28-30 June 2012

The Early Modern Book world was characterised by great variety, but also by fierce competition.  Many printers and publishers responded by developing a highly specialised output, utilising skills and expertise that gave them a vital commercial edge, and deterred potential rivals.  Books that required specialised typefaces (music and Greek texts) were inevitably the preserve of a small number of firms; but others took advantage of the sophisticated European distribution network to develop an international reputation for specific genres.  The production of Books of Hours was dominated by a few Parisian firms; in 1541 Georg Joachim Rheticus would carry the precious manuscript of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus 1,000 kilometres across Europe to find a printing centre (Nuremberg) capable of doing it justice.  But much less well capitalised firms could also find their niche in the new genres that underpinned the market: almanacs, calendars and news.

Speakers at the conference include: Zsuzsa Barbarics-Hermanik, Natasha Constantinidou, Iain Fenlon, Neil Harris, Richard Kirwan, Isabella Matauschek, Rémi Mathis, David McKitterick, Roger Paas, Massimo Petta, Pedro Rueda Ramirez, Ursula Rautenberg, Lluís Agustí Ruiz, Paul Shore, Bjørn Skaarup and Francisco António Lourenço Vaz.

Conference registration is now open. Please click here to enter your registration details.

For further information on the conference, please contact the conference organisers: Richard Kirwan (rk22@st-andrews.ac.uk), or Sophie Mullins (sam223@st-andrews.ac.uk)