Speaking of the Internet Archive, here's an 1806 English language missal for the laity. You'll need the DJVu (pronounced "déjà vu") software from either the LizardTech or djvulibre sites to view it, either within a browser or as a standalone program (MS-Windows version download page is here, the Mac version download page is here, and the Linux - UNIX version download page is on the djvulibre site). I grabbed the source tarball and compiled it on my Debian desktop box, no tweaking needed, just ./configure && make && make install.

Two images of missal pages are below the break.

The Internet Archive's 'Catholic Church' files listing has other interesting items, as does its listing of works published by Burns, Oates.

The Maria Lectrix blog's podcasts of the Pope's encyclical are complete. They begin with the introduction and the conclusion is here. The entire series is here on the Internet Archive.

My thanks to her, since this is probably the only way I'll have the opportunity to absorb it, with my work schedule.

Daniel Mitsui's post Court Art in the Reign of Rudolph II includes entertaining images of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's Four Elements. Francesco da Ponte Bassano, who was born today in 1549, also painted the four elements, the four seasons, and the twelve months, and I include an image of the Element of Water below the break. The Element of Earth is in the collections of the Princely House of Liechtenstein. I don't know where Air and Fire are.

As an aside, I thank Mr Mitsui for providing a full RSS feed of his posts. Too many bloggers' RSS feeds are unnecessarily limited to a very small excerpt.

Listening to the Geek News Central podcast #132 from the Consumer Electronics Show this morning, Todd Cochrane had a brief interview with representatives of Carry-a-Tune Technologies (which I had heard as CarrierTune - no such domain). They claim that their SingingCoach software will indicate to you when you off pitch. A feature tracks, via a graph, your pitch versus the correct pitch, supposedly thereby training your ear.

If I get this, I guess I can't hum along with the choir and the folks in the pews.

Daniel Mitsui has an intriguing post, Reconstructing Ghent, on his blog. Or, I should say, a particularly intriguing post, since the ones on Byrd, Biblical layout, and Georg Bocskay are as well.

According to James Snyder and Lotte Brand Philip, the altarpiece was 'housed in a huge, tiered tabernacle that resembled a cathedral elevation ... hinged to allow the various panels to move - but such an imposing architectural setting would have displayed the paintings in a more meaningful context of the divine service ... [and the] hinged wings would move back and forth to the accompaniment of music played by a mechanical organ within it.'

If I understand this correctly, as the music accompanying Mass or the Hours played and incense wafted upwards, the hinged covers would open and close. Who needs mere stained glass as a teaching aid, with prayers, preaching, chant, responses, music, bells and perfumed bouquets keeping company with moving pictures?

She visited Warsaw, Kraków, Częstochowa, Auschwitz, Birkenau and came back with many very nice photos. Browse them at her blog here.

Four hundred and forty years ago, Michele Ghislieri, O.P. was elected pope, and he became Pius V. There's a list of the cardinal-electors at the Conclave of December 20, 1565 - January 7, 1566, one of Salvador Miranda's pages. He maintains The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church pages.

But wait, there's more! I impart a comradely 'right arm!' in solidarity, to the Whapsters (Whappingers?), because they correctly note 'A world religion just isn't a world religion until it inspires large quantities of bad, mass-produced devotional art' (see Summa Paraphernaliae Catholicae). So, I present

The Pope St Pius V rubber stamp



available from Catholic Rubber Stamps

Daniel Mitsui 'intend[s] [his blog] to be a forum on the art, culture, history, and liturgy of traditional Catholicism.' He also says 'self-described traditionalists are of two general types: those who are traditionalists because they love tradition, and those who are traditionalists because they love complaining.' That he is of the former is obvious from the posts so far on his blog, The Lion and the Cardinal. Bravo to him for his 'vital memory of the collective genius, creativity, and piety that made - by the grace of God Almighty - the most beautiful, most profound masterworks of liturgy, prayer, art, architecture, music, literature, philosophy, and theology.'

Fifteen years ago today, the philosopher G. E. M. Anscombe passed on. First Things had a tribute to her at G. E. M. Anscombe: Living the Truth. She was married to another philosopher, Peter Geach, in 1941. Geach was present in 1946 at the confrontation between Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper (Wittgenstein's Poker by David Edmonds and John Eidinow). Anscombe was at home with the kids.

John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews has a tribute to her here (pdf file format).

A friend posted a link to Southwell Books' Quick Guide to Traditional Missals, in a mailing list thread on the advantages and disadvantages of different editions. The page compares different versions, such as the St Andrew Daily Missal, St Joseph Daily Missal, New Marian Missal, Roman Catholic Daily Missal, the New Roman Missal by Fr F. X. Lasance, etc.). You need not buy a missal brand new; abebooks has many listings, here, for example.

Now, I have to admit to putting aside my missal for long streches of time at Mass, and 'merely' watching what is going on at the altar while many others in the pews are busily reading along with the prayers of the priest and servers. So for my purposes, Fr Stedman's My Sunday Missal fits the bill. N.B., it doesn't have the propers in Latin, only in English. It's small enough and thin enough that I can easily switch between the ordinary and propers without fiddling with ribbons. Of the abebooks sellers offering Fr Stedman's missal, I've dealt with Preserving Christian Publications and with St Anthony's Bookstore, and would happily order from either of them again.

How do you change a subculture? Three cases is a post worth reading. Dr Blosser has broken out the second and third cases into separate posts (second here, on seditious colleges and universities, and third here, on the infection of what he calls 'illiberal utilitarian bias', but which is, bluntly, a vocational or trade school mentality in higher education).

The Church has successfully reformed itself several times over the millennia. By 'successfully', I mean changes in administration and in public and private practice which profit our souls. Pope Leo IX and Pope Gregory VII accomplished reforms in the eleventh century, as did the thirteenth century mendicants, and as did the birth of the new religious orders and the installation of pro-Trent bishops to dioceses and the curia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Briefly, the first was an effort involving the popes and the Holy Roman Empire, the second priests and religious, and the third, the popes, bishops, priests and laity. If there are specifics of 'how those reforms arose and proceeded' on the 'net, I haven't found them, though there are many references to reforms happening.

Back on December 28, 2005, Daniel Mitsui drove to St Ita's church (some nice photos on this page), a French Gothic/American Gothic Revival design by Henry Schlacks, who founded the Architecture Department at the University of Notre Dame du Lac and who designed a number of Churches in Chicagoland (take a tour of his churches here).

Mr Mitsui links to an image of St Ita's interior at the the Bricks and Mortar Foundation, which has supported the Institute of Christ the King and Friends of the Windows.

The Friends is a group working to save and restore the stained glass windows at St James Chapel at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary (the Wikipedia has an article stub here).

The Friends' page has a mostly text tour of the windows.

The courtyard of Quigley Preparatory Seminary is modeled after the Palais de Justice in Rouen, France, where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

What I find notable about all this is that there is a private, nondenominational foundation which finds a common ground -- traditional and classical architecture -- with a traditional Roman Catholic priestly society. Could this be a harbinger? Perhaps similarly, back in the 1970s and 1980s, wealthy individuals and foundations began supporting public policy groups, and those moneys and policy groups have radically changed American politics. The Koch family and foundations, and Cato, come to mind. Before then, free market advocates were starving for money.

Sylvia, on the Bookworm, links to the Fitzwilliam's page on Making art: Medieval manuscripts, which has a very nice animation series showing how illuminated manuscripts were created, from the making of the parchment, through the scribe's and the illuminator, the ink and gold leaf, to the painting and the binding.

Excellent news at the beginning of the new year: Mirabilis.ca is Almost back to blogging!, the blog I previously mentioned here in Nummian reformata ouianumauam deformata, and a Carthusian monk's garden restored and in Classic Cat: a directory of free classical music mp3 downloads.

After Mass yesterday, one fellow asked me whether I knew of any places on the 'net where videos of the TLM could be downloaded. I knew of one, at a South Korean high school (here), and this morning I did a little searching and found these:

• A Mass in the Philadelphia Archdiocese on the Internet Archive in mpeg format;
• At the late Fr Gommar A. De Pauw's chapel site here in avi and Quicktime formats (note that the link for the Real Media/Player compatible video on that web page
  is incorrect. The correct link is: http://www.latinmass-ctm.org/mass/CTMVideo.rm);
• At an SSPX site in Korea here, which I'm told takes lots of time to load. It will not start playing right away.

These sites have videos for sale in various formats (e.g., tape, DVD):

• Una Voce's page;
• At the Roman Catholic Sacramentals Foundation site on this page;
• At Our lady of Lourdes Traditional Catholic Gifts here; and
• At the Latin Mass Society of Ireland's page The Most Beautiful Thing This Side of Heaven.

If you know of other videos available, please note them in a comment.

I have not been able to get the file from the South Korean high school by downloading it with my browser (Firefox), so I'm trying wget.