An eternal archive – Lyell Lectures 2017
- 18 May 2017, 5:00pm – 6:00pm
- Venue: Lecture Theatre, Weston Library, Oxford University
- Speaker(s): Professor Paul Nelles, Carleton University
Description
Successive sixteenth-century popes aspired to supply purified and corrected ecclesiastical texts to the far-flung corners of Christendom. This lecture explores the frequently tumultuous relationship between the Vatican Library and the Typographia Vaticana, the press established by Pope Sixtus V in 1587.
The Vatican Library and the Counter-Reformation
In the 2017 Lyell Lectures Paul Nelles enters the social and material world of the Vatican Library in the late sixteenth century. At the vanguard of the Counter-Reformation, the library gradually adapted to its new role as an instrument of papal policy and hub of ecclesiastical reform. The lectures locate the Vatican Library within a constellation of new state-sponsored collections in early modern Europe. Framed around the vibrant fresco cycles that graced the new library quarters constructed under Pope Sixtus V (1585-1590), the lectures visit specific episodes in sixteenth century cultural history to probe the dynamic of script and print within the space of the Vatican Library. Particular attention is given to the individuals, practices, and working tools that intersected with libraries in this period.
More details on the University of Oxford website.