Early Books Lecture Series X

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Early Books Lecture Series X

Special Collections
March 26, 2013

Special Collections hosts the Early Books Lecture Series X, an annual lecture series where University of Arizona scholars explore the treasure trove of medieval texts held by the University Libraries. In this 10th year of the lecture series, professors of Classics, German Studies and Spanish and Portuguese will give their audiences new insights into centuries-old historic texts. The evening lectures are scheduled for the first three Tuesdays in April and will be held in Special Collections.

The schedule for the 10th year of the Early Books Lecture Series is:

  • April 2, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. “Golden Boughs: De luxe Early Virgil Manuscripts” with Cynthia White, Professor, UA Department of Classics. Special Collections houses two exceptional manuscript facsimiles of the works of Virgil, the ancient Roman poet who wrote the Bucolics, Georgics and Aeneid: the Vatican Virgil (Vat. lat. 3225), the oldest and one of the most glorious extant examples of an illustrated book of classical literature, and the Augustan Virgil (Vat. lat. 3256), of which only seven leaves survive. One other de luxe Virgil manuscript was also produced within decades of these two: the Roman Virgil (Vat. lat. 3867), which was designed on a grand scale for display. In discussing the “Golden Boughs” Professor White will share the early and lavish production of these three Virgil manuscripts as testimony to the classic universality of his poetry.
  • April 9, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. “The Golden Bull: Medieval Politics of the Highest Caliber in a Manuscript” with Albrecht Classen, Professor, UA Department of German Studies. In 1356 the German emperor and the prince electors all agreed on a new treatise that regulated the relationship between the head of the country and the princes in a new way, paving the way for the future territorialization of the Holy Roman Empire. This meant that Emperor Charles IV gained a number of privileges for his own policies, but he also abandoned thereby the traditional idea of a strongly centralized Empire. Special Collections houses a facsimile of that manuscript, produced for Charles’s son, Wenzeslas, today housed in the Austrian National Library Vienna, the famous Codex Vindobonensis 338 d. With this Golden Bull, however, Germany finally had an official document that regulated the election process of the German king, still far away from a democracy, but certainly comparable to some extent to the English Magna Carta. Here we also notice for the first time that the papal influence in the election of a German king/emperor was completely left out.
  • April 16, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m. “The Map of Cuauhtinchan No. 2: A Claim for Territorial Rights in 16th Century Mexico’s New World Order” with Jaime Fatás Cabeza, Director, Spanish Translation and Interpretation Program, UA Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Special Collections owns copies of a recent bilingual edition of Cave, City, and Eagle's Nest: An Interpretive Journey Through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 / Cueva, ciudad y nido de águila: Una travesía interpretativa por el Mapa de Cuauhtinchan núm. 2. This book, published by New Mexico University Press in association with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, represents the culmination of an international research project and series of conferences that focused on the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan. The Mapa is an extraordinary document created in central Mexico a few decades after the fall of the Aztecs in the 16th century. The Mapa recently underwent extensive physical analysis, conservation, and a systematic photographic survey. This visually arresting book includes 16 full-size sections, a nearly quarter-size facsimile of the Mapa, as well as over 700 images and symbols. The illustrations are accompanied by 15 essays by outstanding experts and scholars that interpret the Mapa’s complex making, purpose, and narrative. The Mapa tells the mythical story of the emergence of the ancestors of the Aztec Mexicas and other Nahuatl-speaking peoples from Chicomoztoc (Place of Seven Caves) and their migration to the sacred city of Cholula. The book has provided original and fascinating insights into the social and ritual memory of an indigenous community struggling to maintain itself in the turbulent atmosphere of early colonial Mexico. Professor Jaime Fatás Cabeza translated eight of the 15 essays in the book into Spanish. He will present this bilingual landmark and comment about his experience as a translator.

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