Re: VMs: Re: Janus Gruterus' dictionary of shorthand characters...? (take two)

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Jan[us] Gruter[us] seems to have been an interesting character: a librarian 
& philologist, he lived in exile in England for a while before ending up in 
Heidelberg, and produced (amongst many other things) a 3-volume florilegium 
(in his case, a collection of proverbs and sayings from various European 
countries).

One typical English proverb he quotes: "a woman without a man is like a 
garden without grass". Now, of course, we're more likely to find this as 
"...is like a fish without a bicycle". You choose! :-)

From what I've seen, it seems quite clear that Gruter would have been 
exactly the kind of person who would have compiled a dictionary of 
shorthand symbols. However, it seems as though Wilkins was referring to 
"Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romanorum..." (1601), which was 
Gruter's collection of Tironian notae (with an index somewhat grudgingly 
made by J.J.Scaliger).

On reflection, it seems as though Gruter's philological focus was always 
less likely to be on collecting contemporary shorthand than on collecting 
classical shorthand - so, unless there are unexpected things of interest to 
be found in any of the editions held by the BL, this looks like a bit of a 
dead end - oh well, never mind. :-(

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....  


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