A History of Bibliographies of BibliographiesTaylor, Archer
History
A History of Bibliographies of Bibliographies
Taylor, Archer
Bibliography of bibliographies -- History
In 1686 Antoine Teissier (1632-1715), a Frenchman who became
historiographer at the court of Frederick I of Prussia, published a
revised and enlarged edition of Labbé's _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_
and gave it a new title: _Catalogus auctorum, qui librorum catalogos,
indices, bibliothecas, virorum literatorum elogia, vitas, aut
orationes funebres, scriptis consignarunt_. This new title, which
he signs "By Antoine Teissier (Ab Antonio Teisserio)," obscures the
fact that the _Catalogus_ is essentially a new edition of Labbé's
bibliography. The title page gives credit to Labbé only for an
appendix entitled _Bibliotheca nummaria_. Teissier could, to be
sure, claim that his emphasis on eulogies, biographies, and funeral
orations representing a category of biographical writings that
Labbé had not included amounted to a sufficiently large alteration
to justify a claim to authorship. We can at least say that he did
not treat his predecessor generously. In a preface addressed to the
reader he says that he has doubled the number of bibliographies cited
and has added twelve hundred biographical works.[82] He has made
the _Catalogus_ both an index to biographies and a bibliography of
bibliographies. He could scarcely have added the biographies if he
had fully perceived the nature and usefulness of a bibliography of
bibliographies.
Teissier was a diligent collector and a good organizer. Although
he has corrected errors and has filled in gaps in the _Bibliotheca
bibliothecarum_, he was not always as careful as he should have
been. He added two new indexes: Index V (_Catalogus_, pp. 353-355),
listing writers of biobibliographies of miscellaneous scope (i.e.,
works that were not restricted to men of a particular country or
profession), and Index X (_Catalogus_, pp. 364-400), listing the
men who were the subjects of biographies. These indexes show that
Teissier was chiefly interested in biography. He transferred an index
of last names that Labbé had given in the preliminary pages to the
end of the Catalogus and made it Index XI. He showed bibliographical
sense in perceiving and remedying the serious difficulties that
the references to "Anonymus" in Labbé's indexes had caused. In
order to run them down in the _Bibliotheca bibliothecarum_ one
must read the entire book. Teissier assembled all anonymous works
in a single place ("Auctores anonymi," pp. 319-332) and thus made
it possible to identify a reference rather easily. He removed the
brief account of fictitious libraries to a new place (_Catalogus_,
p. 363) and added to it a short but very interesting list of sixteen
seventeenth-century catalogues of private libraries.
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