Browse Exhibits (14 total)
REN442: The Renaissance Book (2023)
Anchor of Hope Printer’s Mark
When Johannes Gutenberg introduced his new invention, the printing press, in the 1450s, he could not have realized how much this new technology would transform Renaissance Europe. His new method of using moveable metal type to reproduce multiple copies of printed text from a single template, though mechanically simple by modern standards, revolutionized the way people in the Renaissance produced, read, and circulated books. The exhibits presented here explore the profound influence of print technology on three major cultural and intellectual movements in Renaissance history: humanism, religious reform, and the scientific revolution. The exhibit pages, each designed by a student of REN442, focus on rare books from the CRRS holdings as case studies demonstrating how the printed book both shaped and was shaped by the radically new ideas proliferating in the Renaissance.
VIC 442 - The Renaissance Book (2021)
When Johannes Gutenberg introduced his new invention, the printing press, in the 1450s, he could not have realized how much this new technology would reshape Renaissance Europe. His new method of using moveable metal type to reproduce multiple copies of printed text from a single template revolutionized the ways people in the Renaissance produced, read, and circulated books. The digital exhibits presented here explore the profound influence of this new print technology on three major cultural and intellectual movements in the Renaissance: humanism, religious reform, and the scientific revolution. The books presented here serve as case studies in the early history of the printed book, as it both shaped and was shaped by the radically new ideas proliferating in the Renaissance.
Flavius Josephus
This exhibit features Renaissance editions, particularly from the 16th century, of the works of the ancient Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, from the rare book collection of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. The editions examined are translations in Latin, French and Italian. The exhibit showcases the importance and popularity of Josephus' writings in this era, by describing the books and focusing on the handwritten notes and marginalia of the owners of these books.
Marginalia Profiles
Marginalia, the opaque and diverse practice of marking in books, is an interesting lens to consider the complex relationships between reader and text, reception and value, and use and re-use. The texts exhibited here all feature an uncommon form of marginalia: figure drawings. Some isolated, some part of scenes or full-body illustrations, the marginalia in these texts all illuminate the various ways that early modern readers depicted people. This exhibit endeavours to create some ‘profiles’ to feature some of this marginalia and draw out potential threads of how, why, or what exactly marginalia entails as well as broader visual trends. These texts offer a tantalizing look into a range of ways people throughout the centuries have used - not just read - texts now at the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies.
The Use and Re-Use of Music in Early Printed Books: Songscapes 2019
Early modern writers, like Montaigne, were self-consciously aware that their published works could one day become waste paper, re-purposed for any number of uses, such as wrapping food in the market. This exhibition, The Use and Re-Use of Music in Early Printed Books, looks at how sheet music has been repurposed as covers for early printed works as a convenient and cost-effective alternative to leather bindings.
Guides into Tongues: Multilingual Dictionaries and Grammars at CRRS
This exhibit traces the development of a bilingual and multilingual dictionary tradition from its roots in the early reference tradition of humanist scholarship to educational volumes where language itself was the object of curiosity. Along the way we will see the solidification of organizational and typographic conventions that link language reference books from the early modern period to those that we use in language classrooms today. The volumes showcased here are only a small selection of CRRS's rich holdings in this area, and have been selected to be both visually and historically interesting.
The Renaissance in Print: VIC 449 Course Exhibit 2017
When Johannes Gutenberg introduced his new invention, the printing press, in the 1450s, he could not have realized how much this new technology would transform Renaissance Europe. His new method of using moveable metal type to reproduce multiple copies of printed text from a single template, though mechanically simple by modern standards, revolutionized the way people in the Renaissance produced, read, and circulated books. The exhibits presented here explore the profound influence of print technology on three major cultural and intellectual movements in Renaissance history: humanism, religious reform, and the scientific revolution. Each exhibit page focuses on rare books from the CRRS holdings as case studies demonstrating how the printed book both shaped and was shaped by the radically new ideas proliferating in the Renaissance.
Illustrating the Reformation
Although the Reformation is often associated with iconoclasm—and some Reformers indeed did criticize, censor, and destroy Catholic art—there was no unified response to art, or even the unified movement that the singular term “Reformation” suggests of the religious changes that spanned the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The then-still-recent invention of moveable type resulted in a proliferation of books that promoted or endorsed religious change. Many of these “reformation” texts, in fact, were decorated and included images. This exhibit illustrates some of the different ways in which both Catholic and Protestant books employed images, ornaments, and decoration to complement text.
L'Homme Rouge: Cardinal Richelieu and the Control of Print Culture in France during the Ancien Régime
This exhibition displays a selection of French-language printed books from the rare book collection of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. The books range in publication dates from 1551 at the earliest to 1660 at the latest, and represent the period in France known as the Ancien Régime, or the period between the fifteenth and late eighteenth centuries before the French Revolution. These texts were chosen because they highlight the chief methods with which the French monarchy and government, particularly the Parlement of Paris, exercised control over the print culture of France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Spiritus Vitalis: Melancholy and Humoural Science in the Early Modern Period
On display in this exhibit is a selection of printed books from the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Centre’s rare book collection, related to melancholy and humoural science in the early modern period. They were published loosely over the course of a century considered the midpoint of the early modern period, from around 1530 at the earliest to 1670 at the latest. Together, the books were chosen to offer a broad overview of one of the most pressing social concerns in Europe during the time period – the notion of humoural balance, and in particular the concept of melancholy.
Editions of Erasmus's Adagia
This exhibit highlights a selection of the many editions of the Adagia (Adages) by Erasmus Desiderius that are housed in the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies' (CRRS) collection. Erasmus Desiderius of Rotterdam was a Dutch Humanist and an important figure both for the humanist Reniassance and for the Protestant and Counter-Catholic Reformation periods during the sixteenth century.
Plutarch
This exhibit features works from the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies’ collection written by Plutarch, the Greek philosopher and biographer. Plutarch is most famously known for the Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, commonly called Parallel Lives or Plutarch's Lives. The works selected for this exhibit range in dates published (from 1537 to 1619) and in languages (French, Italian, and Latin).
Undergraduate Corbet Assistant Rare Book Presentations
At the close of the academic year, each Corbet Assistant presents their research on an item from the Centre's rare book collection. This exhibit showcases the most recent (2014-2016) presentations and research by our Corbet Assistants.
Inquirere: Early Natural History Books at the CRRS
On display in this exhibit is a selection of printed books from the CRRS’s collection that relate to the development of early natural history. They have been chosen primarily for their age (they were printed between the years 1500 and 1675 CE), the quality of the images they contain, the importance of each author to natural historians of the time, and to demonstrate the community that arose around this field of study.