A Lectura Dantis (‘reading of Dante’) is a public reading and explanation of all 100 cantos of Dante’s Divine Comedy canto by canto. The tradition of the lectura dantis goes back to Boccaccio’s series of public…
While preparing material for an upcoming session of the Honours course “Print Culture in Britain, 1750-1900”, taught by Aileen Fyfe, our Rare Books Librarian, Elizabeth Henderson, pulled out a copy of this beautifully…
Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s copy of the 1571 edition of Matthew Paris’s Flores historiarum Sir D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948) was a fixture of St Andrews in the later years of his life, after he relocated…
On Monday, 26 September 2011, the Main Library reopened its doors after being closed for refurbishment over the summer. This summer’s work (documented on the Library’s redevelopment blog) was the first of a two-phase…
John Duns Scotus’s Quaestiones in quatuor libros Sententiarum, printed by and bound for Anton Koberger Although small, St Andrews’ incunabula collection has a wealth of contemporary bindings. Because the majority of…
16th century half-binding, with pen- and ink-drawing of Saint Veronica This week’s volume is a testament to how durable some of our historic bindings are. TypGC.B21HL is the 1521 Cologne printing of Jacques Lefèvre…
Fragment of a 14th century Gospel manuscript found in 16th century German binding As I was searching through the stacks at our new storage facility I came across a beautifully tooled spine that I just had to pull off…
Francis Hutcheson presentation copies of Foulis Press works In 1746, the moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson was given an honorary LL.D. by the University of St Andrews. Hutcheson was elected to the Chair of Moral…
Two early 17th century Edinburgh bindings, possibly the work of Andro Hart and his Heirs Andro Hart (d. 1621) is best known for being the most successful and important Scottish book merchant and book importer before…
Rare 17th century deerskin binding Of all the different types of leathers used to bind books after the medieval period, deerskin is one of the most uncommon. Deerskin is quite often found on medieval books, as well as…