Lecture 1 - Books from the suppressed religious institutions of Europe: Mapping the dispersals
The closure of religious houses, in varying circumstances, affected all of Europe at some point between the sixteenth and nineteenth century. In terms of book history, this is the most significant story which can be told in relation to the survival and accessibility of Europe’s heritage of the written word, one which also connects with future issues to do with the continuing role of books and libraries in the European heritage. The lecture will set fragments of collections in Cambridge libraries in this wider historical context.
This lecture will also mark the publication of the volume How the Secularization of Religious Houses Transformed the Libraries of Europe, 16th–19th Centuries', Proceedings of the Conference held in Oxford 22-24 March 2012, ed. C. Dondi, D. Raines, and R. Sharpe, Turnhout: Brepols, 2022 (Bibliologia 63), copies of which will be available for purchase after the lecture.
About the series
Incunabula in Cambridge: European heritage and global dissemination
The development of printing in Western Europe was not just a technological innovation; its profound social and economic impact ushered into the Continent the transition from a medieval to an early modern society, a phenomenon which was analysed in different ways by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin, L’apparition du livre (Paris 1958) and by Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (CUP, 1979). For the last twenty years, an international network of scholars and librarians coordinated by Professor Cristina Dondi has been uncovering the historical evidence for the seismic impact of the European printing revolution preserved in the many thousands of surviving incunabula (books printed between the 1450s and 1500). Harnessing the tools of the digital revolution is also allowing us to reconstruct virtually, and understand, the dispersal and formation of European and American book collections over the intervening centuries. Incunabula in Cambridge libraries, including Sandars’ own collection, will be set in the wider context of where they came from, and their connections with other collections around the world.
About the speaker
Cristina Dondi is Professor of Early European Book Heritage, and Oakeshott Senior Research Fellow in the Humanities at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. She is also Secretary of the Consortium of European Research Libraries. During the period 2014-2019 she was the Principal Investigator of the 15cBOOKTRADE Project, funded by the European Research Council, whose results were shared with the general public in an exhibition held in Venice in 2018/19 and now online at www.printingrevolution.eu. She is the editor of Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed Europe (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020), and co-editor (with D. Raines and R. Sharpe) of How the Secularization of Religious Houses Transformed the Libraries of Europe, 16th–19th Centuries (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022).
Attending this lecture
This lecture is free and open to all - booking required. The event will take place in Robinson College’s Umney Theatre in Cambridge and will be simultaneously live-streamed via Zoom. Tickets may be booked either to attend in-person or to watch online. The lectures will also be recorded and made available online.
After this first lecture, all those attending are invited back to Cambridge University Library for a drinks reception and display until 7.30pm.
Location: Hosted in-person Robinson College, Umney Theatre, Grange Road, Cambridge CB3 9AN
Tickets: CLICK HERE to register to attend Lecture 1 in-person (you need to book tickets for each Sandars lecture you wish to attend in-person. E.g. registering for Lecture 1 will not also register you for Lecture 2 and 3)
Live-stream: CLICK HERE to register to watch Lecture 1 via live-stream (you need to register each Sandars lecture you wish to attend via live-stream. E.g. registering for Lecture 1 will not also register you for Lecture 2 and 3)
Other lectures in the series: Lecture 2, Lecture 3
Date: Tuesday 22 November 2022