Op vrijdag 16 februari wordt het boek "Woodcuts as Reading Guides: How Images Shaped Knowledge Transmission in Medical-Astrological Books in Dutch (1500-1550)", geschreven door Andrea van Leerdam, bij de KB gepresenteerd. De presentatie is gratis en voor iedereen toegankelijk. Wel is het nodig om te reserveren.
The Yearbook for Dutch Book History publishes Open Access articles in the Dutch and English language on all aspects of the book history of the Low Countries. For the 32nd edition of 2025, they particularly welcome contributions within the theme of “Books across borders.”
The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) invites applications for a postdoctoral Researcher (0.8 fte for 3 years) in the ERC Starting Grant project ‘Pages of Prayer: The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380-1550’ (PRAYER). Candidates are invited to apply by February 29.
On January 17th, Frits Scholten (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam) will give a lecture titled: "Private Devotion & Immersive Play - The Use of 'Spiritual Toys' in the Late Middle Ages." The lecture is part of a Lorentz Center workshop on 'Religious Imagination in the Late Medieval Low Countries' and can also be followed online.
From 5 to 15 April 2024, a course on graffiti in Italy between the seventh and sixteenth centuries will take place at the Dutch Royal Institute in Rome (KNIR). Applicants are encouraged to apply before February 4, 2024.
We received the sad news that Janet van der Meulen passed away on November 29. She was an expert on French and Dutch literature in the medieval Low Countries. An in memoriam (in Dutch) has been published on the website of Neerlandistiek.
The Huizinga Institute research network “Archives of Power/The Power of Archives” will offer an interdisciplinary summer school on the various and complex origin stories of archives. The summer school will take place at the University of Amsterdam from 18 to 20 June 2024.
On 30 November the website Pas d'Armes was launched. The website, aimed at students and a more general audience, offers a gateway into the world of the pas d’armes (English: passage of arms). This was a highly ritualised form of tournament, that was very popular in Anjou, the Burgundian lands, France, Iberia, and Savoy, even reaching as far as Scotland, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries saw the rise of a lively market for practical and instructive books that targeted non-specialist readers. This study shows how woodcuts in vernacular books on medicine and astrology fulfilled important rhetorical functions in knowledge communication. These images guided readers’ perceptions of the organisation, visualisation, and reliability of knowledge. Andrea van Leerdam uncovers the assumptions and intentions of book producers to which images testify, and shows how actual readers engaged with these illustrated books. Drawing on insights from the field of information design studies, she scrutinises the books’ material characteristics, including their lay-outs and traces of use, to shed light on the habits and interests of early modern readers. She situates these works in a culture where medicine and astrology were closely interwoven in daily life and where both book producers and readers were exploring the potential of images.
On Friday, January 12, 2024, at 4:15 PM, Mariken Teeuwen, endowed professor at Leiden University, will assume the professorship with an inaugural lecture, titled "Perkamenten personen. De stratigrafie van het middeleeuwse boek." Interested individuals can register via the link below.