History of the American School 1939-1980- Chapter X

A History of the American School of Classical Studies, 1939-1980

Chapter X: The Gennadeion

In 1922 the Trustees of the School took a momentous step when they accepted the remarkable and generous offer of the distinguished Greek diplomat Joannes Gennadius to give to the School his magnificent and unique rare-book library and collections, covering the whole history of Greece from ancient to modern times, with special emphasis on the Greek revolution. The gift was made as a memorial to his father George Gennadius and in token of Joannes Gennadius’ and his wife’s admiration for the United States, in “confident hope that the American School in Athens may thus become a world center for the study of Greek history, literature and art, both ancient, Byzantine and modern and for the better understanding of the history and constitution of the Greek Church.” One of the conditions of the gift, “that the said Library and Collections be kept permanently and entirely separate and distinct from all other books and collections, in a special building, or part of a suitable building, to be provided for this purpose,” had to be assured of fulfillment before the gift could be accepted; the Carnegie Corporation responded nobly, very generously, and promptly in providing $275,000 for the erection of the Gennadeion on land which was most generously and amazingly quickly expropriated and presented to the School by the Greek government. So it was that on April 23—24, 1926 the library installed in the building was dedicated (Pl. 4, a).

The first Librarian (Gennadius’ condition required “a competent and specially trained bibliognost”), Gilbert Campbell Scoggin, was concerned during his six years of service (1925–1931) chiefly with the condition which remained a heavy responsibility for many years to come “that as soon as practicable a subject catalogue of the whole Library and of the collections be completed and published on the same principle of classification as the Sections already catalogued by me.” With a single graduate-student assistant he labored steadily on the catalogue. It was also his responsibility to fulfill a further condition of gift “that the Professors of the University of Athens, the Council of the Greek Archaeological Society, and the members of the British, French, and German Schools at Athens be admitted to the benefits of the use of the Library and of Collections on special terms and conditions to be determined by the Directorate.” The Library was open to members of the American School and those listed by Gennadius, but in the early years readers were relatively few.

Clarence Lowe of the University of Nebraska as Librarian 1931–1937 continued chief emphasis on the catalogue, but in 1934 with Assistants Glanville Downey and Theodore Erck changed to the latest method of library cataloguing and added the invaluably useful subject classifications to the cards. Not only were the contents of the books now more available to research scholars, but the thousands of pamphlets without authors’ names were made accessible. Most significant in Lowe’s librarianship, however, was the decision made by the School that the Library should be a live, working instrument, not a closed museum collection, if it was to fulfill the hopes Gennadius had for it. This meant that the School would have to provide funds not only for the salaries of a Librarian and an assistant as well as a caretaker but also for the purchase of books and the continuation of periodical subscriptions. Lowe began to fill in gaps in the Byzantine and more modern fields, purchasing in 1935 the noted Byzantine collection of Ernest Garland of some thousand volumes and 2000 pamphlets. Gifts to the Library began to be made also and would continue to represent a large bulk of the additions to the Library. Lowe also set about making the Library more widely known, for it had been decided that its treasures should be made available to more scholars than originally mentioned by the donor.

When Shirley Howard Weber of Princeton University became Librarian, then, in 1937, in addition to the catalogue responsibility, he was widely concerned with adding to the collections, and as one means of accomplishing that by gift as well as spreading the usefulness as a research center among scholars his attention was concentrated on making the collections better known throughout both Greek and European circles of scholars and collectors. One of the most notable and significant for its historical value of the additions to the resources of the Library was the deposit (not gift) of the Schliemann papers in 1937 by his daughter, Mme. Melas. Before Shirley Weber died on October 12, 1962, he knew that by their purchase on July 16, 1962 they would remain in the Gennadeion (see below, p. 230). Although Weber had begun to work on the catalogue of the classical authors with the view of publication, he paused to make ready the text of a part of Schliemann’s diary of particular interest. It was completed before he had to leave Greece during the war and was published in 1942 as No. II of a series of School publications designed to make available material in the Gennadeion, namely the Gennadeion Monographs, entitled Schliemann’s First Visit to America 1850—51. The year 1937 was notable in the history of the Gennadeion in yet another addition; Eurydice Demetracopoulou began her 32-year service as cataloguer and Assistant Librarian. She brought to the heart of the Library’s activity not only knowledge, training and experience but a devotion and dedication rarely equaled in the annals of the School. Until 1962 she carried the title Assistant in the Gennadeion, then became Assistant Librarian until her retirement in 1969 (see below, pp. 234—235).

The activity of the staff of the Gennadeion and of the building and collections during the war years has been recounted above (pp. 2, 3, 5, 10, 12, 15, 18, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29).

When the Gennadeion was reopened on May 15, 1946, the many students and faculty of the University of Athens who had come to use it so much in the last months before it closed in 1941 flocked back and increased each year as the comfort and ease as well as the scholarly benefits of the facilities became widely known. In the first years after the war it was the sections on travel and on Byzantine and modern Greek history that these students and scholars consulted, but as the post-war difficulties cleared and foreign scholars could make their way to Athens there began what has continued in ever increasing numbers, the use of the vast mine of information in the collections, much of it unique and unavailable elsewhere, by scholars from all over Europe as well as Greeks and Americans. A very considerable list of books and articles could be drawn up which either wholly or in part are based on material in the Gennadeion; they have been published in many lands and tongues as well as Greek and English. Gennadius’s dream of a world center for the study of Greek history has been fulfilled. His own definition of “Greek” in that connection as represented by his collection was as wide as the range of studies carried on in the Library; it extends to all cultures the Greek touched, to the history of the lands neighboring on Greece, so the extensive work on Turkish and Balkan history which has been done on Gennadeion material is as apt as the considerable work on Byzantine, Frankish, and 19th- and 20th-century Greek political and economic history, art, literature. The many additions to the original collection have increased the source material significantly.

The additions to the original Gennadius collections since the war have been in all the fields represented in the original except the classical which is the field of the School’s regular library. They have more than tripled the original size and come both from purchase and from gift. They will be considered again below (pp. 225, 226—227, 229—231).
We return to Librarian Weber and his work on publication of the catalogue. In addition to his work on the section of classical authors which was nearly complete when the war broke out, he very wisely recognized the value of making available in print as the first of the published catalogue a section of the Library that was especially noteworthy and full of rare or unknown material, namely the early travelers. The first part he completed covered the travelers later in time, namely the 19th century. Although planned first to be published in the series Gennadeion Monographs, it was agreed with the Publications Committee that it was preferable to keep that series for studies of the material in the Library and to call the catalogue volumes frankly what they were, Catalogues of the Gennadius Library. There was still the hope that the School would in fact, no matter at how late a date, itself publish, one by one, sections of the catalogue as they were ready for publication. Catalogues of the Gennadius Library, I: Voyages and Travels in the Near East during the XIXth Century, compiled by Shirley H. Weber, was published in 1952 and was followed in 1953 with Volume II, Voyages and Travels in Greece, the Near East and Adjacent Regions Previous to the year 1801, also compiled by Shirley H. Weber. The brief commentary following many of the regular bibliographical entries which are arranged chronologically has proved of no little value.

The series of volumes called Gennadeion Monographs had been projected just before the war to give an organ for the publication from time to time of material in the Gennadeion. The first study was by James Morton Paton who had been a student at the School in 1892—93 and 1912—13 and had acted as editor of the Erechtheum publication and of the volume on Selected Bindings from the Gennadius Library issued when the Library opened (below, p. 242); his The Venetians in Athens 1687–1688, From the “Istoria” of Christoforo Ivanovitch published in 1940 gave the text and commentary. Volume II by Shirley Weber, mentioned above (p. 222), followed in 1942, and then as Volume III Professor Paton’s last work, completed by his sister Lucy, was published as Chapters on Mediaeval and Renaissance Visitors to Greek Lands in 1951. Professor Weber was concerned to keep this series flourishing, and when he acquired for the Library the plans of Venetian fortifications in the Morea prepared for the Governor Francesco Grimani about 1700, he encouraged one of the students of the School, Kevin Andrews, to study them for publication. This led to an extensive investigation of the 17th-century forts as they were in 1947–1950 and their history since the Grimani plans were made. This study was published with the reproduction of the plans in Volume IV, Castles of the Morea, 1953, for which the royal octavo format of the series was changed to quarto to illustrate the plans adequately. The auspicious beginning of this series of Gennadeion Monographs unfortunately did not continue, and no further volumes have been issued in the quarter century since. The explanation lies at least partially in the fact that the scholarly work done on material in the Library has been carried on mostly, though by no means solely, by Greek and foreign scholars who have published the results of their research in volumes and periodicals in their own countries. One small but significant publication to which the Gennadeion made a financial contribution in 1953 was a pamphlet by the Greek scholar Philip Eliou, publishing letters of Adamantios Koraïs newly discovered among the Gennadius manuscripts along with other unpublished letters of the great patriot of the Greek revolution.

Soon after the library reopened in 1946 Emmanuel Tsouderos, Prime Minister of the Greek Government in exile in 1941–1944, began his gifts to the Library, continued over more than a decade, of manuscripts, documents, records and newspapers of the war years, many of them unavailable elsewhere. His initial gift in 1946—47 of the Government Gazette and newspaper Hellas published in London in the years of exile initiated the series of distinguished gifts from Greek men of affairs which have followed ever since and have made the Library unparalleled for the study of modern Greek history. The following year another of the great benefactors of the Library in subsequent years made her first gift; Mme. Helène Stathatou gave a 13th-century illuminated book of Gospels in Greek, executed in Armenia, and two later liturgies. The classics, philology, grammar and modern Greek literature sections of the Library were enriched by the gifts of hundreds of volumes from Argyris Hatziargyris in 1950—51 and 1954—55. By the time Weber retired in 1953 the accessions of these and many other gifts and by purchase had almost doubled the number of volumes in the quarter century since the original gift, and the Library’s standing and reputation had become such that ever more distinguished gifts would be made in future.

Weber added to the staff in 1946 a part-time assistant engaged first to do the oiling badly needed by the bindings after their long period of storage. Litsa Pholirou continued to be responsible for the care of the books and also assisted readers to find their needs on the same part-time basis for eleven years; she was then in 1957 made a full-time Assistant and later was named Library Attendant which position she filled until illness caused her resignation in 1965.

Two proposals suggested repeatedly by Weber for the advantage of the Gennadeion were only brought into being years later. He urged the establishment of a School fellowship specifically for the Gennadeion, and in this he was fully supported by the Committee of the Managing Committee on the Gennnadius Library; year after year the report of the Committee made by its Chairman, C. Alexander Robinson, Jr., recommended such a fellowship. Finally in 1963 the first Gennadeion Fellow was appointed (see above, p. 91). Weber also strongly recommended the formation of a “Friends of the Gennadeion”, the dues of which would assist in the purchase of rare items the Library would like to acquire; this was at last done in 1964 (see above, p. 94 and below, p. 231).

Peter Topping came to the post of Librarian from Santa Barbara College in 1953. In his seven years of service particularly notable gifts were received, and the use of the collections by scholars from around the world as well as the faculties and advanced students of Greek universities increased steadily, with a distinguished list of scholarly publications in many countries (if not the School’s own publications) resulting from their works. Topping’s own special field of the political, economic and social history of the Franks in Greece he was able to pursue along with his duties and responsibilities in the Gennadeion, and his lectures to the students of the School on Greece in the Byzantine, Frankish, Turkish and modern periods were a valuable addition to the curriculum.

Early in his tenure he questioned the advisability of continuing to think in terms of publishing the catalogue of the whole Gennadius collection and suggested rather that effort be concentrated on further sections (the travelers had been published) of unique or rare interest. He set about preparation of a definitive catalogue of the Greek manuscripts, and with the assistance of Mr. Panayiotopoulos and Mr. Komines it was complete by 1960. Final work to make it ready for publication was never finished, however, but the scholarly descriptive catalogue is available for all those interested to consult in the Library.

Two of the publications which resulted from research in the Gennadius materials published during Topping’s Librarianship would have pleased Mr. Gennadius particularly. The Reverend Dr. Jerome Kotsonis, chaplain to the Royal Palace, the most regular reader during the 50’s, published the first treatise by an Orthodox on intercommunion between the Greek Church and other Christian faiths and a monograph on dispensation in the Greek Church; he acknowledges his debt to the theological collection of the Gennadius Library.
Acquisitions continued, as in most years after the war, to number on average about 500 volumes a year of which one to two hundred were usually gifts except in those years when very large gifts were received. It is imposible to mention here all the notable gifts, but a few particularly unusual ones can be recorded to give some idea of how Mr. Gennadius’ Library was being augmented and strengthened to serve the purpose he wished and envisaged, his own collection still intact and the core of the research material.

The years 1953–1955 saw the receipt of the bequest of Damianos Kyriazis comprising some thousand volumes on travel and on Greek, Turkish and Balkan history, with numerous examples of early Greek printing, and the notable collection of letters of Ali Pasha. The earliest known letter of Koraïs came to the library in 1955—56 among a group of manuscripts and documents purchased from the Themistokles Volides collection. Books from the Arvanitidi collection came in 1957—58. In 1958—59 one of the most significant gifts of papers was made by Philip Dragoumis, writer and distinguished diplomat, when he presented the Dragoumis Family Archive, an unusually complete collection of the papers of one of the leading families of Greece since the 18th century, many of whom played outstanding roles in modern Greek history.

The Library had truly become a reference library internationally consulted not only by the scholars who came in person to work on the books and documents but by ever increasing written requests to the Librarian for assistance and information. Replying to these requests came to occupy more and more of the time of the experienced and knowledgeable staff as they were fulfilling in yet another way Mr. Gennadius’s hope.

Physically the handsome building completed in 1925 had remained in remarkably good condition even with the long years of war with no attention, but the red facade behind the Ionic columns was sadly in need of repainting, and the School was able to do that in 1954. The garden had suffered seriously during the years of neglect, and it was a matter of rejoicing when Ralph Griswold, landscape architect of the Athenian Agora, interested himself in reviving it. The basic plan was revised to give a more monumental and architectural axial approach and to make use of native evergreen plants; Mr. Griswold supervised the work himself in 1957. The acquisitions were gradually idling available shelf space so that by 1957 it was necessary to fit out the vault in the basement with adjustable-bracket stacks which provided for some six to seven thousand volumes, enough it was thought “to solve problems of space for some years to come.”

By 1956 the need for an additional assistant to the Librarian and the cataloguer who together handled all research requests as well as cataloguing and all other business had grown so acute that funds were found for a secretarial and cataloguing assistant. The position was held by Katherine Vouteri (1956 to November 1957), Aliki Papavlossopoulou (later Mrs. Apostolopoulou; 1957–1959) and Loukia Frangouli (1959–1964) who returned to work part-time on the catalogue 1964–1966 and then became Library Assistant 1966—67.

In 1958 the Librarian Peter Topping was appointed also Professor of Mediaeval History and Literature of the School. The last year of his appointment (1960—61) he was granted leave of absence to accept an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania as Visiting Associate Professor of History and Special Assistant to the Assistant Director of Libraries. He exchanged positions with Professor of History Kenneth M. Setton of Pennsylvania who took over the responsibilities of the Librarian of the Gennadeion with the title Special Research Fellow of the Gennadeion. At the same time he worked on his book The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571.

When Francis R. Walton (Pl. 14, c), formerly Professor of Classics at Florida State University and at the University of Chicago, became Librarian in 1961 he was entering upon the longest continuous service in that post of any who had occupied it, 15 years (Shirley’s Weber’s 16 years included the war years away from the Library). The main concerns of his predecessors, publication of the catalogue, making the Library better known and adding significantly to the collections, were augmented by the rapidly growing need for more space and the even more pressing need for a separate endowment. All but the last, in many ways the most vital because of its relation to the future operation of the Library, were achieved with conspicuous success.

Since the opening of the Gennadeion in 1926 the condition of the donor that a catalogue of the collection be published had hung heavily over all Librarians and the Managing Committee (above, pp. 221, 222, 223—224, 226). Two small sections on Travel had been published in somewhat the form Mr. Gennadius envisaged (above, p. 224), and some other sections had been worked on intensively and were in various stages of manuscript, but it had become clear to Professor Topping that to follow the donor’s wish in form of catalogue was an absolute impossibility in any reasonable time. Already 35 years had elapsed when Walton had to face the problem. He put into action what had been brewing in several minds for some time when in 1964 he signed a contract with the G. K. Hall Company to produce a catalogue by photographic reproduction of the catalogue cards provided by the Library. It would be a valuable bibliographical record of this amazing collection so relatively little known which would make the treasures available to all scholars throughout the world even though not in so full a form as originally planned. Of no small significance to the School, publication would be at the expense of the publisher, and in due time some royalties could be expected. Cost to the School would be the 35 years of work already expended plus an enormously heightened activity of an augmented staff for the next four years until the some 116,700 cards began to be microfilmed about ten weeks before the conclusion of the photographing on December 4, 1968. In the last three years from about mid-1965 about half of those cards had been revised and remade, representing tremendous further study of the volumes and improvement of the bibliographical information. In spring 1969 the seven thick folio volumes of Catalogue of the Gennadius Library, American School of Classical Studies (Boston, G. K. Hall and Co., 1969) appeared and finally discharged that long-standing obligation of the School. Arrangements were made for supplementary volumes to be issued whenever a further 18,000 cards are ready. In 1974 the first supplement with 18,500 cards was published, representing both the many new acquisitions and further revision of the cards of the original collection. Current cataloguing which had to lapse while the “big push” was on to complete the original catalogue was brought up to date in a few years after 1968 and is now kept up to date, with one card going into the card catalogue in the Library and a duplicate on file ready for the next supplement to be published. Of recent years the annual increment to the collection numbers some 1200–1500 items, up from about 800 in 1962. A listing of incunabula in the Gennadius Library had been included for the first time in 1964 in the Third Census of Incunabula in American Collections. It records 58 items, four of them unique.

The acquisitions, which have been Professor Walton’s chief concern, represent both gifts and purchases, in some years in almost equal measure. He set out to do several things: (1) to recover as many as possible of the books once in Gennadius’s collection which had to be sold by him in 1895; (2) to strengthen sections within the main areas of the collection with books both old and rare (e.g. books published in the west for the Greek east in the 17th to early 19th centuries) and newer and contemporary which are important for those sections; (3) to build up some areas within the over-all interest of the collection which will make and keep it a distinguished library of all Greek history (e.g. contemporary history and literature). To do these things not only was far more money needed than the School could provide, even though the Managing Committee continued to raise the Gennadeion budget as it raised the budget of the School Library, but contacts had to be made both with potential donors and with sources of rare desiderata; further, people who would, if they knew of it, be interested in the Library needed to be informed. Shirley Weber had made a fine start on making the Gennadeion known; Francis Walton established a still greater number of friendly connections both in Greece and elsewhere which resulted in a remarkable number of very significant gifts of books and of archives and which opened the opportunity to make selected purchases from private collections and to learn the availability of rare items at sales throughout the world. In the first year after funds were available for such purchases (1965–1966, see below, p. 231) 33 of the books lost in the 1895 sale had been purchased, and in the next year one of his greatest coups was made when the famous Sibthorp Flora Graeca (issued in only 30 complete copies), one of the greatest of the 1895 losses, was acquired as a gift after prompt and courageous action by Walton. In 1895 Gennnadius had had to sell all the six early editions of Breydenbach, Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam; in 1968 it was possible to acquire a 3rd edition of 1502 for the Gennadeion.

So numerous are the unmatchable treasures that have been added since 1961, following their equally priceless and often unique predecessors not only in the original collection but also in earlier acquisitions since the Library had been owned by the School, that it is difficult and perhaps invidious to select any for mention. We shall nevertheless make the attempt. First, in 1962, came the purchase, thanks to the generous interest of the Lilly Foundation, of the Schliemann papers which had been on deposit in the Gennadeion and which the heirs now wished to sell. Over 150 bound volumes and many boxes of letters, diaries and notebooks cover most aspects of his life and are a historian’s paradise for many fields. The final group of papers covering his years in Greece, which had been held by the family, were purchased in 1966—67 by a further gift from the Lilly Foundation which had also contributed generously to provide the microfilming and conservation. Further major archives include the Skouzes-Grypari family papers (gift 1962 and 1963), the Morier collection including an unpublished letter of Koraïs (gift 1962), the Demitri Mitropoulos musical scores and correspondence (gift 1963), the Mousouros diplomatic and personal archives (1971 and 1973), the Kleon Rizos Rangavis literary manuscripts (gift 1972), the George Seferis archives (gifts of his widow honoring his wish, 1972), the Souliotes-Nikolaides archives of the Balkan Wars (gift 1973), Niko Ghika paintings and manuscripts (gift 1973), the Basil Kazantzis letters (gift 1974), the Panayotis Pipinelis political and diplomatic papers (gift 1976). Most of these were gifts of the men themselves or their friends and indicate the respect in which the Gennadeion is held in Greece. Since Emmanuel Tsouderos’s gift of his records, beginning in 1946, it has been coming to be regarded as a proper repository for diplomatic and artistic archives. A list of older manuscripts and rare books, singly or in collections, would be much too long to give here. The annual reports of the Librarian in the published Annual Reports of the School regularly note the highlights of the years. They include items like the manuscripts once in the Phillips Library, gift of trustee Henry Mercer, an Italian description of Athens in 1687 by one of Morosini’s men, an eyewitness account of the seige of Candia in 1669, a Renaissance copy in a handsome hand of the letters of Theodoretus, a probable 15th-century manuscript of Lykophron and a manuscript journal of William Henry Humphreys, British philhellene, in 1821—22, which was published in Stockholm in 1967 by a Swedish philhellene, formerly United Nations representative in Greece.

The purchase of most of the rare items was made possible by the founding in 1963—64 of that Friends of the Gennadius Library first proposed by Weber (above, p. 226). Funds raised by this group were to be used not to substitute for the regular budget but to augment it, to permit purchase of rare or otherwise expensive items not obtainable with regular funds. Life memberships of $500 or more are funded, and to the income from that fund the annual contributions are added. The wide international character of the membership attests the wide interest among bibliophiles the world around. Two other activities of the Gennadeion are associated with the Friends. In March 1965 the first issue of a small pamphlet, The Griffon, was issued, printed in Athens, to be distributed to the Friends of the Gennadius Library. Further numbers appeared at irregular intervals, Nos. 8 and 9, a double issue, in December 1975. They contain news of the Library and on occasion publish a special item from the collection. To mark the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Library a lecture was given in the Library by Stewart Perowne on “Hadrian the Philhellene,” on May 26, 1966. So well received was this innovation that further lectures were given under the auspices of the Friends of the Gennadeion: C. W. J. Eliot, “Athens in the Time of Lord Byron,” 1967; Th. D. Frangopoulos, “English Influences in Modern Greek Poetry,” 1968; Leslie A. Marchand, “Byron’s Hellenic Muse,” 1969; Francis R. Walton, “Edward Lear in Crete 1864,” 1975; William T. Stearn, “From Theophrastos to Sibthorp’s Flora Graeca,” 1977; George E. Mylonas, “The Sanctuary Area of Mycenae,” 1979; Francis R. Walton, “Greek Art and Greek Religion,” 1979.

From the time he took office Francis Walton emphasized to the Managing Committee and to the Trustees the urgency of an addition to the building, and in 1962—63 the first tentative plans for a single wing on the east were drawn up to suggest the sum which would be needed. In 1963 the Trustees approved the general idea of an addition when and if funds became available. As noted above (pp. 94, 117—118) the Board, having seen preliminary drawings and an estimate of $300,000, agreed to try to raise that sum first and then proceed to the General Endowment for the Gennadeion. When in May 1970 the $250,000 needed to begin work were in hand the plans already prepared were presented to the Greek Government for approval. The single wing was felt to be unpleasantly asymmetrical, so a plan for two wings identical on the exterior and symmetrical was approved first by the Greek Fine Arts Committee of the Ministry of Public Works and then by the Executive Committee of the Managing Committee and finally by the Trustees of the School on December 8, 1970. By spring 1971 construction was in progress, and on May 19, 1972 the Trustees, meeting in Athens for the second time, dedicated the building. Installation of the contents would follow. The ceremonial blessing was given by Hieronymos, Archbishop of Athens and all Greece, assisted by Demetrios, Bishop of Vresthena, and two priests. There followed remarks by the President of the Board of Trustees William Kelly Simpson, by the Director of the School James McCredie, the Director of the Gennadius Library Francis Walton and the Greek Minister of Culture. Then the door of the Stathatos Room (Pl. 4, b) was opened, and Mme. Helène Stathatou was the first to enter the room she had given from her own home. That several friends who had been present at the opening of the original building on April 23—24, 1926 were in attendence gave a special flavor to the occasion.

The two-storey wings extend from the original building east and west by a wide corridor to a wing which projects forward (southward) a short distance, creating a small court on each side. They merge into the planting around the building and are barely visible from the street or garden entrance in front. The original fine design of Stuart Thompson has not been damaged in its effect. The interior of the wings is differently treated, the east wing containing stacks and offices and the west wing, on the ground floor, exhibition rooms. The Stathatos room is installed in the south projection and the remainder of its space contains exhibition cases. On the occasion of the dedication of the building which offers wall space to display paintings from the Gennadius collections Trustee Philip Hofer presented a water-color by Edward Lear from a series of which the Library, fine as its collection is, had no examples, namely, from travels described in Journal of a Landscape Painter in Albania, etc. Once the shell of the wings with the Stathatos room was dedicated, the Library was closed for some months while the books were moved into the east wing so that air-conditioning could be installed in the old building and its interior repainted. Then the books were reshelved in both the old and new parts and the exhibition cases moved into the new west wing from the main reading room, allowing for more readers’ tables there.

A second ceremony of dedication, marking the reopening of the Library, was held on February 14, 1973. A special feature was an exhibition of book illustrations, portraits, theater designs and costumes, and travel drawings by one of Greece’s outstanding contemporary artists, Niko Ghika, the first of numerous other special exhibitions to follow featuring items from the Gennadius collections or occasional guest exhibitions appropriate to the Gennadeion. Mr. Ghika generously donated to the Library some of the items displayed. When not in use for special exhibitions, e.g. for the 150th anniversary in April 1974 of Byron’s death and the 50th anniversary of the Gennadeion in 1976, the cases and walls exhibit treasures of the Library, changed from time to time. The one constant is the magnificently carved Macedonian Room with its seven Byzantine ikons and other rare furnishings which Mme. Stathatou had donated to the School in 1969 from her home at 22 Herodotos Street in Athens.

In addition to mounting exhibitions in the Gennadeion itself, the Library lent pieces from its collections in 1971—72 to various exhibitions celebrating the 150th anniversary of Greek Independence (the Library exhibited in its own building books by Greek Philhellenes 1821–1831 and Greek books 1820–1829) and in 1974 to exhibitions in both London and Athens celebrating the 150th anniversary of Lord Byron’s death. The largest showing of Library material outside the Library was from the collection of Edward Lear drawings the Library owns. In 1968 ten of them were shown in the Worcester Art Museum; then beginning in February 1971 a show of 73 drawings started at Amherst and traveled to ten cities of the United States and Canada in two years, after which it was shown in the National Picture Gallery in Athens for over six months in 1974. Smaller selections of Lear drawings had been lent for exhibition in Greece in 1964 (sketches of the Ionian Islands shown in Athens and Corfu to celebrate the cession of the Islands in 1864) and in 1966 (Cretan sketches to commemorate the Cretan Revolution of 1866, at the Polytechnic Institute). In connection with the traveling show of 73 Lear drawings a catalogue was printed, and excellent color prints, full size, of two of the water-colors (Cape Sounion and Candia, Crete) were produced by the Meriden Gravure Company.

Other publications by the Librarian and others of the staff are not as limited as a glance at School publications would suggest. Several have been with such a bibliographical or bibliophile emphasis that they were more appropriate to journals of those fields, e.g. the article on Mr. Gennadius as a bibliophile in Book Collector, 1964, or other special journals, e.g. “Etoniana in the Gennadius Library” in Etoniana, 1974. It is regrettable, however, that there have not been, in recent years, more additions to the series of publications of the School established for the Gennadeion. Gennadeion Monographs for books and Gennadeion Notes for articles in Hesperia. These Notes were inaugurated by Francis Walton in Volume XXXI, 4, 1962 with an article on 18th-century English architectural drawings in the Library to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens I, in 1762, and continued with one on Incunabula and C. W. J. Eliot’s “Athens in the Time of Lord Byron” in XXXVII, 2, 1968, and “Lord Byron, Father Paul, and the Artist William Page,” in XLIV, 4, 1975.

The years of Francis Walton’s direction of the Library saw many far-reaching changes in personnel. First of all came the Gennadeion Fellows in 1963 (above, pp. 91, 225—226), an annual research fellow in Post-Classical Studies who worked on some aspect of the collections. In that same year, 1963—64, Walton had leave to accept a teaching appointment at Harvard University and to lecture around the United States about the Gennadeion and its treasures and needs, in connection with the attempt to build up an endowment for the Library. In his absence Eurydice Demetracopoulou, who had been Assistant and then Assistant Librarian since 1937, was acting Librarian assisted by Mrs. Evro Layton, librarian of the Modern Greek collection in Widener Library of Harvard University. To the distress of all, Miss Demetracopoulou retired in 1969 after a remarkable career of achievement and devotion; her knowledge of the collection and of all who have been associated with it was phenomenal and always graciousy shared with all who cared to know, whether in person or by mail from all over the world. For 32 years including the war years she was the mainstay of the Gennadius Library; it was a further instance of her care that she stayed on another five years as part-time consultant, coming to the Library nearly every day for special research until June 30, 1974, after which she continued to come frequently until shortly before her death on May 1, 1975. A memorial meeting was held in her honor in the Gennadeion on May 8, 1976, and in 1978 there was published from the memorial fund in her honor a facsimile edition of King Rodolinos, a Cretan tragedy printed in 1647 but never reprinted; the Library possesses the only known copy of that original edition. In the hope that the remainder of the fund and the income from the sale of this volume may permit further reproductions of unique or rare pieces in the Library this little volume is called Gennadeion Treasures I.
Sophie Papageorgiou, graduate of the University of Thessalonike and with a University of Illinois library degree, who had been a cataloguer at Illinois, became Assistant Librarian in 1969. She was Acting Librarian while Walton was on leave from March 1 to August 1973, and when he retired on June 30, 1976 she assumed the directorship of the collection. Although Francis Walton’s title had been changed in 1970 from Librarian of the Gennadeion to Director of the Gennadius Library, Mrs. Papageorgiou carried the old title Acting Librarian of the Gennadeion.

Long and close as had been Miss Demetracopoulou’s association with the Gennadeion, there was another who antedated her and all others on the staff, who retired in 1966. When construction began on the Gennadeion in 1923 a refugee recently arrived from Asia Minor applied for work. From that day on Mitsos Pholiros’ life was the Gennadeion. Selected by the first Librarian, Gilbert Scoggin, to stay after construction was completed to unpack and shelve the books as they arrived from England, he became the first caretaker and assistant in the building when the staff consisted of three, the Librarian, an Assistant to the Librarian, and himself. He knew every book and where it belonged on the shelves; he soon learned from those who read them the importance of each and how to recognize valuable books. In his few spare hours after long hours in the building he scoured second-hand bookstores, and many a desideratum he discovered both for the Gennadeion and the School Library and for libraries the world over whose librarians had met him and learned of his skill in the Gennadeion. The last tie with the beginnings was broken when he left, and the whole American School was never quite the same again without “Gennadeion Mitso”, known by all School members whether or not they ever ventured into his beloved building. Ioannis Mandelos has proved a worthy successor. Mitsos’ daughter, Litsa Pholirou, had served the Library from 1946–1965 (see above, p. 225).

Mention has been made several times of the conviction of many of those associated with the School for some years before the 1970’s that only by the establishment of an adequate separate endowment for the Gennadeion could both that department and all the rest of the School be provided for financially. It has for many years been impossible for the School’s budget to take proper care of both; neither was adequately treated. Of recent years the situation (of which the reader of Chapter V will be keenly conscious) had been desperate. There was, therefore, no alternative when Francis Walton retired but to make no new appointment as his successor. The Gennadeion endowment, worked on over the preceding 15 years, had received a few gifts of some substance but nowhere near the sum necessary to support Gennadeion salaries, upkeep and book budget. When cuts were going to have to be made (they since have been made) in all departments of the School, it was decided that until the future of the Gennadeion could be seen more clearly the only course was to ask Mrs. Papageorgiou, by now well familiar with the Library, an expert cataloguer and a research student of much of the material herself, to accept the position of Acting Librarian. During the first year after his retirement Francis Walton, Director Emeritus, was designated Consultant, and he continues to occupy an office in the Library nearly every day, working on bibliographical problems, especially those which have to do with many of the older rare volumes.

Francis Walton’s tenure of office in the Gennadius Library will be remembered for his single-minded devotion to it in more than one way. It became far better known internationally than ever before thanks to his persistent efforts to make its holdings, especially its treasures, known through the published catalogue and the mention of its items in numerous bibliographical publications and through his own attendance at international conferences, his lectures in Greece, the United States and elsewhere and his infectious enthusiasm for the collection wherever he is and to whomever he talks. His outstanding acquisitions made possible by his sharp eye for the possibilities and his courage and persuasiveness in securing them have restored many of the “lost in 1895” items and added strikingly significant single books and collections, both of books and archives, building up new periods within the general range of Mr. Gennadius’ interests. His inauguration of lectures and exhibitions has brought knowledge of the Library to an even wider spectrum of people than the constantly increasing number of scholars of many nations who come to study and then publish the collections in many tongues or who write for information. Walton may take satisfaction in the assurance that by the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Library it had, not least by his efforts, indeed fulfilled Gennadius’ hope “that it become a world center for the study of Greek history, literature, and art, both ancient, Byzantine, and modern.” It was fitting that he should still be in office when that 50th anniversary was celebrated on April 2, 1976 by a lecture he delivered on “The Greek Book 1476–1825” and an exhibition of representative Greek books ranging from the Lascaris grammar of 1476 to the first book printed in Athens in 1825, the poems of Athanasios Christopoulos, followed by an exhibition of some of the Schliemann papers. A tribute to the reputation of the Library was its inclusion in the 300 libraries listed in Major Libraries of the World compiled by Colin Steele of the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

Since Mrs. Papageorgiou became Acting Librarian (1976–1980) several very significant gifts have been received. In 1977—78 further archives of the Dragoumis family came from Ioannis Mazarakis, a member of the family; the papers of the poet Demetrios Kapetanakis from John Lehman; 31 important letters of Adamantios Koraïs from the heirs of the late Joanna K. Manoussis; and from Angelos Papakostas the manuscript ‘Oράματα καì Θάματα of General Makriyannis in his own hand; the last two are among the most valuable treasures of the Library and would have delighted Mr. Gennadius because of their importance for the Greek Revolution. In 1978—79 Alexandros Xydis gave many volumes including rare editions.

The adequate cataloguing of the archives the Library has recently been given had been a concern of Professor Walton, and he had made efforts to secure funds to assist this highly necessary endeavor. In 1976 the National Bank of Greece made the Library a grant of 50,000 drachmai for the classification of archives. This was used for the Seferis and parts of the Mousouros archives, done by Miss Eutychia Lista, graduate of the University of Athens and of the Scuola Archivistica di Venezia. The National Bank of Greece gave other generous assistance to the Library when it put on permanent loan in the Library in 1976 an index to all the illustrative material in the books in the Geography and Travel section of the Library which a team of the Bank personnel had made some years before in connection with the Bank’s volume The Greek Merchant Marine 1453–1850. A grant from the Demos Foundation made possible a year’s work in 1980 of an archivist cataloguing the Schliemann archives; another grant in 1980 provided a part-time archivist for the Dragoumis archives; and the All Pasha archives will be transcribed and published at the expense of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in a joint effort of the Library, the Foundation and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.

When the Tenth International Congress of Bibliophiles met in Athens September 30 to October 6, 1977, two of its meetings were held in the Gennadeion, and an exhibition of fine bindings of the 15th to 17th centuries in the Gennadius Library was put on display. Professor Walton again gave his lecture on “The Greek Book 1476–1825,” and Mr. A. R. A. Hobson spoke on “Bindings à la Grecque” and Dr. Dennis E. Rhodes on “Early Printed Books in Greek Libraries.”

For some years there had been discussions between the Committee on the Gennadius Library and the Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks about possible collaboration in research. At the May 1979 meeting of the Managing Committee the Committee on the Gennadius Library recommended and the Managing Committee voted that “the American School approve the establishment of a joint Dumbarton Oaks—-Gennadeion Fellowship that would take the place of the present Gennadeion Fellowship, the costs of which would be divided equally between Dumbarton Oaks and the American School, and that the American School should negotiate a method of choosing the successful applicant.” The understanding was that applicants should not, however, be limited to those working in the field of Byzantine Studies. The procedure agreed upon was that the Fellowship be awarded on the recommendation of the Committee on the Gennadius Library in conjunction with the Senior Fellows of the Center for Byzantine Studies. The first holder of the new Fellowship selected in 1980 for 1980—81 was Frank Trombly of Dumbarton Oaks.

A Visiting Professor of the School was appointed to the staff of the Library in 1977—78, Professor Thomas Noonan who was completing a study of the history of the intellectual background to the fall of Byzantine Palestine. He also assisted the Acting Librarian in the selection of books in the field of Byzantine studies. Beginning in 1978—79 for three years there was a Samuel H. Kress Professor of Hellenic Studies (see above, p. 128) attached to the staff. In 1978—79 Professor Angelike Laiou-Thomadakis of Rutgers University held the post. Besides lecturing to the students of the School on the Byzantine and later monuments visited on the fall and winter trips, she gave a winter seminar on Byzantium and the West. In the Gennadeion she gave a lecture on “Byzantine Cities of the Fourteenth Century” and organized a colloquium on Research in the Gennadeion held on May 18 and 19, 1979 in three sessions, at which scholars from Greek universities and one American spoke on a variety of subjects for which they had done research in the Gennadius Library. This innovation was warmly welcomed by Greek scholars and laymen. The 1979—80 holder of the Kress Professorship was Professor Timothy E. Gregory of Ohio State University, a former Gennadeion Fellow. He, like Professor Laiou, took an active part in the regular trips of the School in the fall and winter and offered a seminar on the End of the Ancient World: Greece in Transition a.d. 267—700. This active participation of the Gennadeion staff in the regular program of instruction of the School had lapsed of recent years (Professors Weber and Topping had offered winter lectures) and had never before been as extensive; it constituted a significant addition and a welcome step in bringing the Gennadeion closer to the main activity of the School. Professor Gregory also continued the series of colloquia by Greek and American scholars on subjects from early Byzantine to modern times, religious, literary, historical, and in the spring he gave a public lecture on “New Thoughts on Greece in the Early Byzantine Dark Ages.” He was reappointed to the Kress Professorship for 1980—81.
A grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities made possible a Summer Seminar at the Gennadeion in June and July, 1980 entitled Greece in the Middle Ages: Emergence of the Byzantine Tradition. Conducted by Professor Gregory, twelve college teachers selected on a competitive basis participated and pursued their own research under his direction.
In addition to carrying on their own scholarly study and assisting students working in the post-classical fields, these Professors of Hellenic Studies were to assist the Acting Librarian in the direction of the Library and make suggestions to the Committee on the Gennadius Library for the future plans of the Library. The Committee, meanwhile, was active in its study of the problems, solicited suggestions from the whole Managing Committee through a questionnaire in 1976 and tried to carry on as much of the former activity of the Library as finances permitted. Everyone recognized that a large separate endowment for the Gennadeion was the only satisfactory solution to the problem; how and where to find it was the prime concern. It was no longer merely a highly desirable aim; it was essential to the life of the Library which in bald statistics had served 6628 readers from April 1978 to March 1979.
On May 10, 1980 the Managing Committee upon recommendation of the Committee on the Gennadius Library elected Mrs. Papageorgiou Librarian of the Gennadius Library. She was to continue to carry on the day-to-day operation of the Library; policy decisions were to be made by the Director of the School and the Committee on the Gennadius Library upon recommendation of the Kress Professor of Hellenic Studies as long as such a position continues. The arrangement was recognized as less than ideal, but in spite of possible awkwardness it would emphasize the Gennadeion as an integral part of the School; this was now accepted as both desirable and essential.