Meetings will be held at the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE, beginning at 5.30 p.m.
Tea will be served at 5.00 p.m. Members are welcome to bring guests, both to meetings and to the tea beforehand.16 October 2019
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The Annual General Meeting will be held at the Dr Johnson’s House, 17 Gough Square, London, EC4A 3DE, on Wednesday 16 October 2019 at 6.00 p.m. The AGM will not be preceded by tea, but refreshments will be served after the meeting.
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The Annual General Meeting will be held at the Dr Johnson’s House, 17 Gough Square, London, EC4A 3DE, on Wednesday 16 October 2019 at 6.00 p.m. The AGM will not be preceded by tea, but refreshments will be served after the meeting.
19 November 2019
KAREN BOWEN: Booksellers and the international distribution of prints from Antwerp in the first half of the seventeenth century. This talk will examine which booksellers actively purchased printed images via the Moretus family of booksellers at the Officina Plantiniana in Antwerp. This in turn will reveal how these international agents participated in the market for renown prints from Antwerp in the seventeenth century.
KAREN BOWEN: Booksellers and the international distribution of prints from Antwerp in the first half of the seventeenth century. This talk will examine which booksellers actively purchased printed images via the Moretus family of booksellers at the Officina Plantiniana in Antwerp. This in turn will reveal how these international agents participated in the market for renown prints from Antwerp in the seventeenth century.
17 December 2019
RICCARDO OLOCCO: The imitation of existing types in fifteenth-century Venice. Recent research on fifteenth-century Venetian roman types has docu mented the punchcutters’ ability to imitate existing types so closely that it can be very hard to distinguish them from their original models. This talk will introduce three examples of close imitations taken from Venetian incunabula and discuss the procedures that the punchcutters likely adopted. It will also briefly introduce later examples of close imitations, from Sanlecque imitating Garamond in sixteenth-century Paris to the famous Caslon imitations produced by the Fry foundry in London in the late eighteenth century.
RICCARDO OLOCCO: The imitation of existing types in fifteenth-century Venice. Recent research on fifteenth-century Venetian roman types has docu mented the punchcutters’ ability to imitate existing types so closely that it can be very hard to distinguish them from their original models. This talk will introduce three examples of close imitations taken from Venetian incunabula and discuss the procedures that the punchcutters likely adopted. It will also briefly introduce later examples of close imitations, from Sanlecque imitating Garamond in sixteenth-century Paris to the famous Caslon imitations produced by the Fry foundry in London in the late eighteenth century.
21 January 2020
Before the lecture the Society’s Gold Medal will be presented to Professor James P. Carley.
RACHEL JACOBS: Waddesdon Manor: A Rothschild Collection. This talk will present an overview of the Waddesdon collection of printed books, manuscripts and bookbindings, including its highlights alongside its lesser known ‘working library’. It will discuss the formation of the collection, its display within the Manor and its subsequent growth, and it will also look at some more recent acquisitions.
Before the lecture the Society’s Gold Medal will be presented to Professor James P. Carley.
RACHEL JACOBS: Waddesdon Manor: A Rothschild Collection. This talk will present an overview of the Waddesdon collection of printed books, manuscripts and bookbindings, including its highlights alongside its lesser known ‘working library’. It will discuss the formation of the collection, its display within the Manor and its subsequent growth, and it will also look at some more recent acquisitions.
18 February 2020
TRUDE DIJKSTRA: Between mercantilism and materia medica: printing and publishing Chinese medicine in early modern Europe. Recent studies of the intercultural exchange of medical knowledge between Europe and Asia during the First Global Age and the impact of non-European materia medica on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease in early modern Europe have been invaluable in establishing the interconnectedness between Asia and Europe during the early modern period, while also demonstrating that cross-cultural exchange of scientific and medical knowledge and products went in both directions. However, as the focus has primarily been on the content of printed materials, less attention has been paid to the book-historical properties of text and image through which knowledge of medicine circulated. This paper will address the composition, mediation, survival and transformation of written communication in print to present a new image of the
production, distribution and reception of early modern knowledge about Chinese medicine and pharmaceuticals.
TRUDE DIJKSTRA: Between mercantilism and materia medica: printing and publishing Chinese medicine in early modern Europe. Recent studies of the intercultural exchange of medical knowledge between Europe and Asia during the First Global Age and the impact of non-European materia medica on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease in early modern Europe have been invaluable in establishing the interconnectedness between Asia and Europe during the early modern period, while also demonstrating that cross-cultural exchange of scientific and medical knowledge and products went in both directions. However, as the focus has primarily been on the content of printed materials, less attention has been paid to the book-historical properties of text and image through which knowledge of medicine circulated. This paper will address the composition, mediation, survival and transformation of written communication in print to present a new image of the
production, distribution and reception of early modern knowledge about Chinese medicine and pharmaceuticals.
17 March 2020
Presidential Address
MARGARET LANE FORD: Bookselling and bibliography. Despite their essentially ephemeral nature, catalogues of books for sale have played an important role in the history of bibliography, and it may be useful to look afresh at the influence commerce and scholarship exercised on each other, largely down to the end of the eighteenth century, through our modern lens of the archaeology of the book.
Presidential Address
MARGARET LANE FORD: Bookselling and bibliography. Despite their essentially ephemeral nature, catalogues of books for sale have played an important role in the history of bibliography, and it may be useful to look afresh at the influence commerce and scholarship exercised on each other, largely down to the end of the eighteenth century, through our modern lens of the archaeology of the book.
21 April 2020
Graham Pollard Memorial Lecture
DAVID SHAW: Paper for octavos: Innovation in early sixteenth-century book production. Medieval paper makers produced paper in four distinct sizes. Paul Needham has identified several variants used by fifteenth-century printers and another variant introduced by Aldus Manutius for his octavo classics. These paper sizes, new and old, continued in use in the sixteenth century.
Graham Pollard Memorial Lecture
DAVID SHAW: Paper for octavos: Innovation in early sixteenth-century book production. Medieval paper makers produced paper in four distinct sizes. Paul Needham has identified several variants used by fifteenth-century printers and another variant introduced by Aldus Manutius for his octavo classics. These paper sizes, new and old, continued in use in the sixteenth century.
19 May 2020
Homee and Phiroze Randeria Lecture
MIRJAM FOOT: New movements in French twentieth-century binding design: Marius Michel and what followed. In the first half of the twentieth century, a group of designers in France, initially encouraged by an enlightened patron and book collector, started to produce wonderfully varied, and often amazingly beautiful designs for bindings, applying to books and bindings the philosophy and artistic skills that had inspired their drawings, engravings or etchings, as well as their designs for furniture and ceramics. They chose the best forwarders and finishers to carry out their designs, producing the most stunning results. Their work was mostly, but not entirely, intended for discerning collectors. This talk will concentrate on this group of designers who worked mainly in Paris until c. 1960.
Homee and Phiroze Randeria Lecture
MIRJAM FOOT: New movements in French twentieth-century binding design: Marius Michel and what followed. In the first half of the twentieth century, a group of designers in France, initially encouraged by an enlightened patron and book collector, started to produce wonderfully varied, and often amazingly beautiful designs for bindings, applying to books and bindings the philosophy and artistic skills that had inspired their drawings, engravings or etchings, as well as their designs for furniture and ceramics. They chose the best forwarders and finishers to carry out their designs, producing the most stunning results. Their work was mostly, but not entirely, intended for discerning collectors. This talk will concentrate on this group of designers who worked mainly in Paris until c. 1960.
Summer visit: details will be announced in The Library for March 2020.