Browse Exhibits (2 total)

Highlights from Bridwell Library Special Collections: Theology and Church History

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Originally exhibited June 7–July 30, 2010
The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Galleries

Introduction

This exhibition comprises a selection of highlights from Bridwell Library Special Collections. Representing various strengths of the library’s rare book collections, the materials document the role of books in religious practice in selected eras and locales. These materials reflect the uncommonly strong foundation for teaching and advanced research that Bridwell Library provides for students and faculty of Perkins School of Theology and Southern Methodist University as well as the broader community.

Works of the great theologians and ecclesiastical authorities of the Christian tradition are strongly represented at Bridwell Library. Books and manuscripts representing the breadth of these holdings include essential works by St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Thomas Aquinas, and a variety of documents concerning Christian instruction, canon law, hagiography, and church administration. In addition to books, this section includes an original manuscript papal bull and a unique copy of an early printed indulgence.

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Inscribed Illuminations and Inspirations: Manuscripts at Bridwell Library

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Originally exhibited August 8, 2016 – December 16, 2016
The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Galleries

Introduction

Surveying the wide range of manuscripts in Bridwell Library Special Collections representing the Christian, Judaic, and Islamic traditions, this exhibition includes items produced between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries in numerous locations throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The array of texts, languages, letterforms, illuminations, and illustrations provides evidence of both known and unrecorded scribes, artists, readers, and owners as well as insights into the cultural, historical, bibliographical, and aesthetic contexts in which these manuscripts were created.

These works both complement and supplement printed holdings in significant collecting areas for Bridwell Library including scripture and worship, devotion, theology and church history, and religious instruction and study.  Focusing on these genres, Bridwell Library continues to build a diverse and instructive collection of manuscripts, many of which demonstrate how handwritten books and documents remained essential facets of religious and intellectual life following the introduction of printing in Europe in the mid-fifteenth century.

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