Ingalls Library & Museum Archives

The Patrologia Latina Database represents a complete electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Latina (1844-1855 and 1862-1865). The Patrologia Latina covers the works of the Latin Fathers from Tertullian around 200 AD to the death of Pope Innocent III in 1216. In 221 volumes, it covers most major and minor Latin authors, and contains the most influential works of late ancient and early medieval theology, philosophy, history, and literature.

The Patrologia Latina Database contains 221 volumes and represents a complete electronic version of the first edition of Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Latina (1844-1855 and 1862-1865).

Migne’s Patrologia Latina was originally printed in 217 volumes from 1844 to 1855. There were two series: the series prima, volumes 1-73, (Tertullian to Gregory the Great), 1844 -1849; and the series secunda volumes 74-217, (Gregory the Great to Pope Innocent 3rd), 1849-1855.

This databases is available through the Ingalls Library website, by clicking Search Collections and then View Online Resources.

Hall’s Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art is the definitive dictionary on the iconography Western art.  The new edition contains an expanded index of religious beliefs, ideas, and social customs, as well as a select number of line drawings which illustrate the text.  Extensive cross referencing makes this volume invaluable.  In his introduction, Kenneth Clark suggests, “Mr. Hall’s book is intended to help the non-specialist art lover to look at pictures and sculpture with more understanding.  It contains much that anyone of average education and over fifty years of age will know already.  It also contains a good deal that is new to me, and so, I suppose, will be unfamiliar to some other readers.”  Following its term on the recent acquisitions table, this book will be in the reference collection.  N7560 .H34 2008

Title: Collection in Focus: Lalique Jewelry
Location: Reference Room
Description: Enjoy a rare, white-gloved review of highlights from the Ingalls Library and Archives collections. Mirroring the popular series that graces the Library website each month, these lectures put our collections in focus and at your fingertips. Join us for a peek at additional material on the featured topic. Each session is limited to twenty participants; pre-registration required. $20; CMA members free.
Start Time: 14:00
Date: 2008-11-06
End Time: 14:30

Just in time for the Holiday shopping season comes Shop America: Midcentury Storefront Design 1938 – 1950.   This richly illustrated text is split into two parts.  The first contains an essay by former art-director at the New York Times Book Review Steven Heller, tracing the history of storefront design.  The prose is snappy but not shallow, tying the phenomenon to post war commercialism.   The second half of the book is dedicated to the “style suggestions.”  These original hand drawn designs, swooping facades and space age entrances, reproduced from glass company catalogs are fascinating studies.  It is interesting too that these drawings, expressly designed to attract customers, would be repackaged for sale, as a 21st Century coffee table book.

The catalogue raisonné is an essential part of art research.  Translated from French, the latter term raisonné means methodical, rational.  When combined with the former, the phrase defines as a descriptive, analytical list or catalog.  Many of these volumes present as just that, a complete listing of all known works by an artist.  Completeness being what it is, there are often multiple printings and revisions to these texts. Newly published, N.C. Wyeth: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings is a fascinating two volume set on the painter and illustrator.  The first one hundred pages of the text is devoted to a biography of the artist and a discussion of his techniques.  His work is split up in the remaining eight hundred pages by medium, as such, illustrations, murals and architectural decoration, commercial work, landscapes, still life, portraiture and private paintings, and ending with a miscellaneous section titled other work.  Newell Convers Wyeth was born in 1882 in Needham, Massachusetts, the son of a merchant.  At a young age he began a course of study with the illustrator Howard Pyle, supporting himself by selling his work to magazines like the Saturday Evening Post.  Wyeth excelled in producing work for publications, of which many are presented here.  This sense drama, scene, and composition informed his work throughout his life.  The author, Christine B. Podmaniczy is the Associate Curator of N.C. Wyeth Collections at the Brandywine River Museum.  The two volume set is in recent acquisitions, in the center of the reading room.  ND237.W94A4 2008

The auction catalog for the sale of select personal belongings of the beloved Belgian singer Jacque Brel is a browser’s delight for music collectors and avid francophone fans alike.  The lots include items related to the singer’s career, handwritten lyrics, guitars, and promotional posters, as well as more personal effects, his wallet, pilot’s license, and candid photographs.  Born in 1929, Jacques Brel began his singing career in the 1950’s, performing in his native Belgium, in bars and nightclubs.  His songs were notable for their poetic lyrics and the singer’s emotional delivery.  In his song, Le Tango Funèbre, Brel tells the story of a dead man watching with disgust as his acquaintances feign sadness at his death and thumb through his belongings, laughing as they read his love letters by the fire.  It is a darkly humorous song, and especially ironic considering this auction.  The sale is at Sotheby’s in Paris on October 8, and the catalog is currently in recent acquisitions.

Catalogo Dei Librari D’Arte E D’Antichita is the catalog of the library of Conte Leopoldo Cicognara, held at the Vatican.  Because the title is long and complicated, it is often referred to simply as Cicognara.  The text is a guide to the microform collection, which the Ingalls Library holds in its reference collection, of roughly 5000 books on Art, Archaelogy, and related subjects.  The Cicognara Library collection includes books published from the birth of printing, until the nineteenth century.  It is considered one of the premier collections of its kind, thanks to the judicious selections of the Conte Cicognara.  Born in Ferrara in 1767, Leopoldo Cicognara was an artist, as well as a critic, historian, and theorist.  He published works on numerous topics, including his Storia della Scultura, available within the Cicognara microform collection.  Notably, he was the president of the fine arts academy in Venice, and helped to establish the Galleria dell’Accademia in Venice.  He died in 1834.  Thanks to a collaboration between the Vatican and the University of Illinois, this collection is available in multiple libraries worldwide.