The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Manuscript lovers from several countries gathered on campus recently for the annual Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies. The conference, which celebrated its 32nd anniversary this year, took place on Oct. 14 and 15 in the Vatican microfilm archive of Pius Library.

"This conference is especially important because it's the only one in the United States that's totally dedicated to manuscript studies," said Susan L'Engle, assistant librarian.

"Manuscripts are our literary and intellectual heritage; they tell us about past cultures, the history of ideas, the history of writing, of language, of book production, of information and of communication, as well as about all different subjects. What we know about these early writings can be applied to the ones we have today," L'Engle said.

Scholars from Austria, Belgium, Italy, the Czech Republic and Australia, as well as from around America, came to deliver and hear papers.

Albert Derolez, emeritus professor at the Free Universities of Brussels, gave the keynote Lowrie J. Daly, S.J., Lecture on Manuscript Studies. Derolez is also the former curator of manuscripts and rare books at the library of the State University of Ghent in the Netherlands.

"He's internationally renowned, and he's the only one working on his particular topic right now," L'Engle said.

Titled "The Codicology of Italian Manuscripts: Twenty Years Later," Derolez's speech updated findings he printed in a 1985 book on the same topic.

Codicology is the study of "the physical aspects of a manuscript: the preparation for writing, the writing itself, the processing of the pages, the way the books are put together- Many of the techniques are particular to certain places and time periods, so knowing these things can help scholars place a date on a manuscript," L'Engle said.

The conference also discussed paleography (the reading, interpreting and understanding of manuscripts) and illumination (the illustrations that were often made in the margins). Manuscript scholars study these things to better understand the text, context and history of older pieces of writing.

The conference featured sessions on the use of icons, music manuscripts, codicology, near-Eastern manuscripts, medieval liturgy and 14th-century and Bohemian styles of illumination.

Traditionally, papers at the conference may cover any area of medieval and Renaissance manuscript studies. The conference is put on every year in conjunction with Manuscripta, SLU's manuscript studies journal.

"The conference is free to students. This is a chance for students to learn something they can't learn at other universities, to get information and to meet people from all over - It's just getting better and better. We'll certainly continue this tradition as long as we can do it," L'Engle said.

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