15th Century Books in Print, Rare Book School
By Kelsey Sorenson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The course I attended, 15th Century Books in Print and Manuscript, was held in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania’s campus with instructors Paul Needham and Will Noel. The week was spent learning about bibliographic details unique to incunables and late medieval manuscripts, from the watermarks of the paper and variations in type to collation and rubrication. The majority of our hands-on time was on the last day of the course, which was a great culmination of the week’s lessons. The book I had the opportunity to study that day was a 1495 copy of Auctoritates Aristotelis, which had a great example of blind type and beautifully labeled quires.