Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana
The Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana is a special collection at the University of California, Los Angeles which focuses on Leonardo da Vinci – life, art, thought, and enduring cultural influence.
[5] Dr. Belt’s fascination with Leonardo was kindled while he was in medical school (1917–20) at the University of California, San Francisco, where he took an elective class in the history of medicine from the noted anatomist, George W. Corner.
An accomplished artist, intimately acquainted with the European avant-garde (including Kurt Schwitters, to whom she devoted an important study), Steinitz also maintained a lively interest in the history of art.
Among its other notable holdings are an exceptionally fine copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493); the first book containing a printed mention of Leonardo, Bernardo Bellincioni's Rime (1493); and a first edition of Andreas Vesalius’s De humani corporis fabrica (1543).
[14] Franchino Gaffurio, choirmaster of Milan Cathedral and author of two seminal musical treatises, penned an ownership inscription in the Belt copy of Plutarch's Vitae (Guinta, 1491).
The Belt Library also holds Edward Burne-Jones's interleaved copy of Vasari's Lives of the Artists in the English translation of Mrs. Jonathan Foster.
A brief document by Michelangelo describes a meeting with Pope Clement VII at San Miniato al Tedesco in 1533, mentioning that the artist was at the time caring for a horse belonging to his friend the painter Sebastiano del Piombo.
One of the finest pieces in the library is an illuminated initial leaf from a copy of printer Nicholas Jenson’s 1476 edition of Pliny’s Naturalis historia.
The striking border decoration is attributed by Wilhelm Suida to the miniaturist Cristoforo de Predis, active in Milan circa 1471-86.
[16] (Cristoforo's brothers Ambrogio and Evangelista were Leonardo's business partners during his prolonged sojourn in Milan at the end of the fifteenth century.)
Steinitz and Belt arranged to bring Carlo Pedretti to California; he joined the faculty of UCLA’s Art History Department in 1960.
He served in this position for 38 years, during which time his scholarship and teaching animated the Belt Library and raised its profile in the international academic community.
During her tenure, she published “The First Italian Printing of Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting”;[21] and for an exhibition focused on Belt Library holdings mounted by the University of Southern California, she published The Heritage of Leonardo da Vinci: Materials from the Elmer Belt Library of Vinciana at the University of Southern California Art Galleries[22] and made the presentation, "The Elmer Belt Library at UCLA: The Collector, the Curator, and Leonardo da Vinci.
[29] They aimed to provide improved facilities for interactive multimedia, expanded studio space, updated classrooms, and galleries for student exhibitions and public presentations.
[5] The books and manuscripts were transferred to Library Special Collections, where former Belt Librarian Victoria Steele was serving as director.
Reference items and some other secondary materials were eventually relocated to the Southern Regional Library Facility (SRLF) on the UCLA campus.
