The History of European Bookbinding 1450-1830 and Identifying and 
recording bookbinding structures for conservation and cataloguing.

Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e Postbizantini di Venezia, Venice 
(Italy)

19-23 and 26-30 September 2011

The 6th Ligatus Summer School, following the success of the courses in 
Volos, Patmos, Thessaloniki and Wolfenbüttel, is to be held this year in 
collaboration with the Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e 
Postbizantini di Venezia. We are delighted to announce the summer school 
in the historic city of Venice and particularly in the Istituto 
Ellenico, which has a distinguished reputation in the field of book 
studies. This year students will have the opportunity to see bindings 
from historic collections in the city, including the Biblioteca 
Marciana. With access to a range of important libraries and the unique 
environment that the city offers, this year's summer school will be a 
unique experience.
http://www.ligatus.org.uk/summerschool

Summer school context:
The contribution that bindings can make to our understanding of the 
history and culture of the book is often neglected, but they can offer 
insights into the study of readership, the booktrade, and the provenance 
of books which are often not available elsewhere. In order to realise 
this potential, it is important to understand not only the history of 
the craft but also to learn how to record what is seen in a consistent 
and organised way. Librarians, cataloguers, conservators, book 
historians and all scholars who work with early books, need therefore to 
understand the structure and materials of the bindings they encounter in 
order to be able to record and describe them. Such descriptions of 
bindings are not only valuable for the management of library 
collections, pursuing academic research and making informed decisions 
about conservation, but are also important for digitisation projects as 
they can radically enrich the potential of image and text metadata. It 
is our belief that bindings should be seen as an integral part of the 
book, without which, our understanding of the history and use of books 
is often greatly circumscribed.
The purpose of the summer school is to uncover the possibilities latent 
in the detailed study of bookbinding and it mainly focuses on books 
which have been bound between the fifteenth and the early nineteenth 
century. While both courses concentrate in particular on the structure 
and materials of bookbindings, each of the two courses offered in this 
summer school looks at bindings from different geographical areas and 
with a different approach. The first course looks at the history of 
bookbinding as it was carried out in Europe in the period of the hand 
press (1450-1830), with the opportunity to look at examples from 
different collections during the afternoons, while the second course 
looks at the development of bookbinding in the eastern Mediterranean and 
gives hands-on training in how to observe and record bindings, again 
working with examples from the collections. Part of this course includes 
technical hands-on session for the development of a digital 
documentation system for recording bookbindings.
The courses are taught in English and each is open to 12 participants. 
Although the courses can be attended individually, participants are 
encouraged to attend both courses in order to get a more complete 
understanding of the issues discussed, through the comparison of the 
wide range of bookbindings considered in each week. Since these are not 
beginner-level courses, the participants are expected to be familiar 
with bookbinding terminology and have a basic knowledge of the history 
of book production in the periods under discussion. A basic 
understanding of the use of databases is also desirable for those who 
will attend the course in the second week.

Description of courses:

Week 1, European Bookbinding 1450-1830
Tutor: Professor N. Pickwoad
This course will follow European bookbinding from the end of the Middle 
Ages to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, using the bindings 
themselves to illustrate the aims and intentions of the binding trade. A 
large part of the course will be devoted to the identification of both 
broad and detailed distinctions within the larger groups of plain 
commercial bindings and the possibilities of identifying the work of 
different countries, cities, even workshops without reference to 
finishing tools. The identification and significance of the different 
materials used in bookbinding will be examined, as well as the 
classification of bookbindings by structural type, and how these types 
developed through the three centuries covered by the course. The 
development of binding decoration will be touched on, but will not form 
a major part of the discussion.
The course consists of ten 90-minute sessions with Powerpoint 
presentations (over 800 images will be shown). Actual examples of 
bindings will be shown in the first four afternoon sessions while the 
final afternoon will look at bookbinding terminology and offer the 
opportunity for the discussion of questions and issues raised during the 
week.

Week 2, Identifying and recording bookbinding structures
Tutors: Dr. G. Boudalis and Dr. A. Velios
This five-day course will be divided in two interconnected sessions. The 
first session, run by Dr. Georgios Boudalis, will focus upon the major 
structural and decorative features of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine 
bookbindings and their evolution in time and space. The relationship of 
these bindings with the early bindings of the Coptic and other Eastern 
Mediterranean cultures will be discussed, during lectures, slide-shows 
and demonstrations of real bookbindings from Venetian collections. This 
session will centre on the influences and comparisons of these different 
bookbindings. It will consist of eight 90-minute computer presentations 
supplemented by hands-on sessions.
The second session will be run by Dr. Athanasios Velios and will deal 
with the data management and storage of bookbinding descriptions. 
Alongside a brief reference to the relational databases this session 
will mainly involve discussions on a) the semantic web and XML, b) 
schemas and terminologies for bookbinding descriptions, c) commercial 
and open source software options and d) methodologies and workflows for 
surveying collection. A large part of this session will be devoted to 
the actual development and use of a documentation system for recording 
binding structures and the actual recording of specific bindings. This 
session will consist of two 90-minutes presentations and eight 
90-minutes hands-on workshops. Basic knowledge of database use is 
desirable for this course.

The courses are supported by Ligatus and the University of the Arts, 
London, with generous help from the Istituto Ellenico. We have therefore 
been able to reduce the cost of the course for this year to £350.00 per 
week, excluding travel, meals and accommodation.
A number of accommodation options will be provided to the participants. 
A detailed schedule of the courses can be sent upon request. 
Applications, including a short CV can be submitted online 
(http://www.ligatus.org.uk/summerschool/). For information about 
registration please email Ewelina Warner 
([log in to unmask]) and mark  the message subject with: 
'Ligatus Summer School'. A reading list will be sent to those who will 
attend the courses in advance. Deadline for applications is the 1st of 
July. The participants will be contacted by the end of July.

About the Istituto Ellenico:
The Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice 
was founded in 1955 and is housed in the building of the former 
Flanghinis College. The Institute's main objective is to study Byzantine 
and Post-Byzantine history - focussing primarily on the history of Greek 
territories under Latin domination, on the basis of Italian and in 
particular Venetian archives - and to publish the relevant historical 
sources. Its old library (belonging to the former Flanghinis College) 
includes 2,000 volumes produced by the Greek printing houses of Venice 
from the 16th to the 18th century. Most of these old books come from the 
printing houses of Glykis and Theodosiou, and are mainly ecclesiastical 
works and school texts; the new library includes 30,000 volumes. The 
library also holds 41 Byzantine and Post-byzantine manuscripts from as 
early as the 12th century. The Institute's archive holds an important 
collection of documents from as early as 1498 which capture the history 
of Greeks in Venice. For more information about the Institute see: 
http://www.istitutoellenico.org/

About Venice in September 2011:
Venice always offers a number of great cultural activities including 
museums and churches. The summer school coincides with the Venice 
Biennale exhibition which is another good reason to join us this year. 
For a calendar of events in Venice see: 
http://www.comune.venezia.it/flex/FixedPages/IT/Eventi.php/L/EN/YY/2011/MM/9/DD/1

About Ligatus:
Ligatus is a research unit of the University of the Arts London with 
particular interest in the history of bookbinding, book conservation, 
archiving and the application of digital technology to these fields. 
Ligatus's main research projects currently include the conservation of 
the books in the library of St. Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai and 
the development of a multi-lingual glossary of bookbinding terms. Find 
out more about Ligatus here: http://www.ligatus.org.uk