Professor Richard Gameson (University of Durham): “The Image of the Medieval Library” As part of the University of St Andrews’ 600th anniversary celebrations, the University Library will offer a series of public…
A gorgeous issue of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King illustrated by Gustave Doré While I was searching through the stacks last week, hot on the case of Albert Robida, I stumbled upon this beautiful, and…
A new book on the history of the University of St Andrews has just been released. Launched on 28 September, Ever to Excel: An lllustrated History of the University of St Andrews has been published as a collaborative…
Three 16th century portrait bindings This week’s post highlights the bindings of three 16th century books, two printed in Basel and the other printed in Leipzig. All three of these books share similar features of a…
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…