Sponsor a book for Sant Jordi
The UB Sponsors programme is once again launching the crowdfunding campaign "Apadrina un llibre" (Sponsor a book), on the occasion of Sant Jordi’s Day. This year, on the twentieth anniversary of the Learning and Research Resources Centre (CRAI), and following the success of the previous edition, the aim is to raise the 11,253 euros needed to restore three works from the Old Collection, chosen for their uniqueness. Specifically, these are the plates of Diderot’s monumental Encylopédie, the second volume of Nicolas de Fer's atlas and a Flemish edition of the works by Francisco de Quevedo.
The UB Sponsors programme is once again launching the crowdfunding campaign "Apadrina un llibre" (Sponsor a book), on the occasion of Sant Jordi’s Day. This year, on the twentieth anniversary of the Learning and Research Resources Centre (CRAI), and following the success of the previous edition, the aim is to raise the 11,253 euros needed to restore three works from the Old Collection, chosen for their uniqueness. Specifically, these are the plates of Diderot’s monumental Encylopédie, the second volume of Nicolas de Fer's atlas and a Flemish edition of the works by Francisco de Quevedo.
The Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers par une société de gens de lettres (1751-1780) was a great collective piece, a vast synthesis of knowledge that reflected all the intellectual potential and social changes of the time. This compendium of knowledge and its methods was intended to embrace all branches of science, poetry, the fine arts, the liberal arts and the mechanical arts with their applications, the trades. Nearly one hundred contributors took part, including such prominent figures as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Holbach, Quesnay and Rousseau, among others. The text of this first edition includes more than seventy thousand entries in seventeen volumes, and some 2,500 prints in eleven plate books. Between 1777 and 1780, a five-volume supplement was added, and it was completed in 1780 with two more volumes of indexes. In this project of such exorbitant ambition, it was obvious that the graphic part had to play a prominent role. The authors were aware that pictures offered the best means of illustrating an activity, as well as serving to prove a fact, to establish models and designs, to show technological prototypes and to fix the meanings of terms. In the prints depicting a trade, we find both the representation of the workshop and the craftsmen who worked and the tools they used, which is of great interest for documenting their history. Thus, eleven of the thirty-five volumes are made up of intaglio sheets.
The volume proposed for sponsorship is the first of the engraving plates. It contains 282 intaglio plates, mainly covering the following disciplines: agriculture and rural economy, anatomy, architecture and military art.
The second volume of L'atlas curieux, ou le monde répresenté dans des cartes générales et particulières du ciel et de la terre, by Nicolas de Fer, was printed in Paris in 1705. Its first volume was restored thanks to contributions from the previous edition of the campaign. This second volume is devoted to the Iberian Peninsula, with maps and views of Madrid, Galicia, Asturias, Andalusia, Catalonia, Cadiz, the Strait of Gibraltar, Escorial, Mallorca and Menorca in a total of fourteen plates of maps and plans, eight of text and one of the genealogy of the kings of Spain. They also represent other geographical areas, especially those outside Europe, which are given special relevance, as five plates are devoted to the Near and Far East, four to Africa and thirteen to the American continent.
The Collective Catalogue of the Spanish Bibliographic Heritage lists three copies of this edition. On the other hand, the copy of the Rare Book and Manuscript CRAI Library does not appear in any of the online catalogues of Catalan libraries that are currently available.
Finally, there is the first of the three volumes that make up the Flemish edition of Obras, by Francisco de Quevedo, which dates from 1670 and 1671. This is a second edition of the texts by the renowned writer from Madrid, printed in Brussels by François Foppens, a bookseller and typographer active in the production of books in Spanish. The first two volumes are devoted to prose, while the third contains the poetic work. This is a remarkable publishing enterprise, with elegant typography and detailed text. The first volume retains the intaglio title page of the first Foppens edition and also includes a beautiful intaglio engraving of the author's portrait in an oval, supported by angels, by the engraver Peeter Clouwet. The coat of arms of the dedicatee, Luis de Benavides Carrillo Clowet, is on the title page of the second and third volumes.
The three volumes come from the convent of Saint Augustine in Barcelona, although the first and second are bound in parchment, and the third in embossed leather, with the cuts painted red. In addition, the ownership marks of the Augustinian friars Pau Mates i Ribes and Josep Mestres can be read.
Last year, in addition to the first volume of Fernando de Fer’s Atlas, this campaign enabled the restoration of the Isolario by Vincenzo Coronelli, cosmographer of the Republic of Venice, printed in Venice between 1696 and 1697.
The campaign is intended to have continuity, and it is planned that every year, coinciding with Sant Jordi, the university community will contribute its grain of sand to preserve and digitize this valuable bibliographic heritage guarded at the UB.
Donations are already open, and can be made on the website. It should also be noted that you can enjoy tax benefits and, in addition, there is a “gift” option for those who want to add an original gift for Sant Jordi’s Day.