This "information" corner holds informative items for the researcher, different from mere "lists",
which won't be deleted (contrary to "news" items), and which don't wait
for an answer (contrary to the items in the "Q&A" section).
Jesuit Archives in the Low Countries (May 25, 2009)
Website in Dutch, describing the contents of the archives of the Archivum Provinciae Belgicae Septentrionalis (ABSE), presently in the SJ-house in Heverlee, and managed by Jo Luyten (KADOC, Leuven). English summary appeared in KADOC International Newsletter 2008 (pages 25-28). If you want more information, just download a request form ('verzoekformulier ABSE: second to the last paragraph on site) and send it on-line.
The archives of the French-speaking Belgian and Luxembourg Jesuits (BML-Belgique Méridionale et Luxembourg) are to be found in Brussels.
The archives of the Dutch Province are kept in Nijmegen, and a new description of its contents is being undertaken under the guidance of Fr. Paul Begheyn. S.J.
Good news was announced in Lisbon for all those researching on Jesuits in Asia. The ARSI has from now on a digitalized full copy of the collection Jesuitas na Ásia (49-IV-49 to 49-VI-9) from Biblioteca da Ajuda – Lisbon, and two volumes of the printed catalogues. The Centro de Documentação do Museu do Oriente, in Lisbon, received from the ARSI a copy of all the available digitalized materials from the collections Japonica Sinica (1-200) and Goa Malabarica (1-76b), and the pertinent indexes. The Centro intends to develop a project that will facilitate the organization and consultation of those materials accordingly the nature of the Jesuit “Portuguese Mission” in Asia. (Nov. 08)
2008-02-21 R.I.P. Herman Morlion S.J. (October 25, 2008)
Fr. Herman Morlion S.J. (°1925) passed away on Febr. 21, 2008.
He has been the chief librarian at the Jesuit House of Studies in Heverlee (Leuven, Belgium) from 1967 until 1997. Next to being a librarian, Father Morlion has also been a philosophy professor at the Philosophical and Theological College of the Jesuits. He was equally active in the prison ministry.
As a librarian he took to heart the transfer of the theological collection of his library to the newly built Theology Faculty library (now the Maurits Sabbe Library). Until 1995/96 he remained in charge, for our library, of the acquisition of new books and serials for account of the Jesuits.
He served as president on the board of the VRB (Religious-scientific libarians) from 1977 till 1986, and of the Conseil International des Associations des Bibliothèques de Théologie (now BETH) from 1979 till 1989.
'His' library became one of the cornerstones of the present Maurits Sabbe Library (Faculty of Theology, KUL).
Rome, Jesuit Historical Institute and Archives (October 25, 2008)
Father General has decided to integrate the Historical Institute of the Society of Jesus and the Archives of the Society of Jesus into one unit. As of July 1st the roster of persons and duties includes Fr. Giovanni Sale, Director; Fr. James Pratt, Administrative Director and Prefect of the Library; and Fr. Robert Danieluk, Director of the Archives. Fr. José Antonio Yoldi is the Associate Archivist and Fr. Thomas McCoog is Director of Publications. Emeriti are Fr. Francisco de Borja Medina and Fr. Láslo Szilas. Corresponding Members include Fathers Martin M. Morales, Marek Inglot, and Antoni Üçerler.
The remains of Fr. Leonardo Lessius SJ (1554-1623) were transfered to the St. Michael's church in Leuven, where they once belonged. A commemorative programme was held on September 30, 2007, attended by a sizeable number of people. An illustrated brochure -- limited and numbered, in Dutch -- retelling the life of Fr. Lessius and the story of the remains and equally containing the sixteenth century processional jesuit-centered songs that were heard at the celebration, was printed at Peeters Press.
The St. Michael's church featured in the regional papers recently, on account of the discovery of an ancient crypt (dated 1652) which was incorporated and rearranged upon building the present church. The human remains that were found seemingly mostly belong to the Jesuits that once lived in the nearby house.
3) ALOSTI in Flandria anno M°CCCC°LXXIII°. Anastatic reprint of three volumes printed by Dirk Martens: Pseudo-Augustinus, Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Dionysius van Rijkel, with commentary by K. Heireman sj 10 €
4) PONCELET Alfred, Nécrologe de la province Flandro-Belgica, Wetteren 1931 10 €
5) PONCELET Alfred, Histoire de la Compagnie de Jésus dans les anciens Pays-Bas, 2 vol., Bruxelles, 1928. SOLD OUT
6) HENRICUS GANDAVENSIS, Anastatic reprint of his Quodlibeta, F°, 2 vol. 50 €
Persons or institutions interested can pass their order on to the jesuitica site (bernard.deprez@theo.kuleuven.be ) from where it will be forwarded for dispatching.
Georg Joseph Kamel S.J. died on May 2, 1706 in Manila. His death anniversary last year did not go unnoticed in his hometown Brno (Czech Republic). Brno hosted an exhibition of Camellias "Kamélie exotická" in the Etnographic Museum mid-March.
Another exhibition (March-June 2006) focused on the life of Kamel (1661-1706).
A memorial service was held at the chateau Rajec nad Svitavou (south Moravia).
Kamel, as a missionary in the Philippines, devoted himself to explore local fauna and flora and he kept his observation results. One manuscript is kept at the 'jesuitica' collection in Leuven (see catalogue).
An international conference (June 8-10) in Brno (Pharmaceutical department VFU, Palackého 1/3) discussed Kamel's achievements as a botanist.
[A Czech summary of the talks is available on demand, the proceedings will not be published.]
The Public Czech Television has premiered a documentary film (56 min.) about Kamel, entitled "Georgius Josephus Camelius" last december 21, 2006.
Some have labelled Kamel the most significant pharmacist of the 17the century, whose work still benefits pharmacy.
Jesuitica from Berchmanianum, Nijmegen moved to Leuven (September 01, 2007)
Last Fall, the jesuitica collection formerly housed in the Berchmanianum, Nijmegen (the Netherlands) was transferred to the Maurits Sabbe Library in Leuven, Belgium to be joined to the existing jesuitica collection.
Most items are catalogued under the Picarta system (the Netherlands) with holding reference "Berchmanianum". Until further notice, these books can still be researched via that catalogue. Works that so far were not disclosed electronically will be taken up in the Libis Catalogue (KULeuven) as soon as possible.
One precious curiosum out of this collection is this Breviarium Romanum, 1610, used all life by father Leonardus Lessius SJ (1554-1623).
SJ Literature from Ignatiuskolleg, Valkenburg (June 21, 2007)
DFG supports cataloguing of Jesuit literature from the former Ignatiuskolleg / Valkenburg at the Library of the Phil.-Theol. Hochschule Sankt Georgen, Frankfurt / Main
In a project funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) a special collection of 2.400 volumes of Jesuitica from the library of the former Ignatiuskolleg / Valkenburg (Netherlands) has been catalogued in the Hesse Union Catalogue (HeBIS) and thus made bibliographically accessible to research. Project ended November 2007.
The collection contains the shelfmarks Vbg Chi: Jesuit Biographies and shelfmarks Vbg Ci: Jesuit History, subdivided into General Jesuit History (Vbg Ci), Constitutions and Law of the Society of Jesus (Vbg Cic), German Jesuit History (Vbg Cid), Jesuit Mission (Vbg Cim) and Polemic Writings for and against the Society of Jesus (Vbg Cip).
The collection contains writings from the 16th to the first half of the 20th century, most of them dating from the 19th century.
The Valkenburg collection of Jesuitica provides documentary evidence for the history of the Jesuit Order at the time of Kulturkampf and their prohibition by the laws of the German Empire against the Jesuits in 1872. Thus this collection complements the extensive collection of literature on the Jesuits in the Library of Sankt Georgen at Frankfurt / Main. Access to this collection via this link.
Contact:
Bibliothek der Phil.-Theol. Hochschule Sankt Georgen
Offenbacher Landstraße 224
D-60599 Frankfurt am Main bibliothek@sankt-georgen.de
Google.books is in the process of scanning a tremendous amount of old books, some of which might be of particular interest to jesuitica researchers. If you are in search of a particular volume or an author, try your luck...
From Google's help file: The easiest way to get a link to a specific title or author in Google Book Search is to visit the "Advanced Search" page and enter what you're searching for in the appropriate field (title, author, ISBN, date, etc). After clicking "Google Search," you'll be taken to a results page. Just copy and paste the URL from your browser -- the link will show the same results.
You can also create links for your site in the following ways:
For subject or word searches, use: http://books.google.com/books?q=[query] (don't include the brackets). Replace query by the word you're looking for
Finding all jesuitica items in K.U.Leuven database (May 22, 2007)
Following to this weblink, you should end up with an updated net result of entered books etc. marked "jesuitica". Not all of these books will appear at this moment on the jesuitica database, since harvesting only happens a few times a year.
Full text jesuitica items on this site (May 21, 2007)
Since the insertion of multiple full text jesuitica items, we've been using some additional features on the site's pages to avoid confusion.
Normally, when also belonging to our holdings, a full-text book is added on the page of the author, together with the description of the book [e.g. Bougeant, Guillaume-Hyacinthe. Amusement philosophique ..., 1739].
In case the book is not part of our holdings yet (or not yet entered into the database), the full text books (serials, periodicals) available and traced are put in one of the existing categories (J, M, P) and the title or author's name is preceded by an asterisk (*) [e.g. J-*Crétineau, Sj in England and Ireland, 1863 (full text); M-*Bourdaloue, Exhortations et instructions chrétiennes, T.1, 1758 (full text); P-*Lettres édifiantes (1756) (full text)].
In some sections of the site, a title is preceded by a double asterisk (**), which means this reference will be sorted on top of the page, thus avoiding that this information gets lost among the remainder of references. It is meant to be considered some kind of meta-reference to be handled in a prioritarian way [e.g. J-**Zentrales Verzeichnis Digitalisierter Drucke].
The single asterisk is also used in other sections (like e.g. L) to obtain a hierarchy in referenced links [e.g. L-*BCNI 1500-1727 digitized].
Before being ingested in the jesuitica website, newly entered items in the database are readily visible on the University library website (Libisng).
Choose 'jesuitica' in the first pop up window, and make your choice (month, year) for the acquisitions of the period you want to check into. By reversing the ascending/descending order, you can have the oldest books on top.
New guide to the "Archives of the Provincia Flandro-Belgica" (April 19, 2007)
Just published, a guide to the archives of the Jesuit Provincia Belgia (later: Flandro-Belgica), containing some letters of famous jesuits like Lessius, Scribani and originals and transcripts of annual letters, reports and letters of missionaries to East and West such as by A. Vagnone, N. Trigault, I. Hartoghvelt. F. Verbiest, Ph. Couplet, A. Thomas, F. Noël, J. Van der Beken and many others. Even if this inventory is written in Dutch, place and name indexes [according to PIBA conventions] make it easy to consult. The collection should be distinguished from the Jesuit documents in the Royal Library in Brussels.
In 2002 these archives were transferred to the State Archives in Antwerp and a full inventory of the 4.200 documents (70 meters in length) was made.
CALLEWIER, Hendrik. Inventaris van het archief van de Nederduitse Provincie der Jezuïeten (Provincia Belgica, vervolgens Provincia Flandro-Belgica) en van het archief van het professenhuis te Antwerpen (1388) 1564-1773
Brussel, Rijksarchief, 2006, 598 p. + 12 ill.
Series: Inventarissen - Inventaires
Rijksarchief te Antwerpen 59
Publ. 4521
22 €
To order: write, fax or mail
Algemeen Rijksarchief - Publicatiedienst
Ruisbroekstraat 2
B-1000 Brussel
Fax : +32 (0)2 513 76 81
E-mail : publicat@arch.be
Don't forget to mention the publication number: 4521
F. Verbiest Memorie (Typus eclipsis lunae, 1671) (March 22, 2007)
Typus eclipsis lunae, Anno Christi 1671, Imperatoris Cam Hy decimo, die XVto lunae IIae, id est, die XXVto Martij; ad Meridianum Pekinensem; nec non imago adumbrata diuersorum digitorum in horizonte obscuratorum, in singulis Imperij Sinensis prouincijs, tempore quo luna in singulis oritur. auctore P. Ferdinando Verbiest, Societ.is Jesu, in Regia Pekinensi, Astronomiae praefecto.
Rice-paper on scroll, 240 cm long, 28,3 cm wide.
Housed at the Maurits Sabbe Library, Leuven: P IG 112 K VERB. 1671 (formerly at the Jesuit Library, Heverlee)
Verbiest, being responsible for the calendar, needed to compute the lunar eclipses for the next year, for each of the seventeen Chinese provinces. The emperor wanted to have these data six months in advance, so all regions of the empire could be notified in time. This scroll show the phases of the lunar eclipse of March 25, 1671, in seventeen drawings, one for each province.
The legend is both in Chinese and Manchu.
Georg Kamel S.J. and the "camellia". Upon seeing a manuscript ... (March 22, 2007)
As an amateur botanist I've been growing camellias for years. As I am preparing a publication on the Belgian camellia cultivars, I was led to the Jesuitica collection at the K.U.Leuven. I combed through the folio leaves of Kamel's manuscript on Philippine plants in search for a glimpse of the camellia, or the tea plant ... and I found a drawing of the 'Tschia' (folio nr. 234). This discovery leads me to post this note as an invitation to further discussion and possible discoveries.
Chinese manuscripts of the 3th century C.E. hold a description of the camellia, originally native to East-Asia, i.e. the vast mainland of Asia and the islands nearby (from Nepal to China, Korea, Japan and Southern Vietnam).
The camellia belongs to the family of the Theaceae (tea family). Camellia sinensis is the plant whose leaves we're nowadays using to make our customary cup of tea. The first camellias were shipped to Europe, in the presupposition they were tea plants, which would allow the existing monopoly within the tea trade to be broken. The ornamental value of the plant was only later discovered, although the plant as such had been known for ages.
The tea plant was first described by the Dutch botanist Jacob Bontius (1592-1631) in his Historiae naturalis et medicae Indiae orientalis ... Libri VI (1642). Bontius was living in Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia) and got his information from general Jacobus Spex, who had been stationed for a few years in Japan. In Europe, the oldest known drawing of the plant datesfrom 1658. Willem Piso published the text of Bontius in his De Indiae utriusque re naturali et media (1658) which he expanded and to which he added an illustration.
Andreas Cleyer (1634 - 1697/98), a German at the service of the Dutch East India Company provided us with the first clear description and drawing of "Tsumacky", the Japanese name for Camellia .
The German physician Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716) serving with the Dutch East India Company, travelled all over China and Japan. He lived on the island Deshima /Nagasaki between 1690 and 1692. In his publication"Amoenitates Exoticarum Politico-Physici-Medicarum" (1712) a thorough description of the Camellia japonica and the Camellia Sasanqua appears for the first time.
The Swedish botanist Carl von Linné (Carolus Linnaeus 1707-1778) named this plant Camellia, honouring thus the Jesuit missionary and pharmacist Georg Joseph Kamel (1661- 1706), whose name he latinized as Camellus. The taxonomy still used today was adopted by von Linné in his Species Plantarum (1753).
In the Kamel manuscript we only find a drawing of a single leaf with a few fruits, clearly the tea plant (thea sinensis – single flower). This is understandable since the manuscript is mainly concerned with medicinal plants, which the Camellia japonica is not. A lot of literature adds the name 'Japanese rose' on account of the form of its flower. In the northern hemisphere several cultivars (cultivated selections) hail from this same land of the rising sun.
Most literature so far has assumed Kamel never saw the camellia. This looks highly improbable. After all, he made a drawing of the plant, as is seen in this manuscript housed in Leuven. Most probably the Chinese or Japanese took this plant to the Philippines. Although he did not discover the plant, I'd venture to state that he knew the plant. A statement backed by Prof. Dr. Klaus Peper in his on-line article Georg Joseph Kamel: Apothecarius, medicus, botanicus (1997). Unfortunately enough I have no access to the texts of John Ray that go with the drawings of Kamel. They might have shed some additional light. Page from John Ray's book
According to Sommervogel (Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, book 2, col. 580) John Ray (British clergyman and botanist, 1625-1705) used the data from Kamel, but never published the drawings. A leaflet, pasted into the manuscript, by Ant. Laurent de Jussieu contains the concordances with the corresponding European names of the plants.
Whether the drawings of the Leuven manuscript are originals or copies has been a question of much discussion during the past century, as is testified to in the correspondence kept with the manuscript. As of now, three drawings (83, 175 and 185) are deemed to be original, whilst the others are copies.
The manuscript came into the possession of French botanist Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748-1836), and was bought by the Belgian count Alfred de Limminghe (Gentinnes) on February 6, 1858 at the sale of the possessions of the former. De Limminghe presented the manuscript as a gift to the Jesuit college in Leuven.
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