Word: witten
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Laurence Witten, an obscure antiquarian bookseller in New Haven, unearthed a 15th century European map that compels a reappraisal of the entire age of New World exploration and is rated by the Yale Library as its "most exciting single acquisition in modern times." See BOOKS...
...related by Thomas E. Marston, Yale University Library's curator of medieval and Renaissance literature, in the gruffly deprecatory language of scholarship, the discovery of the map is quite a dramatic yarn in itself. It began in October 1957, when a New Haven antiquarian bookseller, Laurence Witten, dropped by the Yale Library to show Marston and Map Curator Alexander O. Victor a slim volume that Witten had acquired from a private collection in Europe. The book included the map and 21 pages of text, which were a transcription of an account of the expedition led by Friar John...
...manuscripts from a London dealer, one of which was a modestly priced portion of the Speculum Historiale (Mirror of History) compiled by Vincent of Beauvais, the famed encyclopedist of the Middle Ages. When the Speculum manuscript arrived, it was in such an attractive 15th century binding that Dealer Witten asked to examine it. That night Witten telephoned Marston in great excitement. The Speculum manuscript was the key to the puzzle of the Vinland map and the text of the Carpini mission, which was later to be called "the Tartar Relation." The manuscript was written in the same hand, the watermarks...