Professor Leitch Conducts Manuscript Research in European Libraries

Associate Professor Stephanie Leitch recently visited the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow and the University Library in Erlangen to research two closely related manuscripts. Both of these codices present encyclopedic knowledge as early moderns knew it from printed books. While manuscript culture is widely believed to have gone underground after printed books began to proliferate, traces of prints in these manuscripts provide some essential clues about how manuscripts hybridized under the weight of new technological platforms.

Professor Leitch will share her research with Dr. Kyle Killian’s ARH 2000 course, to show how the study of manuscripts can shed light on the transition of written culture to print technology. This research is part of Leitch’s book project, which explores how printed illustration coached and shaped early modern visual decision making, tentatively titled Vernacular Viewing: the Art of Observation in the Early Modern Print.