Heythrop Library

This is the fourth post in a series for our blog. It shares the reports written by Alison Felstead, Rare Books Cataloguer at Campion Hall, who has since April 2024 done sterling work on creating detailed records for those Heythrop Library rare books which are stored at Campion Hall. Below is the report received from Alison for the Heythrop Library Committee meeting in June 2025.

At the time of writing, 834 books (i.e. discrete bibliographical entities) have been catalogued onto the Oxford Libraries Information System (OLIS) and made available to scholars worldwide via the University’s SOLO resource discovery interface. To date, about forty-three percent of the material catalogued was not previously represented in SOLO.

Since my last report, I have completed the cataloguing of the 109 books in the folio-size classified sequence and have also catalogued some 14 titles which were included in the valuation of the Heythrop rare books by Bonhams in 2024 but which were not shelved in the classified sequences of regular and folio sizes. I think this is because they were not listed on the spreadsheet which came to Campion with the Heythrop books in 2018, and this may be because their location in the Heythrop online catalogue had not been changed to Campion Hall. I have sent a note of these books to the Heythrop Librarian.

I am currently working through over 60 volumes of Positios used in the process of declaring a person Venerable. These are not recorded in the Heythrop online catalogue and represent rare material that is not widely available. Whilst the contents of the Positios follow a standard pattern, some of these volumes are proving challenging to catalogue as they lack title-pages and may be incomplete in other respects.

Two further challenging sequences remain to be catalogued: 51 volumes of incunabula (i.e. items published before 1501), and 51 post-1500 volumes which arrived from Heythrop without any record and only occasional shelfmarks. The contents of these volumes are at present unknown.

Brief notes on some of the more interesting items catalogued since my last report on 10 February 2025 follow:

1) A unique bound volume consisting of a set of printed forms used to record, in ink, a tally of the votes cast by the cardinals at each of the twice-daily scrutinies of the papal conclave of May-July 1758 which resulted in the election of Carlo Rezzonico, Pope Clement XIII. I have only been able to find one record of a similar item, from the 1903 conclave, as such items ought to have been destroyed along with the ballot papers. ([Rome] : [Printer not identified], 1758; BX1013 CON 1758)

2) An early 16th century four-volume set of Origen’s works, printed in Paris, bearing the autograph “Edouardus Coffinus” on the front free endleaf and annotations which might be in the same hand. Edward Coffin (1571-1626) entered the Jesuits on 13 January 1598, and is known for his translation of Robert Bellarmine’s work into English as The art of dying well (1621) and his own account of the cardinal’s final days, A true relation of the last sicknes and death of cardinall Bellarmine (1622). ([Paris] : Jean Petit & Josse Badius, [1512-1530]; BQ1666 ORI 1512)

3) An extraordinary work of early printing (as well as scholarship), the massive six-volume Biblia sacra polyglotta edited by Brian Walton (1600-1661) and printed in London by Thomas Roycroft between 1653 and early 1658. The Heythrop copy contains the so-called “loyal” preface in volume 1, which identifies it as one of the later copies issued after the Restoration in 1660. (BS1 WAL 1657)

4) Three books by the German Jesuit and polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), notable for their fine woodcut illustrations and copperplate engravings: Arca Noë (Amsterdam, 1675; BQ7067.I65.A668 1675), Turris Babel (Amsterdam, 1679; BQ7067.I65.T92 1679), and China monumentis (also known as China illustrata; Amsterdam, 1667; BQ7067.I65.C39 1667).

Finally, I am pleased to report that on Monday 2^nd June I gave a presentation on the history of Heythrop Library and its treasures to the Campion Hall community, and exhibited 13 items of particular interest.

Alison Felstead, Rare Books Cataloguer, Campion Hall (17 June 2025)