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Archive: "incunabula" Tag

Medieval Bookbindings exhibit

This month, the Special Collections reading room is hosting a student-curated exhibit. “Medieval Bookbindings: Methods, Materials and Oddities” looks at examples of medieval binding structures from Special Collections’ holdings of early printed books and manuscripts dating from the 13th through 16th centuries. The exhibit was curated by Louisa Eastley, a student employee in the Lee …

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Cicero in the Renaissance

Cicero was a huge deal in the Renaissance. Manuscripts of the classical Roman statesman’s letters and speeches were rediscovered by the Italian humanists Francesco Petrarch and Poggio Bracciolini in the 14th and 15th centuries, leading to new interest and dissemination of his works among scholars. Many Renaissance humanists adored Cicero’s prose style, and his work …

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Early printed dictionaries

Single-language and dual-language dictionaries were just as indispensable to writers and scholars of the Renaissance as they are today, though in the age of online dictionaries and Google Translate it may be harder to appreciate just how revolutionary printed reference books were in the late 15th century. Printing not only sped up the process of …

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More Marginalia!

As promised, a few more interesting examples of marginalia from Special Collections history of printing collection. A reader has drawn smiling suns casting shadows on a castle in the astronomy textbook Sphaera Mundi, printed by Henri Estienne in 1511. Inscriptions and doodles from multiple generations of owners of a 1608 copy of Pliny’s Natural History …

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Marginalia

Marginalia is the term for the jottings, scribbles, doodles, annotations and notes readers make in the margins of their books. Though ranging from the mundane to the insightful (and sometimes even entertaining), these markings provide evidence of books’ use and readers’ interactions with a given text. For some antiquarian books there may even be evidence …

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Aldus Manutius: Scholar, Printer, Innovator

Special Collections’ newest lobby exhibit celebrates the life and legacy of Venetian printer Aldus Manutius on the 500th anniversary of his death. Aldus Manutius: Scholar, Printer, Innovator will introduce you to one of the most famous figures in the history of printing through a selection from BYU’s collection of books from the Aldine Press. The …

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A glimpse at early printed college textbooks!

If you were a Renaissance university student, you’d need to write your compositions and give your presentations in Latin. But never fear, you would have had textbooks and other manuals available to help you with grammar and style. Think of these early printed books as the Renaissance equivalent to your copy of Strunk & White. …

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The Nuremberg Chronicle

The Nuremberg Chronicle (1493) is one of the most famous early printed books.  It is a history of the known world written by German humanist Hartmann Schedel, incorporating Biblical, classical, and European traditions.  The Nuremberg Chronicle is a large-scale work: BYU’s copy measures nearly 18 inches tall.  The book is known for its elaborate illustrations, …

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Early printed textbooks

The most-printed titles of the early printed book market have little in common with today’s bestseller list.  Renaissance printers supplied a huge demand for theological books, including the works of the early Christian fathers and devotional works like books of hours or The Imitation of Christ.  Textbooks were also a best-selling genre in the late …

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