ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I should like to thank the following libraries and curators: Léon Gilissen (retired) and Pierre Cockshaw, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier, Brussels; R. E. O. Ekkart, formerly of the Rijksmuseum Meermanno-Westreenianum, The Hague; and François Avril, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. I am grateful to the owner of Charles V's first copy of Oresme's translations of the Politics and Economics for allowing me to examine the manuscript and for making photographs and slides available to me.

During my visits to France, I remember particularly the hospitality extended by the late Raymond Cazelles at the Musée Condé, Chantilly. The staff at the Institut d'Histoire et de Recherche des Textes in Paris was most helpful. Sylvie Lefèvre in particular was very generous in sharing her work and helping me with mine. Carla Bozzolo of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, section on the Culture Ecrite du Moyen Âge Tardif (CEMAT), advised me on the dating of MS 2668 of the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal.

In the United States, I should like to thank the reference librarians and study facilities staff, especially Bruce Martin, of the Library of Congress. The library of the National Gallery of Art was also a valuable resource. I am particularly grateful to Thomas McGill and George T. Dalziel, who dealt so graciously and competently with many interlibrary loan requests.

Among the many individuals who helped with this study are members of the former scholarly community of the Library of Congress. Among this group, I should like to thank Ellen Ginsberg, Marianne Meijer, and Amy Simowitz for their assistance with bibliographic and linguistic problems. I cannot adequately express my appreciation for the expert help of William MacBain, with whom I collaborated on the translations of Nicole Oresme's texts. In this difficult task Prof. MacBain was an unfailing source of patience and wisdom. Natalie Zemon Davis, the late Carl Nordenfalk, and especially Paul Oskar Kristeller contributed valuable information. For reading parts of the manuscript and offering helpful advice, I am grateful to Robert Ginsberg, Mary Martin McLaughlin, Robert Mulvaney, Lilian M. C. Randall, Melvin Richter, J. B. Ross, and Charity Cannon Willard. For their support of this project, I should like to thank Pamela Askew, Mary D. Garrard, H. Diane Russell, and Barbara and Fred Stafford.

I wish to express appreciation to the past and present deans of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art: Henry A. Millon, Marianna Shreve Simpson, Steven A. Mansbach, and Therese O'Malley. Both as a fellow in 1981–82 and a member of the Center staff since 1986, I have benefited from their warm endorsement of my research. The help of my colleague Curtis A. Millay in preparing this manuscript for publication merits special acknowledgment.

For their support of this study, I thank the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Gallery of Art for the award of a Robert H. Smith Curatorial Fellowship.

I am, as always, indebted to my husband, Stanley M. Sherman, and my son, Daniel J. Sherman, for their help. Among their many contributions I value their patience as traveling companions and their indispensable assistance with editorial and photographic matters.

WASHINGTON, D.C.
MARCH 1993