Posts by Pablo Alvarez

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit featuring the title page. Students in a Fall 2022 History Lab class researched and created the exhibit.

We are delighted to announce an important recent acquisition made possible by Katharine V. Kilgour's generous gift in memory of her father Raymond L. Kilgour: a manuscript containing the texts of a Book of Hours and a Psalter. Written on parchment in Latin and French, it was exquisitely illuminated by one of the leading miniaturists working in Paris in the first two decades of the sixteenth century: Jean Coene IV.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit featuring a selection of manuscripts, early printed books, and artifacts illustrating Mesopotamian, Greek, Islamic, and Western European astronomies. Join the curators on Thursday, 12 January, 4-6p in the Hatcher Gallery for a reception celebrating the opening of the exhibit followed by an exhibit tour.

Join the Special Collections Research Center in Hatcher next Tuesday (13 December) at 4 pm for our final After Hours open house of the term exploring a selection of artifacts illustrating the early history of western medicine.

We are pleased to invite you to a panel regarding the discovery of the forgery of our Galileo manuscript: October 6, @7:00 pm. Hosted by the U-M Detroit Observatory in Ann Arbor, Nick Wilding (Georgia State University) and Pablo Alvarez (University of Michigan Library) will be discussing various aspects surrounding this extraordinary document, including its alleged historical significance, the fascinating process establishing it as a 20th-century fake, and the lessons that we can all learn from the unmasking of this forgery.

We are very pleased to announce a new digital exhibit highlighting some extraordinary Greek manuscripts from our collections: Greek Manuscripts at the University of Michigan Library: A Celebration. This virtual exhibition accompanies, and expands, the physical exhibit of the same name shown at the Audubon Room (Hatcher Library North) from March 26 to June 28, 2022. The online exhibit is also available inside the Audubon Room: visitors are welcomed to further explore, and zoom-in on, other fascinating features of the manuscripts on display.

Splendors of the religious and artistic endeavors of Byzantine manuscript makers are on display from the Greek manuscript collection at the University of Michigan Library (Special Collections Research Center). We warmly invite you to explore these extraordinary treasures at the Audubon Room, North Hatcher Library, March 26-June 28, 2022.

We are excited to continue our online After Hours open houses this semester! Join the Special Collections Research Center on the second Tuesday of each month 4-5 pm for a virtual encounter with our collections. While all the events are online, we have offered an in-person option for the first session in the series. All are welcome to beam in and join us.

We are very pleased to invite you all to the fourth session of the Virtual Encounters on Book History, a series organized by Pablo Alvarez (University of Michigan) and Benito Rial Costas (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Our fourth webinar is a celebration of two landmark publications based on the extensive collection of Greek manuscripts at the University of Michigan Library: Nadezhda Kavrus-Hoffmann, Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Vol. 1. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2021; and Julia Miller, Tradition and Individuality: Bindings from the University of Michigan Greek Manuscript Collection. Ann Arbor, MI: The Legacy Press, 2021. Our speakers will focus on various aspects of this important collection of manuscripts, presenting case studies that illustrate their historical, textual, and artistic relevance.

On behalf of the University of Michigan Library, we would like to express our gratitude to Samuel L. Chappell (B.S. 1969) and Roberta J. Chappell (B.S. 1967) for their generous gift that allowed us to acquire a manuscript and an early printed book for our military history collection. Since their graduation from the U-M, Sam and Bobbie have kept in touch with the Library in various ways, including generous donations to advance our academic mission.