Conference “Incunabula in Greek libraries: Recording, documentation, historical context”
The Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation is organizing the conference “Incunabula in Greek libraries: Recording, documentation, historical context”, on Friday 17 and Saturday 18 March 2023 at the Historical Library of the Foundation, 36 2nd Merarchias & Aktis Moutsopoulou in Piraeus.
The theme of the conference is the incunabula of Greek libraries, printed books that reach our days from the dawn of printing in the 15th century. More than 500 copies are currently found in Greek libraries, public, municipal, university, monastic and private.
As a follow-up to the workshop organized by the Foundation in April 2019 on incunabula incunabula incunabula in 2019, the conference now focuses on library copies from the rest of the country, which were recorded by the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation team in the international database Material Evidence in Incunabula between 2019 and 2022. After 4 years of traveling, we will also be pleased to present the Foundation’s new website-application that gathers all data from libraries throughout Greece.
Our goal is for the conference to be an opportunity for scientists, researchers and professionals from the field of books and libraries, from Greece and abroad, to meet and dialogue on the occasion of the study of incunabula publications and especially their material testimonies. With this in mind, the conference program is developed around three main themes:
- Presentations of digital tools and databases that contribute to the study of incunabula and incunabula publications.
- Case studies of incunabula preserved today in Greek libraries, and their historical course. The section also includes examples of the prospects for the expansion of the program, both in Greece and in its neighboring countries.
- Lectures of wider historical interest on the occasion of the incunabula of Greek libraries: on the circulation and use of printed books (and especially incunabula books) in Greece, on the production of printed publications addressed either to Greek-speaking audiences or to scholars interested in Greek, on the existence of private and institutional libraries that included incunabula which are now lost.
The conference is framed by the exhibition “Greek literature in early typography”, with incunabula publications of Greek interest, as well as selected early Aristotelian publications. The copies come from the rich collection of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation (Bibliotheca Graeca Collection of S. Economopoulos, P. Laskaridis Collection). Visitors will have the opportunity to tour the exhibition during the breaks of the conference.
The exhibition will be inaugurated by H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, on Friday, March 17, the first day of the conference.
*During the conference there will be simultaneous translation from Greek to English and vice versa.