Monday 17 February - Friday 14 March 2003
The exhibition is held on the occasion of the Second Conference of European Manuscript Curators.
What do we understand by the term ‘manuscripts’? Before the invention of printing (about 1450) books were made entirely by hand: the text was written by hand, illustrations were put in one by one and the binding too was made by hand. These handmade books are designated by the term “manuscripts’. Only at a later stage was the production process of the book mechanized: first, printing on a printing press, then the inclusion of woodcuts and engravings and finally, the manufacture of a binding was also done mechanically. But even in the period of the printed book ‘manuscripts’ continued to be made. This often involved texts which printers did not consider interesting enough to put on the market, as a result of which an amateur who was interested in a particular text had to copy it himself of have it copied; this was common practice until the advent of the xerox machine in the 20th century.
In addition there are private books, such as the alba amicorum (friendship books, a category of which the albums of verses are the modern form). Furthermore, pieces of music, drawings of e.g. people, animals and plants are essentially made by hand. Letters by scholars, artists, politicians and the like, and written or typed manuscripts (draft versions and corrected intermediate stages) by poets and prose writers constitute a separate category. All these items are also encompassed by the term ‘manuscripts’.
The Amsterdam University Library holds extensive and rich collections of these various categories of manuscripts, from which a selection has been made for the exhibition. Not only did the contents of these manuscripts play a part in the selection of the exhibits, but their visual aspect in particular was also considered: after all, a visit to an exhibition is primarily a viewing experience, not a reading exercise.
The display includes a Carolingian manuscript (i.e. from the time of Charlemagne † 814), medieval books with fine miniatures, collections of watercolours depicting plants in the Hortus Botanicus of Amsterdam of about 1700, a score of Beethoven’s Sonata for cello and pianoforte (including the composer’s autograph corrections), anatomical drawings by the famous 18th-century physician Petrus Camper.
But there is also more contemporary material, such as the designs for the Lexicon, the type designed by Bram de Does (now used in the evening daily NRC Handelsblad). Some of these manuscripts are written with the goose quill, some are made with the pen and others again are made with a brush: Written, drawn and painted.
