Virginia Law Books
W. Hamilton Bryson, Editor

Dr. Bryson edits a rich collection of bibliographies of books relating to Virginia law and legal institutions, including books for judges, lawyers, and law students. Works on Virginia legal history are also included. In addition, there are six articles on Virginia law libraries and three on Virginia law publishers. There are two substantial indexes and numerous illustrations. Some of the articles included are:

• State Codes by Kent C. Olson
• Rules of Court by Rebecca G. Bates
• Reports of Cases by W. Hamilton Bryson
• Accounts of Trials by Ellen Firsching Brown
• Indexes, Digests, & Encyclopedias by Michael L. Loy
• Academic Law Libraries by Marshal Trimble
• William and Mary Law Library by James S. Heller
• Public Law Libraries by Gail Warren & Courtney A. Christensen
• Public Printers by Brandon Quarles

Virginia Law Books will be of assistance to persons engaged in legal research, both current and historical. It is specifically designed to serve law librarians. In addition, it will be of value to those interested in the history of American publishing and printing as well as librarianship. There is much that will be of interest to legal historians.

Kos Between Hellenism and Rome: Studies on the political, Institutional and Social History of Kos from ca. The Middle Second Century B.C. until Late Antiquity
Kostas Buraselis

Kos, the third largest of the Dodecanese, was an ancient center for medical science (the shrine to Asclepius was there). Dr. Buraselis of the University of Athens focuses on Kos's historical transformation from a vigorous, independent polis to a province of Rome. Epigraphical material that was collected and interpreted by the late Mario Segre and published only in the last decade provides most of the evidence. In addition, the author studied many inscriptions first hand. Chapters include a historical interpretation of Segre regarding Koan security from the time of the Second Cretan War to the aftermath of the First Mithridatic War; the evidence of the "lex Fonteia" and the period of M. Antonius, particularly pertaining to Nikias; C. Stertinius Xenophon's Roman career; titular and public positions on Kos, particularly M. Aelius Sabinianus and the Koan Spedii and finally, Koan relations with Rome from Mithridates to late Antiquity. Dr. Buraselis includes appendices of epigraphical dedications to gods for Nikias, C. Stertinius Xenophon, M. Aelius Sabinianus and M. Spedius Rufinus Phaedrus. The work contains a full bibliography.

Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula: Abraham Zacut and the Transition from Manuscript to Print
José Chabás and Bernard R. Goldstein

Abraham Zacut (1452-1515) of Salamanca was an outstanding intellectual figure in the Spanish Jewish community on the eve of the expulsion in 1492. In this monograph the authors focus on his important contributions to astronomy, first published in 1496 in Portugal, and reprinted several times in the sixteenth century. This book, known as the Almanach Perpetuum, is described in detail, and contrasted with ha-ibbur ha-gadol (The Great Composition) that Zacut composed in Hebrew in 1478. The authors argue persuasively that the Latin is not a translation of the Hebrew, despite a long tradition to the contrary.

Extensive evidence is also presented to demonstrate that Zacut had significant intellectual contacts with his Christian contemporaries in Salamanca, although the circumstances were not revealed by either side. By analysis and recomputation Zacut's sources are identified, and his work is thereby inserted in the astronomical traditions of the late Middle Ages. From his time to the present Zacut's fame has rested on his compilation of one of the earliest sets of astronomical tables to appear in print, and the reasons for his success are made clear to the reader.

Franklin's Father Josiah: Life of a Colonial Boston Tallow Chandler, 1657-1745
Nian Sheng Huang

Josiah Franklin has remained a marginal figure in most biographies of his well-known son Benjamin Franklin. In this most complete documentary to date, Nian-Sheng Huang brings to light for the first time more than twenty original documents and reveals a detailed life of the father in a rich context of colonial Boston society, its trades, economy, architecture, religion, and social activity. The monograph is enhanced by more than twenty maps, illustrations, and photographs.

The Tabula Antidotarii of Armengaud Blaise and its Hebrew Translation
Michael R. McVaugh and Lola Ferre

Medicine was becoming an increasingly important subject in the European universities of the late 1200s. Even Jewish scholars, who had played a large part in communicating Arabic learning to the West, now felt that they had much to learn from the new Latin medical literature. Drs. McVaugh and Ferre study a short Latin work on drugs composed c. 1300 by a medical master from the school of Montpellier, Armengaud Blaise, and of the Jewish scholar who excitedly translated it into Hebrew in Barcelona in 1306; neither the Latin original nor the Hebrew translation has ever been published before their edition here, prepared from the surviving manuscripts. An examination of the two works and their history not only helps illuminate the state of medical knowledge at the beginning of the fourteenth century, it also adds to our understanding of the relations between Christian and Jewish scholars at the time.

Adam Hoops, Thomas Barclay, and the House in Morrisville Known as Summerseat, 1764-1791
Priscilla H. Roberts and James N. Tull

Summerseat is an eighteenth century Georgian manor house, owned and operated by the Historic Morrisville Society in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Morrisville citizens restored the crumbling building in the 1930s, arranged for a Pennsylvania Historical Marker in 1949, applied for National Historic Landmark status in 1971, incorporated as a non-profit society in 1976, and purchased the historic house in 1980.

As a National Historic Landmark, Summerseat is recognized as having "exceptional value" to the history of the United States. It was not only the headquarters of George Washington in December 1776, but was owned by four prominent Americans of the eighteenth century: Robert Morris and George Clymer, Adam Hoops and Thomas Barclay. Morris was Superintendent of Finance during the Revolutionary War. Later George Clymer was a prominent Philadelphian and, like Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and of the U. S. Constitution.

Adam Hoops assembled the estate piecemeal from land purchases in 1764, 1765, and 1766. In 1773 his son-in-law, Thomas Barclay, bought it as his country seat. Priscilla Roberts and James Tull, with maps, diagrams, and illustrations, recount the interesting history of one of Pennsylvania's early historic sites.