Beyond the Reading Room

This blog post features an extraordinary well-preserved copy of what is perhaps one of the earliest extant drawing manuals that were published in Western Europe in the first half of the seventeenth century. Its author is Odoardo Fialetti, an Italian artist whose professional life flourished in Venice at the end of the sixteenth century; Fialetti had access to Tintoretto’s workshop, eventually becoming an accomplished copperplate engraver. While more than 200 engravings are attributed to him, Fialetti is best known for the illustrations he created for his two drawing manuals published in Venice in 1608 and 1609. Indeed, these two manuals became extremely popular among young artists, having a considerable impact on subsequent European manuals of this type published throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In a few words, a drawing manual consisted of a collection of images of the human body that served as models for young apprentices; these illustrations represented the body in full or in sections, and were arranged in increasing difficulty. Essentially, these manuals were self-taught guides and, since they were meant to be heavily used as opposed to be shelved merely for reference, currently they are rarely found at libraries, museums, or private collections.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce the new exhibit Dear Stranger: Diaries for the Public and Private Self. Join us to celebrate the power of personal writing at the exhibit opening and journaling workshop on Tuesday, January 21.

Applications are now open for the Ralph C. and Mary Lynn Heid Research Fellowships to support research requiring substantial on-site use of our special collections.

Join us today for our December Special Collections After Hours open house! You are all invited to explore a great variety of early printed books containing illustrations of the human body that reflect the science of dissection as well as the latest artistic theories in early modern Europe. The display will include richly illustrated treatises by well-known authors such as Leonardo da Vinci and Andreas Vesalius. Refreshments.
Time: 4:00-6:00 pm.
Location: Special Collections Research Center. Hatcher Library Room 660D

Join us tomorrow for our November Special Collections After Hours open house! November is Native American Heritage Month, and in recognition we will be displaying a collection of documents related to the histories, identities, and resistance to colonization of the indigenous peoples of North America.

I recently came across this sixteenth-century introductory manual designed to teach Christian biblical scholars how to read and understand works in Hebrew and other Oriental languages without punctuation and stress marks. But what makes our copy remarkable is that the names of well-known Protestant scholars, and other infidels, have been carefully crossed out, that is, expurgated, following the Inquisition's recommendations to censor authors considered heretical according to the teachings of the Church of Rome.

The Special Collections Research Center announces a new exhibit, Other Crusoes, Other Islands: Mapping a Complex Legacy. On the 300th anniversary of the publication of The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, this exhibit interrogates the troubled legacy of Daniel Defoe’s seminal English novel. It also explores how creators have pushed back against the colonialist, hyper-masculine, and racist ethos of the text by using the castaway narrative to explore self-sufficiency, otherness, and the role of gendered and racialized ideas in constructing the self.

We are pleased to announce our fall line-up of open houses in our Special Collections After Hours series! On the second Tuesday of each month during the academic year, we display themed selections from our collections. All are welcome to stop by any time between 4-6pm to explore our collections, enjoy light refreshments and chat with staff.

The Special Collections Research Center is pleased to announce a new exhibit, Circulating the Avant-Garde: Aesthetic Counter-Publics in the Little Magazines, 1890-1920. This exhibit was curated by Kayla Grant, PhD candidate in English literature.

When searching for manuscripts of Hrabanus Maurus' medieval encyclopedia De rerum naturis (On the Natures of Things) in the database Digital Scriptorium, I came across a leaf fragment held at Columbia University Libraries (Plimpton MS 128 ) which, in terms of its handwriting and style of illumination, was clearly connected to a leaf fragment held at the University of Michigan Library (Mich. Ms. f. 14).