In 1999, the Wachowskis gave us the sci-fi action film The Matrix. Most who saw it responded in the same way Keanu Reeves’ character does when he watches a man leap an impossible distance between two skyscraper rooftops: “Whoa.”
As we move solidly into the dread drears of Rochester winter, I expect we could all use a bit of a reminder that there are other colors in the world besides gray, white, and white-gray. We are all, I think, struggling a little bit- to find the energy, to remember the warmth of summer, to string five words coherently together without coffee. For this month as a gift from the land of history, please have this appropriately image-heavy post featuring a delightfully jarring juxtaposition of expectations: Behold. The Victorians’ love of technicolor.
In 1848, James W. Marshall was building John Sutter’s lumber mill in Coloma, California when glimmering from within the American River caught his eye. It turned out to be gold. And that turned out to be the beginning of the California Gold Rush.
If you asked the average American what they know about Thomas E. Dewey, governor of New York State and a two-time Presidential loser, they will most likely point to the famous photograph of a grinning Harry Truman holding up a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune that proclaims “Dewey Defeats Truman.” However, his work had an impact in many aspects of New York City, New York State, and national policy between 1930 and 1955.
Elizabeth G. Holahan was born in Mumford, NY, in 1903. She was raised in Rochester, and was educated at East High School and the old Mechanics Institute (now the Rochester Institute of Technology). Although she was by profession an interior decorator, her life-long interest was centered in the restoration and renovation of historical sites and buildings in the Rochester area. She served as president of the Landmark Society of Western New York from 1954 to 1962, and was president of the Rochester Historical Society from 1977 to 2000.
John Michael Wright (ca. 1617-ca. 1694)
Raggvaglio della Solenne Comparsa, fatta in Roma gli otto di Gennaio MDCLXXXVII. Rome: Domenico Antonio Ercole, [1687].
The Hunter-Naturalist: Romance of Sporting, or, Wild Scenes and Wild Hunters.
C. W. Webber. Philadelphia: J. W. Bradley, 1851.
Virgil (70-19 B.C.)
L'opere di Virgilio Mantoano, cioè la Bucolica, la Georgica, e l'Eneide, commentate in lingua volgare toscana, da Giouanni Fabrini da Fighine, da Carolo Malatesta da Rimene, & da Filippo Venuti da Cortona. Venice: Heirs of Melchiorre Sessa, 1588.
On the title page we can clearly read the following Latin inscription indicating ownership of the book: Ad usum D. Francisci Mariae Senighi.
Varro, Marcus Terentius (116-27 B.C.)
De Lingua Latina (ed. Julius Pomponius Laetus). [Rome: Georgius Lauer, c. 1471-2].
This Roman edition is the editio princeps of De lingua latina and the first work of Marcus Terentius Varro to be printed. Unfortunately, our copy is missing the first ten leaves, which included a letter addressed to Bartholomaeus Platina, a summary of the De lingua latina, and a mention to Laetus' editorial work on the text.
Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban VIII (1568-1644).
Maphaei S.R.E. Card. Barberini nvnc Vrbani Pp. VIII. Poemata. Antwerp: Balthasar I Moretus, 1634.
