Medieval chain book library, Hereford Cathedral, England
TEXTS AND CONTEXTS:
Print and Manuscript Culture in
Late-Medieval and Renaissance Europe
A Master Class for Johns Hopkins Graduate Students, Junior Faculty, and
Affiliates of the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe
May 18-20, 2010
The Sheridan Libraries and the Singleton Center for the Study of Premodern Europe will co-host
the first installment of a new series of intensive graduate-level skills based Master Classes taught
by area specialists and visiting scholars directly from original rare books and manuscripts in the
collections of the Sheridan Libraries and other collections in the Baltimore area. The classes are
open to Hopkins graduate students, faculty, curators, and affiliates of the Singleton Center. A
maximum of 15 will be accepted as registrants, and those who are registered will be expected to
attend all the planned sessions. 10 of the 15 spots will be reserved for graduate students in the
humanities at Johns Hopkins University.
This year’s inaugural Master Class is entitled “Genres of the Book,” and will be team taught
by April Oettinger, Assistant Professor of the History of Art, Goucher College, and Earle
Havens, Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts at the Sheridan Libraries of Johns Hopkins
University. Additional planned visits and sessions will be arranged, including a behind-thescenes tour of the early book and manuscripts collection of the Walters Art Museum, and a
session on book construction and tour of the conservation lab of the Sheridan Libraries.
Each class session will be convened in a different location: day 1 in the George Peabody
Library (with a visit to the Walters Art Gallery); day 2 at Evergreen Museum and Library; and
the final day at the Milton Eisenhower Library. For assigned readings, see below.
To register and reserve a place in this Master Class, please send an e-mail by May 1. If
your reservation arrives after the class has been filled, you will be notified and your name
will be placed on a waiting list in the order received. Access to the assigned articles (see
below) will be arranged in advance for registered attendees. Please send all
correspondence, including registration requests, directly to earle.havens@jhu.edu,
indicating your department and your year of enrollment if you are a graduate student, or your
institution and department if you are a Singleton Center faculty affiliate. Please also note that
this schedule may be subject to revision, and that registrants will be given advance notice of
any changes.
George Peabody Library
Tuesday, May 18
Introduction: From Manuscript to Print
George Peabody Library, Mt. Vernon
9:00-10:30
Introduction: The History of the Book before the Invention of Printing by
Moveable Type
10:30-10:45
Break
10:45-noon
Manuscript Culture in the Age of Incunabula; The Materials and Construction
of the Renaissance Book
Noon-1:30
Lunch Break, Sascha’s 527 Café (527 N. Charles St.)
1:30-3:30
The Culture and Commerce of Printing; The Spread of Printing
3:45-5:00
Tour of the medieval and Renaissance rare book and manuscript collection
at the Walters Art Gallery
John Work Garrett Library, Evergreen Museum and Library
Wednesday, May 19
The Art of The Book: Typography, Illustration, Mise-en-Page
John Work Garrett Library, Evergreen Museum & Library
9:30-10:30
General Tour of the Garrett Library
10:30-noon
Typography as Art and Science in 15th- and 16th-century Europe
Noon-1:30
Lunch Break, Catered luncheon, East Asia Room, Evergreen Museum and
Library
1:30-3:00
Embellishing the Text: Illustration, Ornament, and Bindings; Printmaking
Techniques (Relief and Intaglio Processes)
3:00-3:15
Break
3:15-4:45
Masterpieces of Renaissance Book Illustration; The Book as Luxury Object
Hutzler Reading Room,
Milton Eisenhower Library
Thursday, May 20
Books, Readers, and Early Modern Print Culture
Rare Books and Manuscripts Department, Milton Eisenhower Library
9:30-noon
Genre and Hierarchy: Generic Categories and the Structure of Knowledge in
Medieval and Renaissance Libraries
Noon-1:30
Lunch Break (free to go anywhere nearby)
1:30-2:30
The Archaeology and Conservation of Renaissance Books; Tour of
the Book Conservation Lab – Sonja Jordan-Mowry
2:45-4:00
Exemplars of the Major Genres of Renaissance Books: Bibles, liturgical texts,
herbals/materia medica, verse and imaginative literature, humanism, atlases,
travels and voyages, technology, historical chronicles, natural history, astronomy,
alchemy/books of secrets, architecture, emblem books, &c.
4:00-5:00
Wrapping Up: Recent Scholarship in the History of the Book in medieval and
Renaissance Studies
Athanasius Kircher’s Museum, from Giorgio de Sepibus,
Romani Collegii Musaeum Celeberrimum (Rome, 1678)
REQUIRED READING:
Robert Darnton, “What is the History of Books?,” in The Book History Reader (2nd ed.; 2006), 926.
Elizabeth Eisenstein, “Defining the Initial Shift: Some Features of Print Culture,” in The Book
History Reader (2nd ed.; 2006), 151-173.
Adrian Johns, “The Book of Nature and the Nature of the Book,” in The Book History Reader
(2nd ed.; 2006), 59-76.
Ann Blair, “Reading Strategies for Coping with Information Overload, 1550-1700,” Journal
of the History of Ideas 64:1 (2003): 11-28
Anthony Grafton, “The Humanist as Reader,” in A History of Reading in the West (1999), 179212.
Lisa Jardine, “The Triumph of the Book” in Wordly Goods (1996), 135-180.