Books about manuscripts from the University of Illinois Library and Ricker Library of Art and Architecture.
Medieval Manuscripts, Their Makers and Users by
The essays in this collection pertain to art history, medieval Latin culture both ecclesiastic and legal, the history of vernacular literatures, and the devotional practices of the laity. They reflect the patronage of authors and manuscript painters, from the royal through the monastic to the urban middle class, and they trace the sometimes astonishing afterlife of manuscripts. The subject matter of these studies ranges chronologically from late antiquity to the later Middle Ages, adding the emergent medievalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its geographic breadth extends through the major Western cultures and literatures, from England to Italy, Germany, and France. Its wide range in time and space reflects the lifetime of manuscript research, teaching, and collecting by its honorees, Richard and Mary Rouse.A particular emphasis distinguishes this volume from other such collections: its stress on the use, and usefulness, of medieval manuscripts in the teaching of most historical disciplines in Western culture, from the broad undergraduate survey (of art, literature, history) to the specialized graduate seminar. In the last half century, public colleges and universities have increasingly appreciated the pedagogical opportunities inherent in building, through gift and purchase, collections of medieval manuscripts, formerly thought to be the province only of wealthy private schools. No similar collection of manuscript studies exhibits so clearly the role of medieval manuscripts in teaching. The specialist authors represented in this volume have displayed, over the whole of their careers, an ability to combine the highest caliber of research with an eagerness to make their subject accessible to others through teaching and writing and public lectures. The essays offer the results of new and sometimes technical research, set forth in a manner intelligible not only to the expert but to the interested amateur.
The Book Unbound by
In The Book Unbound, scholars and editors examine how best to use new technological tools and new methodologies with artefacts of medieval literature and culture. Taking into consideration English, French, Anglo-Norman, and Latin texts from several periods, the contributors examine and re-evaluate traditional approaches to and conclusions about medieval books and the cultural texts they contain - literary, dramatic, legal, historical, and musical. The essays range from detailed examinations of specific codices to broader theoretical discussions on past and present editorial practices, from the benefits and disadvantages of digital editions versus print editions to the importance of including 'extratextual' material such as variant texts, illustrations, intertexts, and other information about a work's cultural contexts, history, and use. The Book Unbound presents important contributions to the discussions surrounding the editing of medieval texts, including the use of digital technology with historical and literary documents, while offering practical ideas on editing print and hypertext. The collection will be invaluable to historians, literary scholars, and editors.
Medieval Manuscript Book by
Traditional scholarship on manuscripts has tended to focus on issues concerning their production and has shown comparatively little interest in the cultural contexts of the manuscript book. The Medieval Manuscript Book redresses this by focusing on aspects of the medieval book in its cultural situations. Written by experts in the study of the handmade book before print, this volume combines bibliographical expertise with broader insights into the theory and praxis of manuscript study in areas from bibliography to social context, linguistics to location, and archaeology to conservation. The focus of the contributions ranges widely, from authorship to miscellaneity, and from vernacularity to digital facsimiles of manuscripts. Taken as a whole, these essays make the case that to understand the manuscript book it must be analyzed in all its cultural complexity, from production to transmission to its continued adaptation.
Manuscripta Illuminata by
Princeton University first started collecting Western manuscripts in 1876 and continues to this day with the specific aim of developing a research and teaching tool. That unique collection of medieval manuscripts forms the nucleus of this collection of essays. Stretching from Ottonian to the late Gothic-early Renaissance periods, these studies examine the secular as well as the religious and look at a variety of themes, from the book of hours to the grisaille manuscript. The studies all attempt to place the university's collection in the broader framework of manuscript studies, and a number of them deal with general topics not represented within the manuscript library. Written by some of the most celebrated scholars in the field, the studies make every effort to help us understand the power of the written and illuminated word. The contributors are Adelaide Bennett, Walter Cahn, Marc Michael Epstein, Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, Henry Mayr-Harting, Elizabeth Moodey, Stella Panayotova, Virginia Reinburg, Mary Rouse, Richard Rouse, Lucy Freeman Sandler, Don C. Skemer, Anne Rudloff Stanton, and Patricia Stirnemann.
Turning over a New Leaf by
This book looks particularly at the shift from manuscripts to the physical book, while taking into account the medieval book as not only as a source of information, but also as an aesthetic experience, a status symbol, and a shrewd investment. Tracing the rise of the book in the ninth and tenth century, this insightful study looks at the way in which the scribes eased the shift from manuscript to book through additions such as running titles and chapter numbers. A rich and intriguing history, Turning over a New Leaf examines how readers and the reading experience shape books, and vice versa.
Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, 1350-1550 by
This collaborative collection considers the packaging, presentation and consumption of medieval manuscripts and early printed books in Europe 1350-1550. It showcases innovative research on the history of the book from a range of established and younger scholars from the US and Europe in the fields of English and French Studies, History, Music, and Art History. The collection falls naturally into three sections:* Packaging and Presentation: The physical context of the manuscript and printed book including its binding, visual presentation and internal organization* Consumers: Producers, Owners, and Readers* Consuming the Text: The experience of the audience(s) for booksThese three strands are interdependent, and highlight the materiality of the manuscript or printed book as a consumable, focusing on its 'consumability' in the sense of its packaging and presentation, its consumers, and on the act of consumption in the sense of reading and reception or literal decay.
Manuscripts in Transition by
Manuscripts in Transition. Recycling Manuscripts, Texts and Images gathers together some 40 contributions by art historians specialised in research into book illuminations from the time of Charlemagne to Charles V's Habsburg empire (ca. 800-ca. 1550). The accent is mainly on the art of the illumination in the Gothic, Burgundian and Post-Burgundian periods. This anthology is the product of an international conference held in Brussels in 2002 in connection with the exhibition Medieval Mastery: Book Illumination from Charlemagne to Charles the Bold (800-1475) (Leuven, Stedelijk Museum Vander Kelen-Mertens). The central focus of the conference was the systematic re-use of texts and images in the Middle Ages. The examination of this theme resulted in the present fascinating series of articles.
