One GIANT leap!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in the US--and to US expatriate readers, too. On Black Friday, as usual, I am not shopping, but instead listening to podcasts and identifying books with Jesuit provenance. Yep, I am a nerd--but I am also not much of a fan of holiday shopping frenzies. I pick up Christmas presents all year round, whenever I see something a loved one will like, and unless I'm under duress, stay home on the day after Thanksgiving as well as the days before and after Christmas.

So, what's new? What's the giant leap?

Recently, I began working on several files sent to me by Neus Verger Arce of the Universidad de Barcelona, CRAI Biblioteca de Reserva, one of our partners. That library has an extensive collection of books once owned by Jesuit colleges in Barcelona, Cervera, and Manresa--truly Ignatian territory--and also has a group of most excellent librarians who are, among other things, engaged in a huge provenance project. I am so fortunate (and endlessly grateful!) that they have given me access to their data regarding Jesuit books, and that they have allowed me to integrate that information with my own. All told, the list of books sent to me is longer than 1,400 lines. Some of those were printed during or after the suppression, and as a result won't be part of my database--but the vast majority date from the time before 1767.

I'm still working through this huge treasure trove, but today, I completed the integration of 248 of them into my master list. That involved not only organizing them in the way the rest of my records are, but also searching for electronic copies. The result is that I've now added 388 titles to the list--representing not only the rich Jesuit heritage from Barcelona and environs, but also expanding on the number of titles from Alcalá, Antwerp, Augsburg, Bamberg, Bologna, Brzesc, Cremona, Genoa, Granada, Heidelberg, Jičín, Litoměřice, Lucerne, Lyon, Madrid, Munich, Namur, Naples, Paris, Passau, Prague, Ragusa, Rome, Vienna--and, of particular interest to me, Florence. Alas, that one was printed in 1630, long after the inventories I've seen. Among the other reasons for excitement here are the books from Eastern European colleges, which have been harder for me to track down. This new group contains the first one I found from Ragusa; the twelfth from Brzesc and from Jičín; the fifth from Litoměřice--and adds to the considerable collection of books once owned by an institution in Prague.

It will take me a long time to go through the remaining lines, but I am determined to do it. I will post updates as I go along. As always, readers are welcome to download and use the data, with proper credit--and if you do, please let me know how you're using it.