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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 …
Posted in: Event, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
In this week’s pic of the week post, we catch up with Library of Congress employee Dan Paterson, who is a senior rare book conservator in the Conservation Section of the Library’s Conservation Division. Since 2013, Dan has been surveying book bindings in the Library’s special collections, looking for bindings that incorporate manuscript waste. Manuscript …
Posted in: Collections, Law Library, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
A walk through the stacks of the Law Library of Congress will give you a vivid sense, if you had ever wondered, of what more than a million books looks like. Current statistics show that the Law Library houses 2.78 million physical volumes in its collection. Nearly all of these are stored in four gigantesque …
Posted in: Collections, Global Law, Law Library
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
The idea of republican simplicity is a relic from the age of the American Revolutionary War. To get at its meaning, it’s easiest to meditate on its opposite. Think to yourself: How do I address a king? Am I meant to bow/curtsey? How low? What do I do with my hands while I bow? Do …
Posted in: Collections, Event, Global Law, In the News, Law Library, Pic of the Week
Posted by: Nathan Dorn
This month marks the ten year anniversary of Italian scholar Barbara Frale’s discovery of lost medieval documents relating to the trial of the Knights Templar. Frale, a scholar of medieval paleography, was doing historical research at the Vatican Secret Archive when she uncovered a fourteenth century manuscript which recounts a previously unknown chapter in the history …
Posted in: Collections, Education, Law Library