Medieval and Renaissance Letter Treatises and Form Letters
A census of manuscripts found in Eastern Europe and the former U.S.S.R.
Published on 1. November 1992
Book
Leather / fine binding
XXII, 324 pages
978-90-04-09667-7 (ISBN)
Description
Letter-writing was seen in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as a major branch of rhetoric, and its importance is testified to by the survival of numerous manuals, treatises, formularies and model letter collections. Polak's pioneering inventory is the first comprehensive and organized compilation of over 1100 extant Latin manuscript sources consulted in almost 200 libraries and archives in what was until recently Communist Eastern Europe. The survey is arranged alphabetically by country, city, library or archive, and collection, and gives standard details of folios, incipits, explicits, colophons and bibliography. Four indexes of manuscripts, incipits, medieval and renaissance authors and select anonymous works are also provided.
N.B.: previously announced as Iter Epistolographicum.
N.B.: previously announced as Iter Epistolographicum.
Reviews / Votes
'...eine solide Grundlage fuer die Erforschung der Geschichte des Briefes als eines der wichtigsten Kapitel der Rhetorik...'August Buck, Wolfenbuetteler Renaissance Mitteilungen, 1993.
'...his book is undoubtedly important...'
Zoltan J. Kosztolnyik, The Catholic Historical Review, 1994.
'...ein unschaetzbares Hilfsmittel...'
H.M.S., Deutsches Archiv fuer Erforschung des Mittelalters, 1993.
'This research tool will be of great benefit to those interested in Medieval and Renaissance rhetoric, oratory and diplomatics.'
Manuscripta
'...his work is to be regarded as standard for this topic...the plan [...] is excellent and ought to be consulted in the first volume's prefatory material...'
Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 1995.
'This catalogue of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in one particular, esoteric area will undoubtedly be of use to specialists, but its usefulness goes far beyond that. In passing, the author provides an expert gazetteer to the libraries with holdings of medieval manuscripts in Czechoslovakia, the former GDR, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the former USSR and the former Yogoslavia.'
Medium Aevum, 1995.
'What Professor Polak has given us is a solid statistical and bibliographical basis for taking stock of this medieval rhetorical tradition from its origins through the end of the Renaissance...Polak has measurably increased our knowledge of the diffusion of known texts and authors. He has identified a great many previously unidentified dictaminal texts and manuscripts...In passing, he has also given the reader a rich secondary bibliography. Indeed, his volumes are guides to the secondary literature...When complete, Polak's census should be virtually comprehensive for medieval treatises and useful but not all-inclusive for Renaissance texts.'
John Monfassi, Renaissance Quarterly, 1997.
'...accurate, proofread with care, handsomely arranged and printed, and easy to use.'
Judith Rice Henderson, Rhetorica, 1993.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 245 mm
Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
748 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-09667-7 (9789004096677)
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Emil Polak, Ph.D. in Medieval History at Columbia University, is Professor of History at Queensborough Community College of the City University of New York since 1982. Publications: A Textual Study of Jacques de Dinant's Summa dictaminis (Geneva, 1975), and articles and reviews on Medieval and Renaissance letter-writing.