The Getty Center
Los Angeles
SOME UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS

Imagining Christ
May 6–July 27, 2008
Medieval and Renaissance images of Christ functioned as powerful entry points to prayer. This exhibition of manuscripts from the Getty's permanent collection spans the years from around 1000 to 1500, and demonstrates the multiple, overlapping ways in which Christ was understood: as the son of God and as God, as human and divine, as the sacrifice made for mankind and the divine judge who would come again. The exhibition examines the role Christ played in the devotional life of medieval and Renaissance faithful and demonstrates how manuscript images allowed viewers to imaginatively participate in Christ's life, sacrifice and acts of salvation.

The Marvel and Measure of Peru: Three Centuries of Visual Histories, 1560–1880
July 8–October 19, 2008
This exhibition features Martín de Murúa's (Spanish, active late 16th and early 17th centuries) Historia general del Piru held in the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum, a recently rediscovered and related manuscript chronicle by Murúa in a private collection in Ireland, textiles from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the University of California, Santa Barbara, two early books in the Huntington Library, and books, prints, maps, watercolors and photographs from the special collections of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute. The Research Library's collections include such famous volumes as de Bry's Grands voyages of 1596 and 1617, and the gently satirical watercolors by 19th-century Lima caricaturist Pancho Fierro. Other highlights are early photographs from a newly acquired collection of long lost views of ancient sites by the pioneering archeologist Augustus Le Plongeon, and studio albums depicting modern Peruvian life. Leading up to the exhibition, the Research Institute is working with the Museum and Conservation Institute, as well as outside scholars, on technical analysis of the two manuscript chronicles. A scholarly workshop, a facsimile publication of the Getty Murúa, and an accompanying volume of essays on the manuscript by an international group of scholars are also under way.

Faces of Power and Piety: Medieval Portraiture
August 12–October 26, 2008
The art of portraiture in illuminated manuscripts developed from the highly stylized portrayals of the early Middle Ages to the late medieval emergence of recognizable portraits. The exhibition explores both historical portraits of people from the past, including religious figures, authors, and artists, and portraits of living individuals, usually the owner or donor of a book. Throughout the period, the goal of portraiture was to present a person not at a particular moment in time, but as the subject wished to be remembered for the ages.

The Belles Heures of the Duke of Berry
November 18, 2008–February 8, 2009
The Belles Heures of John, Duke of Berry is one of the most beloved books of the Middle Ages and one of the most sumptuous. Painted by the Limbourg brothers when the art of manuscript illumination in France reached new heights of elegance and sophistication, the book, in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, will be presented with its individual leaves unbound. The resulting display offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the visitor to walk through the book to view all of its major miniatures, a unique gallery of paintings of sublime beauty.

Go to the Getty website.

Illuminating the Medieval Hunt
The Morgan Library and Museum New York City April 18--August 10, 2008

The most influential medieval treatise on hunting was Livre de la chasse, written by Gaston Phoebus between 1387 and 1389. The forty-six surviving manuscripts and numerous printed editions of the text testify to its popularity. The Morgan Library & Museum is fortunate in possessing one of the two most luxuriously illustrated manuscripts; the other, in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, was made at the same time and also contains eighty-seven miniatures. Both were made in Paris about 1407 and were probably commissioned by John the Fearless. Since the manuscript had to be disbound—for reasons of conservation and the preparation of a facsimile—the Morgan has decided to exhibit as many leaves with miniatures as possible, providing the public a unique opportunity to "walk" through the manuscript as well as to turn the pages of the facsimile. Four parts of the exhibition will show miniatures from the four books of the treatise, which deal with gentle and wild animals, the nature and care of dogs, instructions to hunters with dogs, and the use of various snares and crossbows by hunters. Another part would comprise other hunting-related manuscripts and printed books, including among the latter the famous St. Albans's Hunting Book of 1486 and the first illustrated version of Livre de la chasse (ca. 1505–07).

More info here.

FORMS OF EARLY MODERN WRITING
A Conference and Exhibition presented by the Columbia Early Modern Seminar, in collaboration with the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University

Friday, April 25th
523 Butler Library (on the south side of Columbia University's 116th
street campus).

9:00 Opening Remarks
Michael Ryan, Columbia University
Alan Stewart, Columbia University

9:15
Alan Farmer, Ohio State University, "Forms of News: Printed Newsbooks and the Politics of the Thirty Years' War in England"
Zachary Lesser, University of Pennsylvania, "Shakespeare's Crown and Globe (Bookshops)"

Chair: Benedict Robinson, SUNY Stony Brook

11:15
Amanda Bailey, University of Connecticut, Storrs, "Reading the Hand of Human Capital"
Shankar Raman, MIT, "Specifying the Unknown"

Chair: Henry Turner, Rutgers University, New Brunswick

2:30
Hannibal Hamlin, Ohio State University, "The Geneva Bible as Bible for Dummies"
Heather James, University of Southern California, "Commonplaces, Inventories, and the Forms of Authorship"
Tanya Pollard, CUNY Brooklyn College, "Translating Greek Drama: Schoolbooks and Popular Theater in Early Modern England"

Chair: Adam Zucker, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

5:00 Keynote Lecture
Peter Stallybrass, University of Pennsylvania, "Making Commonplaces in English Printed Books"

6:00 Reception

Please also join us for the complementary exhibition---curated by Patricia Akhimie, Rebecca Calcagno, Saskia Cornes, Musa Gurnis, Adam Hooks, Bryan Lowrance, Sara Murphy, and Brynhildur Heiðardóttir Ómarsdóttir in collaboration with the speakers---on display in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, located on the 6th Floor of Butler Library.

Sponsored by Columbia University's Department of English and Comparative Literature, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Graduate Student Advisory Council, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

With questions, contact Allison Deutermann (akd2006@columbia.edu) and András Kisery (ak508@columbia.edu).

Scriptorium
Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Online

Scriptorium: Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts Online is a three-year (2006-2009) AHRC-funded Resource Enhancement Project, based in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge.

We are constructing a digital archive of manuscript miscellanies and commonplace books from the period c. 1450-1720; our website will provide unrestricted public access to these images. We will also develop and publish a set of online pedagogical and research resources supporting late medieval and early modern manuscript studies.

We will be working with the manuscript collections in a number of college libraries in Cambridge, as well as the Cambridge University Library, the Brotherton Library in Leeds, and other archives, such as that of Holkham Hall in Norfolk.

We will also host three conferences: one-day workshops in online manuscript research in July 2007 and 2009, and a larger, two-day conference in manuscript studies in 2008, which will form the basis of an edited collection of essays.

Access here.

UVA Rare Book School Launches Directory of ARL Librarians

Two years ago, the RBS staff compiled a directory of the principal librarians, curators, directors, and suchlike working in member institutions of the Association of Research Libraries – a non-profit organization of 123 large research libraries in the US and Canada. It is now on the RBS website.

Access here.

THE MACHINE THAT MADE US: GUTENBERG'S BRILLIANT INVENTION
Tuesday 6 May 18.30 - 20.00
Conference Centre
The British Library
96 Euston Road, NW1 2DB

Johann Gutenberg's printing press, which brought about the dawn of mass communication is of barely equalled significance in the development of human culture. His achievement reached its pinnacle with the printing of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455. A new documentary 'The Machine That Made Us', presented by Stephen Fry, was screened on BBC4 on 14 April 2008, 9 pm, and excerpts will feature in the event at the BL. For the programme, and in order to unravel mysteries of Gutenberg's technique, a team of experts built a unique copy of his press: watch it action at the event, alongside discussion of the remarkable story behind its invention. Speakers include Alan May (printing expert and press builder), Martin Andrews (University of Reading) and Patrick McGrady (Wavelength Films) Price £ 6 (concessions £ 4), bookable at http://boxoffice.bl.uk by phone on 01937 546546 or in person at the British Library Information Desk.

Institut de Histoire du Livre
Lyon, France
Book History Workshop, 2008

For the sixth edition of its Book History Workshop, organised in collaboration with the Rare Book School (University of Virginia), the Lyon-based Institut d'histoire du livre is offering four advanced courses in the fields of book and printing history.

Courses on offer this year are:

Sandra Hindman
GOTHIC ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK (new course, in English)

Michael Twyman
PRINTED EPHEMERA UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS (course in French)

James Mosley
TYPE, LETTERING AND CALLIGRAPHY: PART TWO 1830-2000 (existing course, for the first time in English)

Kristian Jensen
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INCUNABULA (course in English)

The Book History Workshop is aimed at book and printing historians and at the many other specialists who encounter questions related to book and printing history in the course of their work: researchers, teachers, archivists, librarians, museum curators, antiquarian booksellers, collectors, designers, etc.

The four-day courses offered by the Institut d'histoire du livre cover various aspects of the history of the book and graphic communications. Subjects are dealt with from both theoretical and practical points of view through illustrated lectures, discussions and close study of original documents. The courses make abundant use of the collections of Lyon City Library and Museum of Printing.

The courses will take place in Lyon from the 1st to the 4th September 2008. Classes will be held at the Ecole normale supérieure - lettres et sciences humaines (Lyon) with sessions at the Lyon City Library and Printing Museum.

Tuition fee: 490 euros (mid-day meals included).

In order to facilitate access to collections of original documents the number of participants is limited to twelve per class.

More info here.