says what he thinks about it in the remarks that he affixed to the translation of Virgil, but the violence of the times obliged him to suppress his mournful reflections.

Notes

1. "You do not imitate certain foolish men, whom no boasting pleases so much as that they should have something so rare, that they alone possess it, and that they themselves should only be called such (rare). This type of human being is odious, offensive, αυθεκαστον, and a stranger to the muses. I remember that I tested a number of such men with my great stomach (?)." Isaac Casaubon, English classical scholar and theologian (1559-1614); David Hoeschel (1556-1617), librarian from Augsburg.

2. Bibliographer (1665-1721).

3. Ecclesiastical writer (1378-1439).

4. Francesco Filelfo, Italian humanist (1398-1481).

5. Johann Freidrich Gronov (1611-1671), prolific German classical scholar and father of Jakob Gronov (1645-1716), editor of the Thesaurus antiquitatum Graecarum ; Nicholaes Heins (1620-1681), Dutch scholar and latinist, son of the famous Renaissance scholar Daniel Heins (1580-1655); Vincent Fabricius, 17th century scholar and poet, cited repeatedly in de Burigny's Life of Grotius [ Vie de Grotius ] (Paris, 1752).

6. Gerhard Johann Voss, German classical scholar and theologian (1577-1649).

7. Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741), author of The Antiquities of Italy [ Diarium Italicum ] (Paris, 1702).

8. "Books are to be read" ["For the reading of books"]. The Menckens were a family of German (Leipzig) scholars, responsible for among other things the Acta eruditorum : Othon (1644-1707), his son, Jean-Burckhard (1674-1732), and grandson, Frédéric-Othon (1708-1754). The Bartholins of Scandinavia were pioneers in the study of human anatomy: Kaspar (1585-1629), author of the Institutiones anatomicae (1611), Thomas (1616-1680) and Kaspar (1655-1738).

9. Saldierre, Pinelli, Pierese and de Cordes – ?

10. Emery Bigot (1626-1689), scholar, traveller and discover of the Life of Chrysostom .

11. Diplomat and statesman (1602-1661), appointed successor to Richelieu (1585-1642) as first minister.

12. Gabrielle Naudé (1600-1653), bibliographer and historian.

13. Michel de Marolles (1600-1681).