When the opportunity of visiting a number of libraries in Eastern Europe was offered to me in August and September, 1958, my primary purpose was to add some material from those libraries to my summary list [Iter Italicum, see RN XI, 47] of uncatalogued Renaissance manuscripts in Italian and other libraries, which I hope to begin publishing in 1960. also made an effort to gather additional data for my bibliography of printed catalogues and handwritten inventories of Latin manuscripts. Moreover, I tried to obtain as much information as possible concerning the status of Eastern European manuscript collections, and about their losses and acquisitions during and after the Second World War. The number of libraries which I actually visited was necessarily quite limited, but I was able to supplement the information gathered on the spot through publications and through correspondence, both before and after my journey.

Oregon was put prominently on the calligraphy map last autumn with the premier showing at the Portland Art Museum of an ambitious exhibition: ‘Calligraphy: The Golden Age and its Modern Revival’. It reopened, with a number of additions and subtractions, at the Grolier Club of New York City in mid-December to a large and appreciative audience. Never before, in this country anyway, has the art of the writing master been seen in so many fine examples written viva mano. It was done to the taste of a Montefeltro duke—not a page of paper or vellum in the whole show had passed through printing press or camera.

The Portland Art Association confessed to an ulterior motive.