CALL FOR PAPERS: Owning Books in the Renaissance: Illumination, Handwriting, and Layout, to be published in Kunsttexte.de, the E-Journal für Kunst- und Bildgeschichte.
Collecting books had many facets in the Renaissance: paintings, sculpture, gems and antiques were just a few ways of expressing one’s dedication. Books were collected by different social groups, by the humanists for their private studies, by personalities from society, politics or wealthy merchants, to gain some education or to show off their – sometimes pretended – erudition. But private collecting could also be part of a dedication to rare texts, foreign languages or precious manuscript illumination.
Collecting books, of course, could mean both, manuscripts as well as printed works, but often the motivation for each was different. Manuscripts are unique by nature. In their simpler version they were either copied from humanists for humanists or in their more precious version they were produced by a workshop which produced illuminated manuscripts for a knowledgeable clientele. Also early printed books could be richly illuminated or in less expensive volumes they had at least an illuminated initial. Comparing manuscripts and early printed books, they at first had a similar layout, but then they developed characteristic differences.
This call for papers is looking for contributions dedicated to the relationship of text, image and layout or with single aspects of this. Also contributions on the presentation of different categories of literature are welcome, like study texts, poetry or commentaries.
Contributions should be ten to twenty pages long and may obviously contain images and graphics.
Deadline for abstracts is: 30 November 2013 (and for final papers 1 May 2014).
Contacts: Dr. Angela Dreßen and Dr. Susanne Gramatzki.