Top of page

Search results for: italy

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

The Consilia of Alessandro Nievo: On Jews and Usury in 15th Century Italy

Posted by: Nathan Dorn

In anticipation of the Library’s upcoming program, “La Città degli Ebrei/The City of the Jews: Segregated Space and the Admission of Strangers in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice,” – a conference held in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy and the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland to …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

New Acquisition: 15th Century Manuscript of Johannes de Imola’s Commentary on the Decretales of Gregory IX

Posted by: Nathan Dorn

In a recent post on this blog, I announced the acquisition of an interesting 15th century manuscript of a work of canon law that recorded the Canons and Constitutions of the Archdiocese of Zaragoza, Spain. It was an exciting addition to the Law Library’s growing collection of medieval and early modern manuscript books. In this …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

The First Mention of the Jewish Ghetto of Venice in English – Pic of the Week

Posted by: Nathan Dorn

The first English language publication to mention the Jewish Ghetto of Venice was a travelogue that appeared in 1611 under the unlikely title Crudities. Below is an image of that edition’s title page: The central text on the page reads: “Coryats Crudities: hastily gobled up in five moneths trauells in France, Sauoy, Italy, Rhetia com[m]only called …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

Fabriano Paper in Library of Congress Collections

Posted by: Nathan Dorn

This post was jointly written by Nathan Dorn and Sylvia Albro. In this post, we catch up with Library of Congress employee Sylvia Albro, who is a senior paper conservator in the Library’s Conservation Division.  Last fall, Sylvia published a book that presents research she has been conducting on books and manuscripts in various parts …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

Becoming the Plutarch of Renaissance Lawyers

Posted by: Nathan Dorn

Quid sit quod multi vitas principum and ducum… diligentissime conscripserint atque inde genus hoc scribendi profectum, paulatim ad eos homines pervenerit, qui leniores quodammodo virtutes profitentur, Philosophos dico, Medicos, Oratores, Poetas… donec ad Rhetores ac Grammaticos deventum est, nemo adhuc extiterit, qui sibi Legumlatorum et Iurisprudentum vitas in argumentum iusti et peculiaris operis desumpserit… How …

Ornate red and ivory wall decoration, with plaque and symbols

The Faces of Renaissance Law – Pic of the Week

Posted by: Nathan Dorn

How many times have you been stumbling through the dicey Latin of a fifteenth century legal treatise only to stop and wonder what sort of person was behind that pretentious turn of phrase that you just couldn’t interpret? Well, now you can catch a glimpse of the greatest legal authors of the Middle Ages and Renaissance for …