Utopia in Chicago
Most people I meet cannot guess the national origin of my name, and only a few know how to pronounce it. In Chicago it is pronounced Quad Rocky, in Sicily it is pronounced "Quattro" "occhi," which means "four eyes." As a boy growing up in an Irish neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, my name was rarely pronounced correctly even by my Irish mother or anyone else in the family. My Sicilian father died before I could learn Italian or acquire any sense of my ethnic identity. In high school my school mates called me "Rocky," or "Rock."
As you might expect, in that environment, I had few Italian role models. Joe DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto come to mind, but they were New York Yankees. For a south side White Sox, fan, those Italians were alien invaders.
Tonight I would like to talk about three Italian role models who have since inspired me, and they also inspired Thomas More, the author of the Utopia, one of the great Englishmen of the 16th century: a scholar, poet/writer, lawyer, diplomat and Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII.
I think it appropriate in this year of the Millennium that we revisit the turn of the 16th century to look at some of the similarities and differences between then and now, particularly with regard to the publication of books and the effect the computer may have on that civilizing activity.
Five hundred years ago this year two Italian humanists were engaged in very different activities, but each profoundly influenced the course of Western Civilization. Amerigo Vespucci completed his second voyage to the new world, and Aldus Manutius was establishing his reputation as the most influential printer of the European Renaissance, and arguably the greatest printer who ever lived. As these two Italians pursued their idealistic dreams of a brave new world, Thomas More, was inspired by another Italian humanist, Pico Della Mirandola.
In my remarks tonight, I will first review how these three Italians--Vespucci, Manutius and Mirandola--influenced More and his Utopia, and how the reaction to the printing press at the turn of the 16th century is not unlike our reaction to the computer at the turn of the 21st century. Then I will show slides connected with the publication of the first three editions of the Utopia and of the books in the Newberry Library Special Collections that More's fictional Portuguese sea captain, Raphael Hythlodaeus, purportedly took to Utopia.
Amerigo Vespucci influenced Thomas More. That is evident in the first few pages of the Utopia. The fictional persona, Thomas More, is introduced to Raphael Hythlodaeus, by their mutual friend, Peter Giles. Before making the introduction, Giles tells More about Hythlodaeus’ background. He was a humanist scholar, learned in the Bible and the classical languages before taking up his life of adventure on the high seas. He accompanied Vespucci on the last three of his four voyages, which occurred between 1497 and 1504. On the fourth voyage Hythlodaeus asked Vespucci to leave him behind on a distant land. He traveled from there through other exotic places until he arrived in Utopia.
In describing what he found in that amazing commonwealth, Hythlodaeus explains that he had carried on board Vespucci’s ship a small library, mostly texts of Greek writers and a few Latin authors. He says that, "When about to go on the fourth voyage, I put on board, in place of wares to sell, a fairly large package of books, having made up my mind never to return rather than to come back soon. The Utopians received from me most of Plato’s works, several of Aristotle’s, as well as Theophrastus on plants.” He then lists and comments on the other writers: Lascaris, Hesychius, Dioscorides, Plutarch, Lucian, Aristophanes, Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Thucydides, Herodotus, Herodian, Hippocrates and Galen.
Working on my dissertation on the Utopia and Plato’s Republic in the Newberry Library some thirty-five years ago, I never paid much attention to this passage, for I was more interested in the larger question of Plato’s influence on More’s concept of justice. A couple of years ago when I reread the Utopia in preparation for a seminar I taught at the Newberry, the idea occurred to me then of trying to locate some of the texts that Hythlodaeus claims to have taken to Utopia. To my delightful surprise, I found works printed before 1516, the year of the publication of the first edition of the Utopia, by all but two of the writers mentioned in the Utopia. And all but three were published by the Aldine Press.
Here is my first slide of an approximation of Hythlodaeus’ cache of books, along with a few others I will talk about.
First three editions of the Utopia and Three volume set of Aristotle’s Works, cache of books Hythlodaeus took to Utopia. published by Aldus Manutius in 1495-97
The dates of the editions of the books you see here range from the Complete Works of Plato, published in 1481 to the Dictionary of Hesychius, published by Aldus in 1513. After my introductory remarks, I will show slides of a few of the most interesting books in this assortment.
First, however, let me fill in the sketch of More’s Italian connections. The significance of Aldus Manutius in disseminating learning in early sixteenth century Europe can hardly be exaggerated. Aldus was a classical scholar. He lectured on Latin and Greek classics in Rome and in Ferrara in the 1470's. One of his colleagues was Pico Della Mirandola, a prominent member of the Platonic academy which met at the home of Lorenzo de’Medici, known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. In 1482, when the Venetians besieged Ferrara, Aldus took refuge for two years at Pico’s palace and then in Capri at the home of Pico's sister, the Princess of Capri, where he tutored her children. While a tutor to Pico's children, Aldus developed the idea of using his scholarly knowledge to publish the Greek and Latin classics. The enterprise was financed largely from Pico’s generosity and that of his sister, and her sons.
Pico’s scholarly accomplishments were legendary during his brief lifetime, but he died at the early age of 34 in1494. Pico's nephew, Francesco Pico, wrote his uncle's Biography, which Thomas More translated from the Latin into English. More, as a young man, took Pico as a model for his life. His admiration of Pico could have come only through the biography, and through More's relationship with friends and mentors who had studied in Italy.
John Rastell, More’s brother-in-law. who was beginning his distinguished printing business, published More’s translation of Pico’s biography in1510. ( I wrote an article on John Rastell for the Caxtonian in 1994. There are a few copies of that issue here for anyone who may be interested.) In 1525 Wynkyn de Worde printed another edition of More’s Life of Pico. Wynkyn de Worde, as many of you know, was William Caxton’s protege and successor.
After leaving the household of Pico’s sister, Aldus moved to Venice in 1490 to begin his renowned publishing enterprise. Aldus published editions of all the authors that the fictional Hythlodaeus carried to Utopia, and many more. The list of publications included 100 different works, comprised (in their several editions) in about 250 volumes. In addition he published a number of popular works, such as Pietro Bembo's Asolani and Erasmus' Adagia; and two experiments in book production--the octavo sized volume and the italic script, which were immediately and almost universally adopted in contemporary Europe.
Aldus attracted international humanists from across Europe. It is surprising that Englishmen should be accepted in Aldus' shop among the first foreign visitors at the turn of the 16th century, because the English were considered by Italians to be intellectual barbarians. Furthermore, students from the Continent, especially from Germany far exceeded the number of Englishmen studying in Italy at this time. And that relatively smaller contingent carried a stigma of outdated scholasticism. Thus Aldus writes in a letter in 1499: "Once a barbarous and uncultivated learning came to us from Britain, took over Italy, and still holds our citadels:" Aldus then pays tribute to two English humanists who had been working in his shop, Thomas Linacre and William Grocyn: "but now I hope we shall have the Britons help us put barbarity to flight, and that we shall receive from them a truly polished and Latin learning; and so the wound will be cured by the very spear that inflicted it."
This is indeed high praise. Linacre and Grocyn, studied together in Florence around 1490. Grocyn went back to England, and Linacre moved on from Florence to Padua where he took a medical degree in 1496. He was working around this time with Aldus on his monumental edition of Aristotle. That Aldus highly esteemed Linacre's work on the Aristotle edition, is evident from the mention of Linacre's name in the preface to the third volume. When Linacre returned to England in 1498 his reputation had grown prodigiously; he was appointed tutor to Prince Arthur, older brother of Henry VIII and immediate heir to the throne; he introduced Greek studies at Oxford and was Thomas More's tutor. Not only was he a great humanist scholar, but also he became the first president of the Royal Academy of Medicine and is known as the father of English Medicine.
Linacre also brought back to Oxford a magnificent set of the Aldine edition of Aristotle, which is now in the Oxford library. It is printed on vellum and carries in each volume the inscription, "Thomas Linacre," No other complete set is now extant on vellum. The three volume set in the Newberry Collection, which you can see in the middle of the stack of books next to the large edition of Plato’s Works on to the left of it. Here is a slide of one of the pages from the third volume. (Slide 2 #19) And here is slide of a page from a 1491 edition of Plato’s Works, which was published, of course, before Aldus set up shop. (Slide 3#00) Hythlodaeus mentions that he took almost all of Plato's works but only some of Aristotle's, but he would have had a difficult time toting these hefty folio volumes.
Linacre brought back other Greek texts to Oxford, among them works of Aristophanes[i] and Lucian, both included in the cache of books Hythlodaeus took to Utopia. The Newberry copies of the Lucian and the Aristophanes can be seen in the slide in the foreground of the composite picture of the Utopian books. (Slide 4 #2) Here is a slide of the Aldine device in the volume of Aristophanes’ Works. (Slide 5#12) By the way, the famous Aldine device, of the Anchor and the Dolphin, has for its motto, “Make haste slowly,” quite an appropriate description of Aldus’ life and works.
Aldine devise of anchor and dolphin Sophocles’ Tragedies,
in 1502 edition of Herodotus’ History published by Aldus in 1502.
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Linacre and Grocyn gathered around them an enthusiastic group of students, among them Thomas More, who calls Grocyn "my master in learning," and Linacre "the dearest partner of my endeavors."
Of the numerous international humanists who made their way to Aldus's shop, none was more important than Erasmus. In 1506 he sent a letter to Aldus along with translations of two tragedies of Euripides. The opening sentence of the letter is fulsome in its praise of Aldus and concludes with the prophetic pronouncement: “it is quite certain that for all ages to come the name of Aldo Manuzio will be on the lips of every person who is initiated into the rites of letters." (Works, p131)
Erasmus continues with his praise for another paragraph and then turns to the main reason for sending the letter: "I am sending you my translations of two tragedies. It was audacious to attempt them, of course, but it is for you to decide for yourself whether I have translated them properly. Thomas Linacre, William Grocyn, William Latimer, and Cuthbert Tunstall, who are your friends as well as mine, had a very high opinion of them. You are aware that these men are too scholarly to be at sea in their judgment, and too honest to be ready to flatter a friend." (131-132) It is remarkable that Erasmus should cite as authorities on a Latin translations from the Greek only English humanists.
The two tragedies translated by Erasmus were Hecuba and Iphegenia, which were published by Aldus in 1507. The Newberry copy is in the composite picture, but I did not print a separate slide of the text because of time constraints.
In 1510, Erasmus moved from Venice to London, where he stayed at the home of Thomas More. He no doubt informed More of the latest publishing and scholarly news and could tell stories of the fabulous Italians, especially Aldus Manutius. They certainly talked on the favorite topic of the humanists of the day--the reform of European society and especially on the need for the proper training and education of Renaissance princes. This can be readily surmised from the two classics that were then germinating in their heads and hearts.
In England Erasmus wrote his most enduring work, The Praise of Folly. The Latin title, Moriae Encomium, or in English, "In Praise of More," is obviously a pun on More's name. The work itself, like the title, is a masterpiece of irony. It castigates the abuses in all classes of sixteenth century society. Aldus published it in 1511, and it passed through some forty editions during his lifetime, and, before the century ended, it had been translated into every European language. In the composite picture of the Utopian books are two copies of the Praise of Folly, one published in 1515 and the other in 1518. In this same decade Erasmus wrote several other works of significant historical and scholarly interest, among them the Education of a Christian Prince, and his great editions of St. Jerome and the New Testament.
Also in this one incredible decade Martin Luther wrote his treatises which started the Protestant reformation, Machiavelli wrote The Prince, Thomas More wrote The Utopia, as well as The History of Richard III, and Michelangelo was carving the sculptures of the ideal Renaissance Prince for the Medici tombs in Florence.
More’s Utopia is a paradigm of how life imitates art. His imaginative creation of the dilemma facing a prospective king’s counselor is a foreshadowing of his own downfall and death. And his prophetic vision is related to the publication of the first edition of the Utopia, published in 1516.
The year before the publication King Henry VIII appointed More, along with four others to negotiate a trade agreement with Prince Charles, ruler of the Netherlands. During a recess in the negotiations, in Bruges More traveled to Antwerp where he met Peter Giles, a mutual friend of his and of Erasmus. While there More finished a draft of the second book of his Utopia before returning to England. Upon leaving Antwerp, he promised to send Giles a copy of the finished work, but it took him almost a year to fulfill that promise.
In the interval between his leaving the Netherlands and his finishing the Utopia, More made the fateful, though reluctant, decision to accept Cardinal Wolsey’s offer to join the King’s council. In this interval of about a year he was writing another part to the Utopia, which became the first book.
Book I is More’s fictional projection of his internal argument about whether to join the King’s council. But in the fictional version, Hythlodaeus is the reluctant counselor. More and Giles strongly urge him to offer his services to some king. More’s fictional self in the Utopia apparently convinced his real self to enter Henry’s service. That decision was fatal and ironic, for twenty years later More lost his head for not bowing to Henry’s will. I cannot take time to go into the details of that tragic episode in English history, but I am sure many of you are familiar with the gist of the story from Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons, which was made into an Academy Award winning film starring Paul Schofield and Orson Wells.
A year later on September 3,1516, More dispatched a letter and the manuscript to Erasmus and committed all the publishing details to his care. He asked Erasmus to supply recommendations of humanist friends to be printed with the first edition. Erasmus lined up seven renowned scholars and statesmen to write letters, which were appended to the first three editions of the Utopia.
The first edition of the Utopia was printed in Louvain, Belgium, by Theodore Martens in December, 1516. You can see the beautiful Newberry copy lying flat on the right side of the table in composite picture. (Slide 5 #2) It is in a beautiful red binding with gilt trimming.
The preliminary pages to the beginning of the narrative contain not only letters of praise from More’s colleagues, but also several whimsical items that are included to sustain the fiction that Utopia is an actual place, and the Utopians are real people living in a better place than any country in Europe.
Here is a slide of the drawing of the “Map of Utopia,” and “The Utopian Alphabet,” . (Slide 6 #24). The map in this edition was drawn by Ambrosias Holbein. A more detailed map in the 1518 edition was drawn by Hans Holbein. Unfortunately I overlooked my photo of that page when ordering these slides.
Prefatory letter in first edition of the Utopia
Map of Utopia and Utopian Alphabet
in first edition 1516 in Newberry Library.
Here is a slide of the beginning of the text. (Slide 7 #6). Obviously you can’t read it, but I want to call attention to the fact that it is written in Latin. I am not sure about this matter, but I don’t think that any other English writer has ever written a book in Latin that has gained such wide popularity.
Here is a slide of the Theodore Martens’ Printer’s device in the 1516 edition. (Slide 8 #14)
The Utopia was immediately popular, and two more editions came out in the next two years. The second edition printed in 1517 in Paris is less interesting than the 1st and 3rd edition, but here are a couple of slides of pages from that edition. (Slide 9#18 and 10 #10).
The third edition of the Utopia, printed in Basil in 1518, is the last in which More was likely to have had a direct hand in revising, and it contains the additional testimonies by More’s humanists friends.
Here is a slide of the title page. (Slide 11 #25). In the Newberry edition the Utopia is bound together with the Epigrams of More and Erasmus, which had been published earlier.
Included in this edition are all the letters that Erasmus solicited from the scholars and statesmen, who had written in praise of More’s effort. Also in this edition is a letter from More to Peter Giles. Here is a slide of the first page of that letter. (Slide 12 #17). The page, as you can see, is a work of art. Look especially at the borders, which were rendered by Hans Holbein.
At the opening of the text of the 1518 edition is another drawing by Hans Holbein. Here it is: (Slide 13 #7). It is a picture of the garden scene in which the dialogue of the Utopia takes place. Unfortunately the slide does not show up the detail, but it depicts the three principles in the discussion having lunch in the garden of the home of Peter Giles, the host to Thomas More and Raphael Hythlodaeus.
Also in the picture is John Clement, More's pupil-servant who accompanied him on the diplomatic mission to the Netherlands. Clement was a teacher in More's school and later a Greek and Latin scholar of great prominence. In 1518, he was appointed the first official teacher of Greek at Oxford; but he shortly thereafter took up the study of medicine, becoming a distinguished court physician and finally president of the Royal College of Physicians in 1544. Clement was also a bibliophile, acquiring one of the most scholarly book collections of sixteenth century England. In his library were almost 500 volumes of Greek and Latin classics, as well as medical books.
With him on the diplomatic trip and mentioned in the opening pages of the Utopia, was Cuthbert Tunstall. At the time of their diplomatic mission Tunstall was Vice Chancellor to Henry VIII, and later Bishop of London. He wrote one of the few books on mathematics published by an Englishman in the sixteenth century and was the founder of the brilliant school of mathematics at Cambridge.
There followed other editions of the Utopia in the 16th century, but it was not translated into English until 1551. But for the past 450 years new English editions of the work have continually appeared, and in the 20th century it has been translated into every modern language. As a result, Thomas More has the unique distinction in our time of having been canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church, while also having been recognized as a prophet of modern communism in the Soviet Union.
The most comprehensive and authoritative modern edition of the Utopia was published by the Yale University Press in 1964. It is Volume IV in a 15 volume edition of the Complete Works of Thomas More. The Yale Utopia has 629 pages, the Latin text with an English translation on opposite pages and notes. In addition it has a 94 page introduction written by the two editors, J.H. Hexter and Edward Surtz. I have here a copy of that edition, and, as you can see, the Utopia has elicited a lot of footnotes and commentary from the editors.
A couple of years after its publication I was fortunate to write my dissertation on the Utopia under the direction of Father Surtz here at Loyola University. He was a tough task master, but he was totally committed to helping me finish the dissertation on time and with precision. I would send him each chapter as I finished it, and he would return it to me within a week all marked up with a page of handwritten critical comments.
In those days before computers, my wife, Carolyn, had to type several drafts from my illegible handwriting. The dissertation was over 400 pages in length, and she had to type four carbon copies. Needless to say she became quite proficient as a typist and quite sick of my opinions about More’s Utopia and Plato’s Republic. We were living in a south side apartment at the time with four of our five small children, and Father Surtz was sensitive to our marital situation. With each returned chapter, after listing ten or twenty recommendations for me to work on improving my style and sharpen my ideas, he would invariably add a note at the end, "Beautiful typing."
I might add that other than Carolyn, Father Surtz, and my dissertation committee, the only other person I know has read a portion of the dissertation is my guest, Don Stevens. I called upon him to help proof read it when we came down to the wire on the due date for submission. But he only proof read a couple of chapters.
More’s writings in English are much more voluminous than his Latin works. The Complete English Works, published in 1557 has 1458 folio pages. (I own a copy of that work and have it here for anyone interested to inspect when I finish.) But ironically, More wrote the Utopia in Latin, and not in English, because he wanted to reach the learned humanists of Europe.
Time will not permit me to discuss several aspects of the Utopia that reflect on More's life and times, but I would like to call attention to the section in it that relates to the bibliographical education of the Utopians. Hythlodaeus explains how the influence of the Aldine Press even reached Utopia:
Thus, trained in all learning, the minds of the Utopians are exceedingly apt in the invention of the arts which promote the advantage and convenience of life. Two, however, they owe to us, the art of printing and the manufacture of paper... When we showed them the Aldine printing in paper books, we talked about the material of which paper is made and the art of printing without giving a detailed explanation, ... With the greatest acuteness they promptly guessed how it was done. (pp. 183-185)
That More would make a point of having Hythlodaeus take a small library to Utopia and having the Utopians accept printing as a boon to their knowledge and wisdom may seem rather unexceptional to us. But to many conservatives of sixteenth century Europe, the invention of the printing press was by no means looked upon as a positive achievement.
The scholarly lovers of fine books regarded the new art at the outset with disapproval. Collectors feared that inexpensive copies of their texts would diminish the value of their collections. When Constantine Lascaris presented the messengers of Cardinal Bessarion a specimen of one of the earlier printed books, they mocked this so-called discovery which had been made by a German barbarian. Vespasiano, writing about the magnificent ducal library in Urbino, says: " In this library all the volumes are of perfect beauty, all written, by skilled scribes, on parchment and many of them adorned with exquisite miniatures. The collection contains no single printed book. The Duke (Frederick) would be ashamed to have a printed book in his library." By collectors like Frederick and manuscript dealers like Vespasiano, the new art was considered to be merely a mechanical method of producing inartistic volumes, with which none but uncultivated people could be satisfied. (Books and their Makers. Vol. I; pp 365-366)
How familiar those words may seem to some who fear the demise of the printed book in the 21st century!
Constantine Lascaris, however, welcomed the new printing. His Greek Grammar was first published at Milan in 1476 and several editions followed in the next 50 years. Aldus printed five editions of the Grammar. Here is a slide of the 1495 Aldine edition. (Slide 14 #21). It is a Greek grammar, with a Latin commentary. This page is the Greek alphabet.
That Lascaris is included in the Utopian book list establishes another connection between More and Aldus. Hythlodaeus explains," Lascaris was my choice of grammarians; I did not take Theodore with me." He is referring here to another Greek grammarian, Theodore of Gaza. More and Erasmus considered Theodore superior to Lascaris as a Greek grammarian. Erasmus makes it explicit in a letter in which he writes: "Everyone gives to Theodore of Gaza the first place among Greek grammarians; Constantine Lascaris rightly claims in my estimation, the second place for himself." (Yale Edition p. 469) (I am sure that most of you here would agree that Theodore of Gaza is superior to Constantine Lascaris.) Why then does More make a point of mentioning that Hythlodaeus prefers Lascaris to Theodore?
I surmise that More's preference for Lascaris may result from the influence of Thomas Linacre. Linacre and Lascaris worked with Aldus on his 1495 edition of Aristotle’s Works, shortly after Aldus published Lascaris' Greek and Latin Grammar. The Greek Grammar was the first book printed by Aldus, and Linacre and Lascaris were working together in Aldus's shop at that time. Upon his return to England, Linacre certainly would have had many stories to tell about Lascaris to his younger friend and student, Thomas More.
But Aldus published the grammars of both Lascaris and Theodore of Gaza in 1495, and there are copies of both in the Newberry Collection. Here is a slide of a page from the magnificent Gaza edition, which I would also judge, like Erasmus, to be superior to the edition of Lascaris, if only for esthetic reasons. (Slides 15 #22) This page is the beginning of the dedication to Pico Mirandola, who was, as I mentioned earlier, Aldus’ financial backer and good friend.
Here are two more pages from that edition. (Slides 16 #11 and 17 #16)
Among all the books that Hythlodaeus took to Utopia I am most curious about Theophrastus On Plants, which he explains was mutilated in parts: “during the voyage an ape found the book, left lying carelessly about, and in wanton sport tore out and destroyed several pages in various sections." (182/33-38)
That More would insert this seemingly trivial incident about an ape mutilating the copy of Theophrastus is amusing and typical of his style throughout the Utopia. By depicting an ape’s selecting a book on plants as one to eat, among mostly philosophical, historical and literary texts, he is making a wonderfully ironic comment. It is curious that of all the books that a philosopher like Hythlodaeus, whose other selections include more obvious names like Plato and Aristotle should take along Theophrastus in the first place.
But More may have included Theophrastus because of his association with Linacre. At the time Linacre and Lascaris were working together on the Aldine edition of the botanical works of Theophrastus, published in 1497. Unfortunately the Newberry does not have a copy of that edition. Among the several works that Aldus was editing at the time, apparently none was as difficult as the text of Theophrastus. Aldus is on record as lamenting his difficulties with the "torn and defective" manuscript. It is not hard to imagine that when Linacre returned to England and told about his experiences with Aldus, More's wit might have used Linacre's account of Aldus's difficulties with the mutilated manuscript as the source for his fictitious account of the ape eating portions of the copy of Theophrastus on the ship under sail to Utopia.
I have been suggesting throughout this presentation that Thomas More’s Italian connections were formative in his art and thought. But More was one of the few humanists scholars of his time and circle in England who never ventured to Italy. And this fact is sorely lamented by Erasmus. In a letter Erasmus wrote to John Froben, which was printed as part of the introduction to Froben's third edition of the Utopia, Erasmus writes: "What would this wonderful, rich nature not have accomplished if his talent had been trained in Italy, if it were now totally devoted to the service of the muses, if it had ripened to its proper harvest and, as it were, its autumnal plenty?"
Time will not allow me to comment on all the books in the cache that Hythlodaeus took to Utopia, but I will now just show a few of the remaining slides to give you some idea of the rich resource of wisdom, knowledge and beauty we are privileged to have in Chicago at the Newberry Library.
(Slide 18 #20) Sophocles, 1502 beautiful Aldine type. (Slide 19 #6) Thucydides, 1502. (Slide 20 #13) Hescychius, 1513. (Slide 21#4) Thomas More by Hans Holbein. Slide. (Slide 22 #3) Erasmus by Holbein. (Slide 23 #4) Henry VIII by Holbein.
I urge any of you with an interest in this period of European history, or an interest in looking at and touching beautiful objects to spend a few hours as Paul Gehl’s guest in the Special Collections reading room on the fourth floor of the Newberry Library.
Paper read to the Chicago Literary Club, February 19, 2001 by Ed Quattrocchi