Global Humanities

The course will start on 5 March 2025. HOW: in person (unless stated otherwise) WHERE: t.b.c. Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, città universitaria WHEN: Wednesday 12.00-14.00; Thursday 14.00-16.00; Friday 12.00-14.00 WHAT: Full programme: Wedn 5 March (session 1) Books in the Ancient and Medieval World, from tablets and rolls to the codex. The transmission of knowledge, from manuscript to print, Part 1 (C. Dondi) Thu 6 March (session 2) Books in the Ancient and Medieval World, from tablets and rolls to the codex. The transmission of knowledge, from manuscript to print, Part 2 (C. Dondi) Fri 7 March (session 3) The European Printing Revolution: 1450-1500 (C. Dondi) Wedn 12 March (session 4) Digital resources for the study of the book (C. Dondi) Thu 13 March (session 5) Illustrated Copy Census: Dante (C. Dondi) Fri 14 March (session 6) Illustration (Dr Matilde Malaspina) Wedn 19 March (session 7) Book trade, Book ownership and the Cost of books (C. Dondi) Thu 20 March (session 8) Rome, Biblioteca Alessandrina The material aspects of early printed books (C. Dondi) Fri 21 March (session 9) Printing in non-Latin alphabets in Europe: Printing in Greek (including Karamanlides) and printing in the Ottoman Empire (Dr Geri Della Rocca de Candal, Milan) Wedn 26 March (session 10) Printing in non-Latin alphabets in Europe: Printing in Hebrew (Dr Marco Bertagna, 15cHEBRAICA Project) Thu 27 March (session 11) Printing in non-Latin alphabets in Europe: Printing in Armenian (C. Dondi) Friday 28 March (session 12) Printing in non-Latin alphabets in Europe: Printing in Rome for the world, 16-18 centuries / Printing in Ge’ez (C. Dondi) Wedn. 2 Apr. (session 13) [remote] Printing in non-Latin alphabets in Europe: Glagolitic, Cyrillic (Dr Olga Tkachuk, Special collections librarian in the Early Printed Books Department, the Ossoliński National Institute in Wrocław, Poland; former Head of the Manuscripts and Early Printed Books Department at the National Museum in Lviv, Ukraine) Thu 3 Apr. (session 14) [remote] Printing in East Asia (Dr Alessandro Bianchi, Cambridge UL, Head of World Collections) Friday 4 Apr. (session 15) [remote] The migration of cultural heritage at times of political change: spoils of war and secularizations. Book destruction/survival and the dispersal and reconstruction of libraries (C. Dondi) [ 9-10-11 / 16 NO LESSONS; 17-18 EASTER BREAK; 23-24 Apr. NO LESSON ] Wedn 30 April (session 16) Presentation of research work (the introduction of printing in your own country / city) Thu 1 May - holiday Fri 2 May (session 17) Printing in non-Latin alphabets in Europe: Arabic (C. Dondi) Wedn 7 May (session 18) Orientalism and provenance research (C. Dondi) Thu 8 May (session 19) trip t.b.c. Tipoteca Italiana, Cornuda Fri 9 May (session 20) trip t.b.c. Venice Wedn 14 May (session 21) Visit to another Rome library Thu 15 May (session 22) t.b.c. Aldus Manutius (Neil Harris) Fri 16 May (session 23) trip t.b.c. Fabriano Papermill Wedn 21 May (session 24) Methods of research: guest lecture t.b.c. Thu 22 May (session 25) [remote] Printing and the book trade in Latin and North America (Dr Manuel Suárez Rivera, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas) Colonial typography for indigenous languages (Dr Marina Garone Gravier, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas) Fri 23 May (session 26) Methods of Research: The library of Hernando Colón and his library catalogues (Matilde Malaspina) Wedn 28 May (session 27) Methods of research: guest lecture t.b.c. Thu 29 May (session 28) Methods of research: guest lecture t.b.c. Fri 30 May (session 29) The work of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library in Africa. The big questions: What is the history of the book? (C. Dondi)

Knowledge of the English language

The essays will be provided at the end of each lecture, via Classroom.

The regular attendance of lectures and active participation will positively contribute to the evaluation.

ASSESSMENT: At the end of the course, students will be interviewed orally, to evaluate their level of understanding of the main historical aspects of book production, distribution, and use, and the appropriate methodological approaches. Students are expected to demonstrate that they have acquired a vocabulary appropriate for the discipline.

MANDATORY: -C. Dondi, The European Printing Revolution, in The Oxford Companion to the Book, ed. M.F. Suarez and H.R. Woudhuysen, 2 vols, Oxford, OUP, 2010, pp. I 53-61; reprinted in The Book. A Global History, ed. Michael F. Suarez and Henry Woudhuysen (Oxford, 2013), pp. 80-91. -C. Dondi, ‘Introduction. The 15cBOOKTRADE and the Study of Incunabula as Historical Sources’, in Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed Europe, ed. C. Dondi, Studi di Storia 13 (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020), 21-54 DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-332-8 -Paul Needham, review of E. L. Eisenstein, The printing press as an agent of change, 2 vols (1979), in Fine Print, 6 (1980), 23-25, 32-35. -Cristina Dondi, ‘From the Corpus iuris to ‘psalterioli da puti’, on parchment, bound, gilt... The price of any book sold in Venice 1484-1488’, in Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed Europe, ed. C. Dondi, Studi di Storia 13 (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020), pp. 577-599. DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-332-8 -C.Dondi, D. Raines and R. Sharpe, ‘Introduction’, in 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), 11-17 -Cristina Dondi, ‘The History of the Book and Libraries: Theories and Practices’, History of Humanities: Unfolding disciplines in the history of the humanities, ed. Rens Bod, Julia Kursell, Jaap Maat, Thijs Weststeijn, vol. 8, number 1, Spring 2023 (University of Chicago), 3-30 NON MANDATORY: [social network of printers in Venice] C. Dondi, ‘Printers, Traders, and their Confraternites in Fifteenth-century Venice’, in Urban Networks and the Printing Trade in Early Modern Europe (15th - 18th century). Papers presented on 6 November 2009, at the CERL Seminar hosted by the Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, ed. Renaud Adam, Ann Kelders, Claude Sorgeloos, and David Shaw, Cerl Papers X (London, 2010), pp. 97-108 [decoration and its cost] Lilian Armstrong, ‘The decoration and illustration of Venetian incunabula. From hand illumination to the design of woodcuts’, in Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed Europe, ed. C. Dondi, Studi di Storia 13 (Venice: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2020), 775-818 DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-332-8 [provided session 5; the version online has all photographs in colour] https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/media/pdf/books/978-88-6969-333-5/978-88-6969-333-5-ch-28_Vg2U8RR.pdf ANNA MELOGRANI, The Illuminated Manuscript as a Commodity: Production, Consumption and the Cartolaio’s Role in Fifteenth-Century Italy, in: The Material Renaissance, a cura di M. O’Malley and Evelyn Welch, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2007, pp. 197-221 ANNA MELOGRANI, Manuscript Materials: Cost and the Market for Parchment in Renaissance Italy, in: Trade in Artists’ Materials: Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700 (Londra, National Gallery e Courtauld Institute of Art: 11-12 febbraio 2005), edited by Jo Kirby, Susie Nash and Joanna Cannon, London, Archetype Publications, 2010, pp. 199-219 [Hebraica] Bertagna M., Not Wanderers but Faithful Companions. A Brief Overview on the Hebrew Incunabula Held in Italian Libraries, in Printing R-Evolution and Society 1450-1500. Fifty Years that Changed Europe, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, Venice 2020, pp. 299-319 [provided – session 16] URL: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-332-8/008 https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-333-5/8-not-wanderers-but-faithful-companions/ [Books in the Ottoman Empire] Della Rocca de Candal, Geri «The circulation of printed books among cultural minorities in the Ottoman Empire (1450-1600): an Overview», in F. Bistagne, J. Ferrer Bartolomeu, R. Mouren (eds.), Minorités, migrations, mondialisation en Méditerranée XIVe-XVIe siècles, Paris, Garnier, 2022, 1-19. [provided in classroom – session 14] [Rome and Oriental studies] Federico Stella, ‘Introduction’, in The Qur’an in Rome. Manuscripts, Translations, and the Study of Islam in Early Modern Catholicism, ed. Federico Stella and Roberto Tottoli (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyer, 2024), 1-26. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111096926/html#contents [Preservation of book heritage: working with material at risk] National Endowment of the Humanities Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities 9 Nov. 2019 by Fr. Columba Stewart (HMML) [1:04:43] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-kcZ50nn5M

COURSE STRUCTURE: The course consists of a core number of lectures on the socio-economic impact of the European Printing Revolution given by Prof. Dondi, set in a global context by a number of specialist lectures, part in presence, part remotely, given by invited speakers from the Universities of Mexico City, Wrocław, Cambridge, and other specialist scholars. The course also includes visits to libraries in Rome and hand-printing at the Tipoteca Italiana of Cornuda. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Essays, in English and open access, and links to websites and databases will be provided at the end of each lecture, via Classroom. The same will also be provided in a single bibliography file at the end of the course.