On the painting with the title "The Alchemist" from the Flemish Mattheus van Helmont, circa mid seventeenth century, are many uses and abuses of #earlymodern paper products reflected in the details. I will address 7 of these paper issues in the thread. Bonus for #Alchemy friends: a large écorché figure, a distillation apparatus over a fire, and metal working assistants.
Enjoy.
@histodons And now over to the abuses of unwanted paper. Used books were an often abused and discarded artifact, lying on floors, serving as door stops, etc. The idea of orderly stored books derives from library history is only one part of the story, #bookhistory.
Unbound books, written upon paper sheets, were likely to become "used books" or waste materials no one really needs any longer. Material waiting to be discarded. Like the books lying here on the Alchemist's floor.
Spot the difference: on the left, the copperplate print is hand-coloured after the print run, and on the right no extra work is done. Colouring prints was a thing in #earlymodern Europe. Guess which version was more expensive - and sold better?
The Early Modern Dutch Press in an Age of Religious Persecution: The Making of Humanitarianism. by Dr David de Boer (Oxford University Press; Sept. 28, 2023)
#BookHistory people! Have you ever read a book or article that proposed anything like the communications circuit for manuscripts? Basically a conceptual model of the creation, circulation, and reception of mss books? I would love to know about them for my quals paper!
I like big books and I cannot lie. Fellow #histodons, this is me in 2013 and 2023 doing my work.
My main field is called #bookhistory. It is an umbrella term, an overextension of many fields and approaches dealing with past communication flows and artifacts:
Book Borrowing in Scotland, 1750–1830
Thurs 21 Sept, Edinburgh & online – free
Prof Katie Halsey will discuss some of the early research findings of the AHRC-funded research project “Books and Borrowing, 1750–1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers” with a particular focus on the #libraries & wider book culture of #Georgian#Edinburgh
#TIH#OTD 14 Sep 1868: Birth of Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull (d. 1918 Jun 28), New Zealand merchant, dandy, & book collector. On his death, his collection became the nucleus of the Alexander Turnbull Collection, now held by the National Library of New Zealand. #BookHistory @bookhistodons
#TIH#OTD 13 Sep 1607: Baptism of Frances Wolfreston (née Middlemore) (d. 1677), a rare example of a 17th century, non-aristocratic Englishwoman who formed a substantial book collection. She typically inscribed the title pages with ‘frances wolfreston hor bouk’. #BookHistory @bookhistodons
#TIH#OTD 11 Sep 1942: Death of Adriano Cappelli (b. 1859), Italian archivist & palaeographer at Parma State Archives, best known for his Lexicon Abbreviaturarum—a dictionary of c.14,000 abbreviations from #MedievalManuscripts. #palaeography#manuscripts#BookHistory
#TIH#OTD 07 Sep 1559: Death of Robert Estienne (b. 1503), a.k.a. Robertus Stephanus, Parisian printer and Humanist scholar. Printer to the King in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek, he published, inter al., Roman and Greek classics—including 8 editiones principes—extolled for their typographical elegance, and is famous for his Thesaurus linguæ latinæ, often deemed the foundation of modern Latin #lexicography . #BookHistory#typography
#TIH#OTD 06 Sep 1903: Death of Charles Ammi Cutter (b. 1837), US #librarian best remembered for Cutter Expansive Classification: a system of shelving by standardized class numbers so #books on related topics sit together. He also helped produce the US’ 1st public #CardCatalogue and played a major role in making card cataloguing—versus the old practice of chronologically listing titles in ledgers—the international model. #GLAM#BookHistory#Libraries @bookhistodons
#TIH#OTD 04 Sep 1827: The Great Fire of Turku began. By the next day it had destroyed 75% of the city, then Finland’s largest and the site of key governmental and administrative institutions. Most Finnish #archives, including practically all #medieval material, were destroyed. #BookHistory @bookhistodons@medievodons
#TIH#OTD 03 Sep 1729: Death of Jean Hardouin, French priest & scholar now best remembered for his #ConspiracyTheory that all pre-14th century theology & nearly all ancient secular literature was spurious: counterfeited by ‘atheist’ monks in the 1300s. #BookHistory @bookhistodons@medievodons
Huge #DigitalHumanities, #EarlyMusic, #BookHistory and #CulturalHeritage news! “The Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission” project, led by Dr. Jennifer Bain, just received a $2.5-million Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant!
Huge #DigitalHumanities, #EarlyMusic, #BookHistory and #CulturalHeritage news! “The Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission” project, led by Dr. Jennifer Bain, just received a $2.5-million Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant!
I am so excited to be one of the Co-Investigators of this grant as Co-Lead of the Manuscripts and Aretefacts Research Axis! 🤩
Bonjour, Tours! The Hidden Cities family is growing and growing. Meet the newest "Hidden Cities" tour through #Tours. Step into Tours in the year 1500, and follow Jehane, a stocking maker, hunting a new book: the story of Christ's Passion in French. #BookHistory alert.
#TIH#OTD 27 Aug 1327 [O.S.]: Death of Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester. Oxford’s 1st known purpose-built library was founded in the 1300s by his will: a small collection of chained books over the north side of University Church of St Mary the Virgin, High Street. #BookHistory @bookhistodons@medievodons