Re: VMs: Voynich at the Art Institute of Chicago

[Xavier Ceccaldi <ceccaldi@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rene Zandbergen" <r_zandbergen@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <vms-list@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2003 5:20 AM
Subject: Re: VMs: Voynich at the Art Institute of Chicago

> I had wondered before who was Frank Gunsaulus. Do I
> understand correctly that he was a curator of the
> Chicago Art Institute?
>
> Cheers, Rene


I don't think Gunsaulus was a "curator" of the Art Institute of Chicago, but
rather a "trustee". The trustee is a member of the Board of directors. The
curator is more a kind of Chief Executive Officer of the body. I don't find
again my source on the position of Gunsaulus, but you will read hereafter a
short biography of another interesting character around the MS408. Gunsaulus
was a good client for Voynich, who sold him at least two of the manuscripts
he bought to the Collegio Romano, and probably three. I am currently
investigating these deals.


Extract from : http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/spcl/excat/donors3.html#d


" During the first decades of the twentieth century, American rare book and
manuscript collecting became a fashionable pursuit that offered intellectual
and cultural satisfactions as well as the camaraderie of fellow devotees.
Chicago's Caxton Club, founded in 1895, along with informal social
gatherings, provided an opportunity for bibliophiles to share their love of
books. A group of collectors who regularly haunted the rare book section of
Alexander C. McClurg's bookstore were dubbed "Saints and Sinners" by
humorist Eugene Field, one of the regulars. Among the clerical members of
the group was Frank Wakeley Gunsaulus (1856-1921), who was perhaps the most
notable Chicago collector to contribute rare books, manuscripts, and
autographs to the early University of Chicago.

Born in Chesterville, Ohio, Gunsaulus came to prominence as the minister of
the socially prestigious Plymouth Congregational Church of Chicago.
Gunsaulus extended his reputation as a powerful preacher and earned extra
money to support his book and manuscript collecting by conducting summer
lecture tours across the country. Influenced by deep religious principles,
Gunsaulus, like other culturally conservative reformers in America and in
Europe, hoped that a robust program of philanthropy could alleviate, if not
eliminate, the worst aspects of modern life. One outlet for Gunsaulus's
cultural and social revisionism was his own personal crusade to create new,
more egalitarian educational institutions. In an address to his Plymouth
Church parishioners, he proposed founding an institute of technology that
would be open to all qualified students seeking technical training. Inspired
by Gunsaulus's idea, meatpacking magnate Philip D. Armour put up the needed
money to launch the Armour Institute of Technology in 1893, an institution
Gunsaulus served for the rest of his life as president (and which later
became the Illinois Institute of Technology). Gunsaulus assumed a second
academic position in 1912, when he was appointed Professorial Lecturer on
Practical Theology in the University of Chicago Divinity School.

For Gunsaulus, collecting and reading antiquarian books and manuscripts was
another way to escape the materialism and immorality of modernity.".

" Despite his loyalty to the Armour Institute, Gunsaulus reserved his most
valuable gifts for the University of Chicago, prompting library
administrator J.C.M. Hanson to dub him "the patron saint of the University
Libraries." In 1910 Gunsaulus gave the Library a large number of early
American manuscripts, letters, and autographs (eventually known as the
Butler-Gunsaulus Collection). Two years later, he began to donate medieval
and Renaissance manuscripts and early printed books, his most significant
donations coming between 1915 and 1917. In these two years, Gunsaulus
presented a manuscript of Boccaccio's Genealogia deorum gentilium (1385-87),
and early printed editions of Augustine's De civitate dei (1470) and
Cicero's De officiis (1470). Gunsaulus also donated a copy of the St. Albans
Chronicle (1481), still regarded as one of the finest specimens of early
English typography in the United States. Gunsaulus concluded his gifts to
the University in 1917 and 1919 with additional fifteenth-century books and
the proof sheets for Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah, annotated by the
composer. "

Best regards

Xavier Ceccaldi


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