During the summer holidays Cambridge University Library will be holding three masterclasses as part of the Incunabula Project.
With the help of treasures from the incunabula collection in the University Library, Professor Lilian Armstrong, Doctor Falk Eisermann, and Professor William Sherman will respectively illustrate the development of Venetian book ornamentation in the late 15th and early 16th century, the centrality of the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke Database to bibliographical research and/or cataloguing projects, and the significance of contemporary readers’ interventions and additions to their books.
The three classes will take place in the afternoon of Tuesday 25th June, Thursday 4th July, and Thursday 11th July respectively.
The first masterclass, on Tuesday 25th June, is entitled “Hand Illumination on Venetian Incunabula in Cambridge University Library”, and will be led by Lilian Armstrong, Mildred Lane Kemper Professor of Art at Wellesley College, Emerita, a leading authority in the History of Italian illumination. Her research concentrates in particular on book decoration in Venice in the second half of the 15th century, following the invention of printing with movable type. The seminar will be held in the Keynes Room from 2.30pm to around 4pm. This is a repeat of the class originally held on 4 June.
The second class will be led by Doctor Falk Eisermann, Head of the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (Union Catalogue of Incunabula) at the Berlin State Library. Doctor Eisermann’s seminar, entitled ”The Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW) database: structure, contents, retrieval strategies”, will illustrate how the GW can be fruitfully researched and used by bibliographers and cataloguers of incunable material. The seminar will take place in the Milstein Room on Thursday 4th July between 2.30pm and 4pm.
The last class of the series, entitled “The Reader’s Eye: Between Annotation and Illustration”, will be held on Thursday 11th July by William Sherman, Professor of Renaissance/Early Modern Studies in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. Professor Shermann will investigate readers’ marginalia as a visual as well as a verbal phenomenon and how their correlation to the book or a particular passage of its text. This class will be held in the Keynes Room from 4pm to around 5.30pm.
Attendance will be limited in order to allow all attendees a chance to see the books under discussion up close, and to participate in the discussion.
To book your place, please email <incunabula@lib.cam.ac.uk>.