Online Library

H/T to Dappled Things and Hermeneutic of Continuity for drawing our attention to two great liturgical books now available on the web:

1. Nainfa's Costume of prelates of the Catholic church, according to Roman etiquette - full of fascinating details.
   
2. The Marquess of Bute's rather eccentric edition of the Roman Breviary (this link is to the first volume only).

More marvellous still is the website that provides these books (all out of copyright) - www.archive.org. Next time I'm writing an article or a talk, the online library will prove to be invaluable. For example, I typed in a few random keywords (which will tell you something of my present historical interests) and found:

1. Richard Challoner's Garden of the Soul and Lives of the Desert Fathers


2. Newman's Lives of the English Saints (the link is to the volume covering St Augustine of Canterbury)


3. The complete works of Cardinal Wiseman, such as his Four Lectures on the Offices and Ceremonies of Holy Week, as performed in the Papal Chapels.


4. The whole of Pastor's monumental History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages (translated by Antrobus).


5. A book I've been looking for and only ever found in the monastic library at Farnborough Abbey - Dunbar's Dictionary of Saintly Women (Vol 1 and 2), which contains lots of obscure details you won't find elsewhere.


6. Gillow's Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics.


7. Benedict XIV's important work on Heroic Virtue.

And so on! Visit the site and type in the subjects that interest you.

NB The picture shows the fabulous Bibliothek at Stift Admont in Austria.