Tuesday, November 1, 2022 at 6:00 PM
Marsh Room, Billings Library
48 University Place
University of Vermont
In the first few decades after Gutenberg’s remarkable Bible came off the press (ca. 1455) printers experimented with a variety of techniques, materials, and processes to produce books that would appeal to potential readers. Many failed. Those who succeeded, unfortunately, left few records of their processes, business dealings or book sales. Bibliographers who study these early books (often called incunabula or “incunables”) pay close attention to the evidence within the books themselves—ink, type, and paper—to answer questions about book production, and ultimately to shed light on the transmission of knowledge in early modern Europe. Two bibliographers, graduate student Elena Fogolin and UVM Library Professor Jeffrey Marshall, will share some of the discoveries that each has made in their ongoing work with incunables.
Elena Fogolin is a PhD candidate in a joint program at the University of Udine (Trieste, Italy) and Johannes Gutenberg University (Mainz, Germany), where she is studying early printers, printing techniques, and book circulation in Rome. Jeffrey D. Marshall is the Rare Book Librarian and former director of the Silver Special Collections Library at the University of Vermont. His current work with incunables focuses on printing defects in UVM’s copy of a Bible printed by Nicolaus Götz ca. 1478 in Cologne.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Silver Special Collections at uvmsc.uvm.edu or 802-656-2138.