Marginalia with James Russell

Dr. James Russell joins me for the third episode in my series on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. Dr. Russell is a book historian in Phoenix, Arizona. He completed his doctorate at the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies at Durham University in the UK. James is interested in how material texts shape spiritual experiences. Focusing on early modern esoteric and contemplative literature, he studies the traces readers have left behind in books and manuscripts in order to reconstruct the reading experiences of the past.

In his dissertation, Dr. Russell wrote, "Instead of merely being viewed as an art object, the HP was a text in which readers engaged extensively with both word and image."1 We discuss the HP as a used text as evidenced by its marginalia, like a "humanist activity book" filled with pen-and-paper intellectual games, whether or not the author intended it to be.

James also leads us through an exploration of several of the commentators of early editions of the HP, including two alchemists, a botanist, and Pope Alexander VII. This conversation opens up so many new avenues that make this remarkable book worth exploring and enjoying.

When James first approached me, he mentioned The Book that Nobody Read by Owen Gingerich. Gingerich attempts to trace the influence of Copernicus's De Revolutionibus using marginalia. I was also a fan of Gingerich's book, so I knew right away we would have plenty to talk about. Please enjoy this episode and don't be afraid to write in your books!

Links


Dr. Russell's dissertation, `Many Other Things Worthy of Knowledge and Memory': The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili and its Annotators, 1499-1700
Dr. Russell is on Twitter!
Thrift Store Book History on YouTube (it's just a placeholder for now!)
The rest of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili episodes


Citations and Resources

Here is a list of sources that Dr. Russell used in preparing his notes for the interview.

Primary Sources


Le Tableau des riches Inventions…dans le songe de Poliphile (Paris: Guillemot, 1600).
This is the openly alchemical 1600 edition of the HP
D’Espagnet, Jean, Enchiridion Physicae Restitutae (Paris: Widow N. de Sercy, 1642, 3rd edn).
Nazari, Giovan Battista, Della tramutatione metallica sogni tre (Brescia: Pietro Maria Marchetti, 1599). English translation: Three Dreams on the Transmutation of Metals, trans. Doug Skinner (Glasgow: Magnum Opus Hermeticum Sourceworks, 2002).
A very HP-like alchemical allegory
Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, ed. and trans. H.E.Butler (London: Heinemann, 1963).  


On Marginalia:


Barney, Stephen A., Annotation and Its Texts (Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 
Jackson, Heather J., Marginalia: Readers Writing in Books (Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 2005)
Jardine, Lisa and Anthony Grafton, ‘“Studied for Action”: How Gabriel Harvey Read His Livy’, Past & Present 129 (1990), pp. 30-78.  
Sherman, William H., Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).  


Other Secondary Sources


Doody, Aude, Pliny’s Encyclopedia: The Reception of the Naturalis historia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).   
Eco, Umberto, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, trans. Geoffrey Brock (London: Vintage Books, 2005).  ...