Vijftiende Miræus Lecture 'Ut pictura liber: Illustrations and Patrons in Enlightenment Books'

Michael Suarez | Bron: http://www.virginia.edu

Michael Suarez s.j., geeft op dinsdag 31 januari 2012 de eerste Miraeus Lecture van het jaar. Het onderwerp luidt: Ut pictura liber: Illustrations and Patrons in Enlightenment Books. Suarez is in Antwerpen voor het internationaal colloquium 'Ambassadors of the Book, Competences for Heritage Librarians', waar hij op 2 februari 2012 de conclusies zal brengen.

Ut pictura liber: Illustrations and Patrons in Enlightenment Books

From the mid-seventeenth century, English and Continental antiquaries, cartographers, classicists, and scientists increasingly sought to produce large folios with elaborate illustrations.  But how to pay for the enormous production costs of such works?  Engravings by the leading practitioners of the day - whether depicting the beauties of the great cathedrals, the epic glories of classical antiquity, or the finer points of natural history - required significant investments in both men and materials.  This lecture will consider the commercial and cultural expedients that self-publishing authors, learned societies, and projecting booksellers developed to finance their books, many of exceeding beauty and genuine importance.  Examining these "books for looking" produced for cultural elites and chiefly underwritten by their intended readerships in England and on the Continent, we encounter narratives of fiscal irresponsibility, signal innovation, shameless advertising, remarkable networking, outright deception, outstanding loyalty, and brazen vanity.  Reading these lavish images and the stories of their making - in botanical books and star atlases, deluxe classical translations and county histories - compels us to consider the traffic between culture and commerce, to contemplate the exchanges between text and trade in new and illuminating ways.  Understanding materiality and meaning as mutually informing, we will attend to questions of patronage and capitalization, consumption, monumentality, and ideologies both political and religious as they bear on cultural and intellectual life.

Michael Suarez

Michael Suarez s.j. is University Professor and Director of Rare Book School at the University of Virginia.  The holder of research fellowships from The American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Michael’s most recent publication is The Oxford Companion to the Book (2010), a million-word reference work on the history of books and manuscripts from the invention of writing to the present day.  Michael is Editor in Chief of Oxford Scholarly Editions Online (OSEO), one of the largest digital humanities projects extant today.  In 2014-15, he will hold the J. R. Lyell Readership in Bibliography at Oxford University.

Details
Date 
31-01-2012
Practical
Location 

Nottebohmzaal van de Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience
Hendrik Conscienceplein 4
B-2000 Antwerpen

Time 

18:00 uur

Price 

Gratis

  • Agendabericht
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  • 20-01-2012
  • |
  • Sam Capiau (Vlaamse Erfgoedbibliotheek)