Browse Exhibits (2 total)

Books in the Jewish Tradition

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Originally exhibited September 4–December 7, 2012
Entry Hall

Introduction

This exhibition highlights the printed book as an expression of Jewish religious traditions. Selected from Bridwell Library’s Special Collections, these ten books shed light on the experiences of people in past centuries who wished to make books central to their faith, but had to overcome opposition from many quarters. Facing intolerance and persecution across most of Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Jewish publishers and their readers persevered wherever they could, eventually finding relatively safe havens in seventeenth-century Amsterdam and nineteenth-century America.

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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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