Recent Acquisitions
Proactive collection development is paramount to the Newberry’s mission of serving research in the humanities. Each potential acquisition the library considers is intensely scrutinized with the goal of selecting unusual and evocative books and manuscripts most likely to challenge opinions, expand knowledge, kindle the imagination, and stimulate original research.
Catholic Church, Breviary (Dominican), manuscript (Germany, ca. 1490)
Vault Case MS 198 (Newberry/Western Michigan MS 4)
An unstudied Dominican liturgical manuscript from the end of the Middle Ages. The Newberry has an exceptional collection of both manuscript and printed breviaries reflecting the uses of the various orders of the Catholic Church. This volume also complements the collection of rare printed books presented to the Library by the Dominican friars of the Province of St. Albert the Great in 2001-2002.
Civil War diary of Andrew McKay (1862-1864)
Vault Case MS 10029
Pocket diary of the 37th Iowa regiment known as the "Gray Beard Regiment," an infantry unit formed of healthy older men. The regiment guarded military prisons in Illinois. McKay died of disease at age 65 while in the service.
Choregraphie, ó vero l'arte di scrivere i balli per caratteri, manuscript prepared by Carlo Scaletta
Vault Case MS 5310
This is an unpublished translation of the original French printed text. The development of a graphic notation for the dance was a major artistic achievement of the Ancien regime France. This method of notation came to be used throughout Europe and facilitated the creation of a literary corpus on the dance that permitted contemporaries to perform dances they had never seen and consequently enables modern scholars to recreate achievements in dance which otherwise would have been forgotten. This manuscript documents the spread of Feuillet's notation to the Italian peninsula.
Plan de la route de Paris en Bretagne par Dreux et Allençon
Vault Case MS 5312
A royal engineer's working map for the royal highway to Brittany that subsequently became known as Route nationale no. 12. The maps record planned road improvements.