Meetings will be held at the Society of Antiquaries, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BE, beginning at 5.30 p.m.
Tea will be served at 5.00 p.m. Members are welcome to bring guests, both to meetings and to the tea beforehand.
15 October 2013
The Annual General Meeting will take place at the Foundling Museum, 40 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AZ, at 5.00 p.m. The AGM will not be preceded by tea, but refreshments will be served after the meeting.At the close of business, Katharine Hogg, Librarian of the Gerald Coke Handel Collection, will introduce the collections and museum and show some highlights.
19 November 2013
CRISTINA DONDI and NEIL HARRIS: “Francesco de Madiis, bookseller in Venice, 1484-88”
The speakers are preparing an edition and commentary of this sales ledger, which offers a fly-on-the-wall view of the prices and purchases in a fifteenth-century Venetian bookshop.
17 December 2013
JESSICA BERENBEIM: “Codicology and Single Sheets”
An investigation applying codicological methods to the study of single-sheet legal documents of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, resulting in new conclusions about the production of books.
21 January 2014
ALIXE BOVEY: “From St Bartholomew’s to the Old Royal Library: The Smithfield Decretals as a Law Book”
The Smithfield Decretal, a French manuscript, is well known for the extraordinary programme of illumination added to its margins in London in the 1340s. This paper focuses on the relationship of the texts to the strikingly heterogeneous imagery and the role the textual content played in its appropriation into the library of Henry VIII.
18 February 2014
JOHN MILSOM and JESSIE ANN OWENS: “From concept to printed book: the genesis and manufacture of Thomas Morley’s 1597 music treatise”
An analysis of the function, design and printing history of this important Elizabethan primer printed by Peter Short, which features a complex mise-en-page made up of dialogue, diagrams, music notation and marginalia.
18 March 2014
Presidential Address
CHRISTINE FERDINAND: “Booksellers after Bankruptcy: Strategies for Recovery”
Eighteenth-century English bankrupts were allowed to resume their activities, after coming to terms with their creditors. This paper looks at how booksellers and printers adjusted their careers after financial failure.
15 April 2014
Graham Pollard Memorial Lecture
CHARLES SEBAG-MONTEFIORE: “Robert Stayner Holford (1808-92): A Great Victorian Collector Re-discovered”
Holford, who inherited a fortune in 1838, was a connoisseur of fine and applied art, superb books and manuscripts, and trees and shrubs. He built Dorchester House in Park Lane and Westonbirt in Gloucestershire, where he established an arboretum.
20 May 2014
Homee and Phiroze Randeria Lecture
MARIE-LUISA LOPEZ-VIDRIERO: “Bindings for a dream: The creation of a semiotic for the King’s books”
A binding programme for Alfonso XIII of Spain (1886-1941) was an integral part of a national project to herald the legitimacy of the re-established monarchy. By drawing on historical styles and sources, a modern national style was created for the Royal Library. At the meeting the Society’s Gold Medal will be presented to Prof. Mirjam Foot.