Konstantinos Sp. Staikos. the History of the Library in Western Civilization, Vol 4: From Cassiodorus to Furnival: Classical and Christian Letters, Schools and Libraries in the Monasteries and Universities, Western Book Centres

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Konstantinos Sp. Staikos. The History of the Library in Western Civilization, vol 4: From Cassiodorus to Furnival: Classical and Christian Letters, Schools and Libraries in the Monasteries and Universities, Western Book Centres. Trans. Timothy Cullen and Doolie Sloman. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press; Houten, NL: HES & De Graaf, 2010. 500 pp.; US $75.00 ISBN 9781584561811

This is the fourth volume in a series of six. The first three were reviewed in these pages and comments there apply equally well here, and will also, I expect, to the fifth, due in 2012, subtitled "The Renaissance: From Petrarch to Michelangelo." (The sixth will be a bibliography and index.) Volume 1, "From Minos to Cleopatra," was reviewed by Merrill Distad in the Papers/Cahiers 44 (Spring 2006): 134-36; volume 2, "From Cicero to Hadrian," by Tana J. Allen in 45 (Fall 2007): 215-17; and volume 3, "From Constantine the Great to Cardinal Bessarion," by Peter F. McNally in 46 (Spring 2008): 116-19.

The word for this book is "lavish." It is "a lavish production …