Stanford University Libraries gratefully accepted a donation from T. Robert Burke, AB '64 History, JD '67 Law, and Katherine States Burke of a rare volume of religious tracts in 14th century Italian and a splendid antiphonal choir book in Latin. Both manuscripts were produced in late medieval Florence, written in rotund Gothic scripts, decorated with illuminated initials and figural paintings, and remain intact in their original bindings of leather-backed wooden boards.
Bob and Kathy Burke are beloved members of the Stanford community and have contributed immeasurably to the University. Bob, a co-founder of Prologis Inc., served as a Stanford Trustee and on the investment committee of the Stanford Management Company. Kathy, a former publishing executive, is a Senior Advisor and Lecturer for the Center for Human and Planetary Health in the Doerr School for Sustainability and a Senior Advisor to Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health.
“At various times, Bob and Kathy have been guiding members of our own Advisory Council, said Ida M. Green University Librarian Michael A. Keller. “These two extraordinary manuscripts that they have given us will enhance longstanding programs in manuscript studies and the history of the book that they have encouraged enthusiastically. Many students at Stanford appreciated the marvels of medieval manuscripts for the first time because of their collecting.”
The manuscript miscellany includes epistles, biographies, sermons, and lists of religious articles, all in 14th century Italian. Its primary text is an early copy of Domenico Cavalca’sSpecchio di Croce (Mirror of the Cross), likely made by a scribe in Florence circa 1384. The watercolor drawings on the opening flyleaves were added no later than the early 15th century to function as pictorial frontispieces and visual commentaries on the devotional writings.
The antiphonary was used at the church of Santa Maria sopra Porta in Florence. The text is complete with large illuminated foliate initials in four or more colors against a background of burnished gold. Bissera Pentcheva, the Victoria and Roger Sant Professor of Art at Stanford, has published an article about the manuscript in Convivium and argued for “a holistic analytic approach that combines the study of music and miniatures together to uncover associations that might have moved singers as they looked at the Antiphonary during performance. At these moments the metaphysical would have become present in both the visual and the aural; the light of candles and oil-lamps enlivened the gold of the miniatures, and the singing voices incarnated the written music in the ephemeral medium of chant.”
As a sophomore in 1962, Bob studied the art and history of late medieval and early Renaissance Italy at the Stanford Overseas Study Program in Florence. The experience left a lasting impression and a lifelong interest in the artworks of Fra Angelico, born near Florence. His collecting odyssey began in 1996 at the California International Antiquarian Book Fair, where he recalls: “To my surprise, I learned that it was possible to acquire paintings by notable Renaissance artists that had been commissioned as part of the decoration of these several-hundred-year-old manuscripts.” Over more than two decades, Bob and Kathy built a magnificent collection of Italian manuscript miniatures focused on the period of artistic transition from medieval to Renaissance styles.
The Burkes shared their collection graciously and widely. They hosted Stanford faculty and students at viewings in their home in the Presidio of San Francisco, loaned paintings to the Cantor Arts Center and the Libraries for exhibitions, and in 2017 deposited nearly everything in Special Collections for long-term use in teaching and research. They were early proponents of digital philanthropy, freely making The Burke Collection of Early Italian Miniatures accessible to scholars worldwide. They ultimately decided to place the two complete manuscripts at Stanford University Libraries, where they can be read and closely studied, and the miniature paintings at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, where they can reach a larger public viewership.
At Stanford, the Burkes also contributed to the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Manuscript Fund, which enables annual acquisitions of similar manuscripts, and sponsored the Medieval and Early Modern Manuscript Description Project, which provided employment and hands-on archival experience for several graduate students to revise and expand manuscript catalog records.
"This generous gift of manuscripts by Bob and Kathy Burke is already having an impact on teaching and research at Stanford,” said Curator of Rare Books Benjamin Albritton. “The exquisite Antiphonal is regularly used in Music and Art History classes and has been the subject not only of the publication by Professor Pentcheva, but also of a detailed inventory of the chant it contains by a graduate student in Music History. The Italian Cavalca manuscript will no doubt attract the attention of scholars for both its textual and artistic content."