This intriguing book by Professor Brendan Dooley will be launched in Marsh’s on Friday, 18th November 2016, at 4.30 p.m. The event is by invitation only: if you would like to attend, or need more information, please contact Professor Dooley.
Angelica’s Book and the World of Reading in Late Renaissance Italy investigates reading and the history of women’s lives and culture in early-modern Italy.
The story of the book starts in Florence. Inside a badly damaged copy of a 16th-century book bought in an antique shop there in 2010, an inscription was found which attributed ownership to a certain Angelica Baldachini. The discovery set in motion a series of inquiries using calligraphy, orthography, linguistics, dialectology and the history of reading to reveal the person behind the name.
The intertwined stories of the book and its owner are set against the backdrop of a Renaissance world in which literature and reading were subject to regimes of control. Angelica’s Book sheds exciting new light on women’s involvement with the worlds of reading, books and knowledge. It also reflects upon accidental discoveries, the nature of evidence, and the mission of the humanities in a time of global crisis.