Upside-down bells in mainland Europe

Segeberg font by Quoth via Wikimedia Commons

I was recently cataloguing a book on monasteries in Schleswig-Holstein (Klöster in Schleswig-Holstein: von den Anfängen bis zur Reformation by Oliver Auge and Katja Hillebrand).  As I was leafing through the pages I was struck by a double page spread on baptismal fonts, and in particular by a full-page photograph of the highly decorative one to be found in the Marienkirche in Bad Segeberg.

The most notable feature of these fonts to me is that they were made of bronze, often, it seems, as a sideline for bellfounders (they do perhaps resemble upside-down bells). After a little research I soon realised that unlike in Britain (where stone was the usual material for fonts) there are still many fine examples of bronze baptismal fonts in northern Germany and nearby.

LGBT publishing in Germany: Bibliothek rosa Winkel

In preparation for the pop-up exhibition “Queering the UL” in February this year, staff were asked to think of items that could feature in the event. This gave me a chance to take a closer look at some intriguing books that had passed through my hands, and which I was surprised to see among the very academic monographs I usually deal with. After a bit of research, I found out they were all in a series called “Bibliothek rosa Winkel,” which documents in fact an important part of German social history.

The Verlag rosa Winkel logo

The publishing house Verlag rosa Winkel, the first dedicated to gay themes in Germany, was founded in 1975 by a group of friends in West Berlin who, wanting to set up a stand of books on homosexuality at their university, realised that they had almost nothing to sell. The expression “rosa Winkel” refers to the pink triangle that homosexuals were made to wear on their clothes in Nazi Germany. The aim of the founders was to give a chance to books dealing with LGBT themes that had been turned down by more mainstream publishers. In 1991 they started the series Bibliothek rosa Winkel, defined as being at the crossroads of history and literature, and whose focus is testimonies or other narratives documenting life as a homosexual at different points in history. As Verlag rosa Winkel went out of business in 2001, the series was taken over by the publisher Männerschwarm Verlag.

French and German prizewinners 2017

Following on from the recent post on Italian prizewinners, we now turn our attentions to the latest winners of major French (last covered in May 2017) and German (last covered in March 2017) prizes.

The Prix Goncourt was awarded to L’ordre du jour by Éric Vuillard (C205.d.4186).

The Prix Interallié went to Jean-René Van der Plaetsen for Nostalgie de l’honneur       (C205.d.4224).

Daniel Rondeau won the Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française for Mécaniques du chaos (C205.d.4223).

The Prix Médicis was awarded to Yannick Hanenel’s Tiens ferme ta couronne (C205.d.4222).

Collected works of Giordano Bruno

The University Library and ebooks@cambridge have recently purchased a full-text web-based Giordano Bruno collection, available on InteLex Past Masters.

Giordano Bruno, engraving by Johann Georg Mentzel (1677-1743) via Wikimedia Commons

Giordano Bruno, the Italian author and philosopher, was born in 1548 at Nola, near Naples, and baptised Filippo. He joined the Dominican friars of Naples in 1562, taking ‘Giordano’ (Jordan) as his religious name. His adventurous thinking brought him under suspicion of heresy in the increasingly authoritarian atmosphere of the Italian Counter-Reformation, and in 1576 he fled northwards, finding his way via Switzerland to France. He taught for a while in Paris, and in 1583 crossed the Channel to England where, among other things, he became acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney, and lectured on the Copernican theory at Oxford. Inevitably, his name has been associated with that of Shakespeare, but there is no solid evidence to connect them.

Trial access: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL)

ejournals@cambridge

The University of Cambridge has trial access on campus only to the Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) to April 12, 2018.

The link to the trial is here:

http://www.bautz.de/kirchenlexikon

We regret that we cannot provide off campus access to this resource.

Please send your feedback on the encyclopedia to library@divinity.cam.ac.uk.  Thank you.

The BBKL is the largest ecclesiastical encyclopaedia worldwide, including more than 20.000 entries about deceased personalities of ecclesiastical history – in the area of theology, religion, philosophy, art history and related subjects.

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