History of the Book

[dalla Premessa dei curatori:] I primi transiti, nel mondo occidentale, passano dall'esaltazione della danza nel mondo greco-latino ai trattati che, in quell'atmosfera aurorale in cui prende forma lo specifico coreutico tra Francia e Italia nel tardo Medioevo e nella prima età moderna, testimoniano di una prescrizione a livello morale quanto tecnico, caricando di significato simbolico passi e disegni nel partimento dello spazio. Fra teorizzazione, ricognizione e didattica, è il "sapere corporeo" delle classi privilegiate che viene educato e che porterà più tardi alla codificazione della danza professionale.

ed. by Goran Proot, David McKitterick, Angela Nuovo and Paul F. Gehl. With a preface by David McKitterick. Mechelen: Flanders Book Historical Society, 2018, ISBN 9789082927603, pp. 1-15.
This paper aims to show how a family of stationers, who had long supplied parchment, paper and possibly manuscript books to the academic and professional market in Perugia, reinvented itself by starting a business to address all areas of the new print world. The focus is on the role played by Francesco Cartolari and the strategies he adopted in leading a transformation which ended up with the reintroduction of printing activity in Perugia and the foundation of a publishing house
[special edition issued in 20 copies in September 2018; the definitive version was printed in December s.a.].
This essay is based on material collected for my PhD in History (2012) but it was written during my Postdoc at Oxford, as team member of the 15cBOOKTRADE Project funded by the European Research Council (ERC 2014-2019).

Libri da leggere e da bruciare

Raccontare la storia del libro significa avvicinarsi alla storia dell'uomo e dei suoi pensieri. Fin dalle origini, l'uomo ha provato il modo più efficace per comunicare, soprattutto con la scrittura, cercando i segni giusti e i materiali adatti per costruire i suoi libri. Era importante che ogni elemento avesse uno scopo: la forma, le dimensioni, la scrittura, e anche le illustrazioni. Per averli sempre con sé, bisognava che i libri fossero piccoli; se servivano per studiare dovevano essere semplici nella fattura e comodi nelle dimensioni. Per essere esibiti come oggetti preziosi, dovevano essere grandi, decorati con colori costosi e scritti da famosi copisti. Per questo chi scriveva l'opera e chi costruiva il libro lavoravano insieme, come oggi, per arrivare in fondo al loro progetto, e attenti ai lettori, che sono di tutti i tipi e di gusti differenti. Quando Gutenberg inventò la stampa, quello che l'uomo aveva appreso scrivendo a mano venne migliorato: forme, tecniche di produzione e di commercio. La stampa ha aperto nuove strade, anzi le ha moltiplicate e ha semplificato lo scorrere delle idee. Il libro è stato considerato anche come un oggetto da rispettare e perfino da venerare, contenitore di parole capaci di influenzare la vita di chi le leggeva. Molti libri furono stampati per questo, e molti bruciati per lo stesso motivo. E oggi? Dove ci portano i libri? E noi, dove li portiamo?

Il libro mette a fuoco le dinamiche del laboratorio editoriale romano che accompagnarono la fondazione dei periodici artistici, e il ruolo giocato dai giornali nel rivendicare autonomia di spazi e strumenti all'informazione sulle arti. Le esperienze prese in esame, collocate tra i due pontificati di Pio VI e di Pio VII, sono quelle dei «Monumenti antichi inediti ovvero Notizie di antichità e belle arti», del «Giornale delle belle arti e della incisione antiquaria, musica e poesia», delle «Memorie per le belle Arti» e delle «Memorie enciclopediche romane di belle arti, antichità etc.». Fondati per il vantaggio delle arti e l'istruzione dell'amatore, i periodici di belle arti costituirono un modello attivo per il giornalismo artistico degli anni Trenta dell'Ottocento. Facendo tesoro degli studi sulla pubblicistica settecentesca e sui singoli 'dotti', artisti e associati, coinvolti nel laboratorio della stampa periodica romana, si ripercorre l'intreccio che lega la cronaca delle arti alla riflessione sulla sua storia. Il confronto è innervato su una geografia intellettuale puntellata dai nomi di Séroux d'Agincourt, Ennio Quirino Visconti, Gaetano Marini, Luigi Lanzi, Ireneo Affò, Pierantonio Serassi, Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi, Onofrio Boni, Giuseppe Antonio Guattani. Gli apparati integrano il testo proponendo una scelta antologia di carteggi, articoli, testimonianze autobiografiche, utili a documentare i rapporti e gli scambi dell'editoria d'arte romana con altri centri di produzione dell'Italia di fine Settecento e inizio Ottocento.

The thesis is divided into two parts and it aims to explain the historical events related to the bibliographical collection of the ancient Jesuit College of Perugia. The first part focuses on the Jesuit librarian history and on the reconstruction of the historical events related to the library of the Perugian college. The institute, founded in 1552, was endowed with a library a few years after its foundation, enriching its collection through different books acquisition channels. The analysis, conducted on unpublished archival documents and published material, reconstructs the events of the library by entering the special case of Perugia in the broader spectrum of the Jesuit librarian history . In this way I tried to provide a model of historical research adaptable to the different librarian realities of the ancient Society of Jesus. The second part of the dissertation consists of the partial reconstruction of the library catalog.

The "bibliotheca electoralis" with its 1500 books, today located in the ThULB Jena, is the remnant of one of the most important early renaissance libraries in Germany.
The early history of the ducal/electoral library, originally located in the castle of Wittenberg, is strongly influenced by the later librarian Georg Spalatin, who started to collect books for the Saxon prince-elector in 1512. Spalatin, who was 1512 assigned to educate the nephews and an illegitimate son of the Elector, worked also on several chronicles for Frederic III. of Saxony. His works outshine his predecessors: e. g. Adam von Fulda.
This paper is collecting and interpreting several counting books as alternative source for the history of the Wittenberg library and at the same time for the history of books.
The paper is giving an example for the potential and boundaries of counting-book-sources. It contains new facts and dates for Adam von Fulda, Hermann Behm, Georg Spalatin, Johannes Walther also for several printings of Martin Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen.

The paper was written in 2011 and published 2014. The major work of Mecklnborg/Riecke, Spalatin-Chronik 2011 couldn't be involved and is recommended for consulted reading.

Während mit Zwingli im Abendmahl der Zürcher das historische Gedenken an die Stelle der Realpräsenz getreten war, manifestierte sich im Umgang mit Schriftgut eine Verehrung der Dinglichkeit, die schon Zeitgenossen katholisch anmutete. Die im Buch behandelten Selbstzeugnisse verdanken ihre Niederschrift ebenso wie ihre Überlieferung in amtlichen und familiären Archiven weitgehend ebendiesem Kult. Dieser beruhte auch auf einem frühneuzeitlichen Ehrbegriff, der ohne Gegenständlichkeit nicht auskam. Der neue Zugriff auf Selbstzeugnisse als Dinge mit quasi-sakralem Charakter eröffnet einen neuen Blick auf Zürich im konfessionellen Zeitalter. Mitten in der reformierten Stadt an der Limmat wird eine ins Kultische hineinspielende Wertschätzung der Leiblichkeit handgreiflich.

Reviews: British Journal for the History of Science 45(2012), S. 288–290 (N. Kaoukji); Emblematica. An Interdisciplinary Journal for Emblem Studies 19(2012), S. 327-333 (J. Sawday); Catholic Historical Review 98(2012), S. 573f (K. Howell); Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 74(2012), S. 200-202 (S. Taussig); Print Quarterly 29(2012), S. 454-458 (E. Reeves); Historians of Netherlandish Art Review of Books 2012 (E. Jorink).

Reviews of the German edition: The Library 7(2006), S. 473f (J. L. Flood); Journal for the History of Astronomy 37(2006), S. 471ff (N. Jardine); American Historical Review 112(2007), S. 265f (G. Scholz Williams); Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 120(2007), S. 252f (A. de Bruycker); Sehepunkte. Rezensionsjournal für die Ge¬schichtswissenschaften 7(2007), Nr. 9 (M. Bronscheuer); History of Universities 22(2007), S. 258-261 (A. de Bruycker); NTM. Internationale Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Ethik der Naturwissenschaften, Technik und Medizin, N.S. 15(2007), S. 303f (A. Kleinert); Zeitschrift für historische Forschung 34(2007), S. 705-707 (A. Brendecke); Renaissance Quarterly 60(2007), S. 1416f (A. Mosley); Nuncius. Journal of the History of Science 22(2)(2007), S. 384f (H. Bredekamp); Morgen-Glantz. Zeitschrift der Christian Knorr von Rosenroth-Gesellschaft 18(2008), S. 228ff (J. J. Berns); Fachsprache. Internationale Zeitschrift für Fachsprachenforschung 30(2008), S. 200-202 (J. Engberg/P. Kastberg); Isis 99(2008), S. 844-846 (S. de Angelis); Zeitschrift für Ger¬ma¬nistik 19(2009), S. 483f (M. Neumann).

The article discusses the handwritten revisions and drawn additions by Albrecht Dürer in his own copy of the treatise on geometry, Underweysung der Messung (1525). Situating Dürer’s interest in mathematics within the scholarly milieu of Renaissance Nuremberg, the article addresses the shifts in style and content that Dürer proscribes and offers new perspectives on the artist’s relation to his own late work. The article concludes by displaying several drawings bound into the edition by Dürer that illustrate variations on perspectival apparatuses. These lesser known drawings illuminate the evolution of Dürer’s conceptualization of the dynamics between artist and subject, as well as the tools used to facilitate this interaction.

"Writing as Material Practice grapples with the issue of writing as a form of material culture in its ancient and more recent manifestations, and in the contexts of production and consumption. Fifteen case studies explore the artefactual nature of writing — the ways in which materials, techniques, colour, scale, orientation and visibility inform the creation of inscribed objects and spaces, as well as structure subsequent engagement, perception and meaning making.

Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 BCE to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the chapters in this volume bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing materialities.

The authors also aim to place past graphical systems in their social contexts so they can be understood in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to writing and associated symbolic modes through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices."

A 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

In this volume, Elisabeth Fraser shows that artists and the works they created in the Mediterranean during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were informed by mutual dependence and reciprocity between European nations and the Ottoman Empire. Her rich exploration of this vibrant cross-cultural exchange challenges the dominant interpretation of European relations with the East during the period, revealing a shared world of fluid and long-sustained interactions.

Voyagers to and from the Ottoman Empire documented their journeys in prints, paintings, and lavishly illustrated travelogues; many of these helped define Europe’s self-identified role as heir to Ottoman civilizations and bolstered its presence in the Islamic Mediterranean and beyond. Fraser finds that these works illuminate not only how travelers’ experiences abroad were more nuanced than the expansionist ideology with which they became associated, but also how these narratives depicted the vitality of Ottoman culture and served as extensions of Ottoman diplomacy. Ottomans were aware of and responded to European representations, using them to defend Ottoman culture and sovereignty. In embracing the art of both cultures and setting these works in a broader context, Fraser challenges the dominant historiographical tradition that sees Ottoman artists adopting European modes of art in a one-sided process of “Europeanization.”

Theoretically informed and rigorously researched, this cross-cultural approach to European and Ottoman art sheds much-needed critical light on the widely disseminated travel images of the era—important cultural artifacts in their own right—and provides a fresh and inviting understanding of the relationships among cultures in the Mediterranean during an era of increasing European expansionism.
ISBN: 978-0-271-07320-0

This most recent edition of the bibliography contains almost 21,200 titles in English (64%) and French (36%), with an introductory section on historiography. It deals with every aspect of Italian history and culture from the Late Renaissance to the French Revolution.

The legend of Adam and Lilith is uttered by only a few who dare to speak the whispers about the Lilith story. A story in Lilith book is shrouded in death, angst and mystery, her path from helpless child to powerful foe is a dangerous one.
Can she outwit the guardians who want to remove her from the pages of history as displayed in Lilith book? Can Adam and Lilith find what they long for? And will she live to tell the tale?
Ivars Ozols brings to life the true legend of Lilith story, expertly retelling the age old story, past down through the generations, in an expertly, beautiful and exceptionally gripping manner Lilith book. One that cannot fail to draw the reader into the characters of Adam and Lilith.
Expertly combining the true story of Lilith with the little-known tale of the world’s best-known figure of death, the Grim Reaper, The Epic of Lilith book educates and entertains all in one thrilling read.
The Epic of Adam and Lilith is re-imagined, as a true fantasy Lilith story, based on ancient myths, epic legends, and stories, told in the ancient world long ago.

Please visit: https://gumroad.com/l/OQytc#

Research increasingly indicatees that books themselves, translated into new languages and transplanted into new cultures have transformed European fairy tales into shapes the fit the local expectations of culturees around the world. Th Reverend Lal Day introduced the feline "Puss in Boots" to India as a jackal. The Grimms' "Red Riding Hood"  reached Japan in the 1860s and China only thereafter. Colonial powers spread their national stories to the colonies whose children they educated.

RESUMO Este artigo trata das possibilidades de personalização características das tecnologias digitais, que se estendem aos livros, cujo projeto gráfico pode, muitas vezes, ser alterado pelos usuários. As questões que encaminham o texto dizem respeito à relação dos leitores com os livros digitais, com ênfase no uso, das possibilidades de customização dos livros digitais. Para abordar o tema, partimos de uma revisão bibliográfica sobre o design editorial, após a qual apresentamos os resultados de uma pesquisa junto a leitores, realizada através de questionários online. O texto termina com uma reflexão sobre o papel do designer frente às possibilidades de customização do livro digital. Palavras-chave: "design editorial", "e-book" e "tablets". INTRODUÇÃO Ao longo dos séculos que compõem a história do livro, diversos padrões de composição legitimaram-se e passaram a ser considerados sinônimos de conforto e eficácia de leitura ao usuário-bem como da capacida...

Distortion is the moment at which the physical means of transmitting a text irrupt into a reader's experience of it. I will discuss distortion here as a phenomenon occurring in printed materials, but I do not wish to exclude other recognisable instances such as static in a radio signal, or white noise on a cathode-ray-tube television screen. To speak of distortion as an impairment, however, is to confirm the Platonic priority of another book-object. As textual scholars have shown, locating this authoritative ur-text can be, to say the least, difficult. Distortion is not a condition befalling individual textual artefacts (‘book-objects’) here and there: there is no non-distorted reading. In fact, a belief in non-distorted reading amounts to believing in pure, transparent mediation that leaves no trace of itself on the mediated. Leaving aside for the purposes of this essay the profound political implications of placing the labour of mediation under erasure, I will offer here a heuristic of distortion. Absent such a heuristic, ‘distorted’ book-objects and their texts will always be treated as degraded derivatives. The corollary of that treatment is to elevate an unknown, possibly non-existent ur-text to a position of unimpeachable authority, and to degrade both the experience of reading and of the embodied text and reader. We can solve the problem of distortion by placing the irreducible phenomenological singularity of the book-object at the centre of our experience of a text. This is existential reading: you are reading what you are reading and not anything else.

Edison's attempt to replace the book with a technological artifact was, at the time, widely viewed as an unmistakable sign of progress. This paper investigates the origins of the interaction between modern engineering and the book, it's failure and successes, and its final culmination in the e-book

Ask anyone what comes to mind when thinking of old maps and ten to one the name of Blaeu will come up. The atlases and maps which were printed in the Amsterdam publishing house of the Blaeu’s in the 17th century are world-famous. Not surprisingly, Blaeu’s 'Atlas maior' is included in the Canon of Dutch History: a survey of fifty important persons, creations and events that shows the historical development of the Netherlands. Utrecht University Library houses two beautiful editions of the Atlas maior, written in the Dutch language. Here the library offers one of these monuments in its entirety and in digital format.

Daniel Bellingradt: Review of Jan Löhdefink: Zeiten des Teufels. Teufelsvorstellungen und Geschichtszeit in frühreformatorischen Flugschriften (1520-1526), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2016, in: sehepunkte 17 (2017), Nr. 1 [15.01.2017], URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de
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Curated by Dr. Eric J. Johnson, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, The Ohio State University "Publish or Perish" tells the story of a religious, social, and political revolution that began 500 years ago as a traditional academic exercise but quickly accelerated into a movement that would shake Europe's very foundations. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg in October 1517, he was merely doing what any other professor with a set of statements for debate might do. He drew up his points, had them printed, and posted them to inspire debate. Luther could hardly have known that by the end of the 16 th century this simple act of publication would be just the first of 4,790 separate editions of his works printed in Germany alone, with approximately 3,000 more editions that he compiled, edited, or for which he wrote prefaces.

Conceived as a review of the state of book history in Colombia, this paper examines the roots, mutations and contemporary conditions of possibility for the development of this discipline in the country. After reviewing the bibliographical origins of the studies dedicated to the book and documenting the pioneering historiographical turns, the article highlights the most important contributions to the discipline, at the local level, and also the role of different academic meetings in the appearance of the first specialized research groups. However, considered still in a stage of maturation, the history of the book in Colombia warns the need for a greater involvement of groups and researchers, not only to advance in a more complex and "national" history of the book, but also more attentive and critical of the global turns that the discipline has taken.

Настоящее издание является вторым из серии «Французы в научной и интеллектуальной жизни России XVIII–XX вв.» и посвящено вопросам научного и культурного взаимодействия двух стран в ХIХ столетии. В основу публикации положены материалы международной конференции «Французы в научной и интеллектуальной жизни России ХIХ в.», состоявшейся 16–17 сентября 2011 г. в Париже. Особое внимание уделено воссозданию биографий французов, работавших в России в самых разных сферах: на государственной службе, в качестве предпринимателей, журналистов, переводчиков, ученых, издателей, музыкантов, художников.

Despite the growing sophistication of comics studies as a discipline, it has yet to fully embrace the cultural materialist approaches of book history and publishing studies, a fact that seems rather intriguing in the face of the form’s insistent materiality. These omissions extend to an eliding of the roles played by agents other than the author in the production of a text; a factor of particular significance in comics where there is almost always a supporting cast of artists, pencillers, colourists and letterers who contribute to the finished product. In addition, the role played by publishers and editors in the dissemination and circulation of comics and graphic novels has also been ignored in much of contemporary comics criticism. By drawing on perspectives grounded in the disciplinary contexts of book history and publishing studies, I aim to provide a useful counterpoint to work done in comics studies that tends to focus on author as auteur.