By Tianyi Liu (MSt in Modern Languages) On 8 November 2023, as a prelude to the launch of the e-ilustrace database of early printed Czech books (https://e-ilustrace.cz/en/), Dr Giles Bergel treated the History of the Book class to a fascinating session on image matching technology. Giles Bergel trained as book historian and now works in …
Tag: Printing
Illuminating the Past: Czech Printed Images during the Reformation (c. 1450-1550) and the ‘e-ilustrace’ Database
A Presentation by Veronika Sladká One hundred years before Martin Luther’s arrival, the Reformation had already established itself in One hundred years before Martin Luther’s arrival, the Reformation had already established itself in Bohemia, resulting in a significant aversion towards sacred images. Nevertheless, bibliographical records suggest that around 6,000 printed images had been disseminated through …
Pressing Matters
By Giovanna Truong (MSt Yiddish Studies) Oxford’s former Schola Musicae stands tucked in a corner of the Bodleian Old Library quadrangle. In modern times, neither harmonized voices nor metred strums resonate from behind that wooden door; rather, a different rhythm altogether emerges. The clack of type, the punch of the press, the busy murmurs of …
Monk-Calf and Nuns on the Run. Two Reformation Pamphlets from 1523
For Volume 6 of the series ‘Reformation Pamphlets’, a team of Germanists from Halle and Oxford have edited two short polemical texts from 1523 held in the Taylorian by Martin Luther, dealing with the question whether monks and nuns should leave their monastic houses: Deutung der greulichen Figur des Mönchkalbs (‘Interpretation of the Gruesome Figure …
Dynamic Books and the Power of Good Data
By Kate McKee A blog post from 2019 by a former History of the Book student documents the findings of Professor Cristina Dondi’s pioneering research on the material evidence in incunabula since the project’s inception in 2014. In this blog post, I focus on the 2021 illustrated copy census of an early printed edition of …
Can you tell it’s a book from the cover?
In the first week of the History of the Book methods option, students and researchers gathered in the Taylor Institute Library to explore items from the special collections that challenge the very notion of the ‘book’. From the curious collection of printed and handwritten manuscript pages rebound in Arch.Fol.It.1478(1) where Petrarch’s ‘sonetti et cançone’ are …
Printing 75 Years of Oxford-Bonn Twinning
CELEBRATION WEEKEND for the 75th ANNIVERSARY OF SIGNING OF the LINK AGREEMENT on 9 OCTOBER 1947 FRIDAY 7 October 7.15 p.m. German Lutheran Congregation House, 15a Lathbury Road, Oxford. Left-hand door! Talk by the Revd Donald Norwood: A pre-war contribution towards twinning. German Refugees in 1938/1939 Oxford and the work of the Revd Nathaniel Micklem …
Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen 4 – Reading Early Modern German
By Henrike Lähnemann This is part of a series of introductory posts for the updated edition and translation of Martin Luther’s Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen und Fürbitte der Heiligen (An Open Letter on Translating and the Intercession of Saints), published as Volume 5 of the Treasures of the Taylorian. Series One: Reformation Pamphlets. Ebook of the publication 1. The Historical …
Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen 3 – The Publication
By Henrike Lähnemann This is part of a series of introductory posts for the updated edition and translation of Martin Luther’s Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen und Fürbitte der Heiligen (An Open Letter on Translating and the Intercession of Saints), published as Volume 5 of the Treasures of the Taylorian. Series One: Reformation Pamphlets. Ebook of the publication 1. The Historical …
Printing Prose. Lecture Series on Early German Prose
The lecture series by Henrike Lähnemann (Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics) in Michaelmas Term 2022 at the Taylor Institution Library, Room 2, discusses German prose texts published in the first hundred years of printing. This includes a number of iconic texts written earlier such as the ‘Ackermann von Böhmen’ or transformed from verse …