26 September 2011

10 Centuries of manuscripts at the National Library. Handwritten

| johnboy
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nla photo by Brian

There’s very little on the National Library’s website about this yet but Andrew Barr has announced that he’s spending $200,000 promoting a pretty amazing sounding exhibition of handwritten manuscripts at the National Library:

The Handwritten: Ten Centuries of Manuscript – Treasures from Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin exhibition will feature manuscripts, letters, sketches and musical scores handwritten by major figures in history. Included are writings by Machiavelli, Galileo and Goethe, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, and a rare manuscript by Albert Einstein.

The National Library of Australia will use the funding for an extensive cooperative interstate marketing campaign of the exhibition. This follows the August announcement of $500,000 towards interstate marketing of the National Gallery of Australia’s Renaissance summer blockbuster exhibition.

Entry to be free!

[Photo by Brian]

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farnarkler said :

The exhibition is not bad at all. if you have been to some of Europe’s better museums/galleries this won’t amaze you but if you haven’t then it’s pretty good. If you remember the Monty Python philosophers song you’ll love it.

I hope you didn’t intend your post to sound patronising. They are unique documents – they can’t each be held in several collections – so someone who has spent time researching in libraries in the UK, France or Ireland but hasn’t seen this particular collation certainly won’t be yawning.

The exhibition is not bad at all. if you have been to some of Europe’s better museums/galleries this won’t amaze you but if you haven’t then it’s pretty good. If you remember the Monty Python philosophers song you’ll love it.

Get in and see this exhibition before it gets crowded … it’s incredible!

You can book online on the nla website. Bit clumsy, but findable.

I have a feeling this exhib. will outclass the “blockbuster – not!” currently on at the NGA.

patrick_keogh11:26 pm 26 Sep 11

patrick_keogh said :

Now you’re really embracing the stereotype! 😛

Lame.

patrick_keogh said :

cegee said :

“In publishing and academic contexts, a “manuscript” is the text submitted to the publisher or printer in preparation for publication, usually as a typescript prepared on a typewriter, or today, a printout from a PC, prepared in manuscript format.” – From the wiki page for ‘manuscript.’ So really, these days, clarifying what type of manuscript is definitely a reasonable thing to do.

Well it would be truly astonishing if contributions from “Machiavelli, Galileo and Goethe, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, and a rare manuscript by Albert Einstein” were prepared on a computer or even a typewriter, notwithstanding the question marks concerning the General Relativity that the recent news from CERN provides.

What really interests me though (and would probably be indication of a similar academic breakthrough) is your:

cegee said :

But we all know your type loves any excuse whip out a bit of rudimentary Latin.

My type? On what evidence are “we all” able to draw some reasonable inferences about “my type?”
IIRC my contributions to the RiotACT have ranged from factual to playful, occasionally argumentative, frequently not. You know nothing of my age, gender, sexual preferences, race, religion, preferred football code or anything else of consequence other than that when I read the word manuscript it immediately reminds me of its latin roots. You’ve made a logical leap… please show the working 🙂

Even so you are struggling: first in using Wikipedia as an authoritative source, and then in disregarding the primary definition in the same article, preferring instead a narrower and more specialist meaning.

Stop being so grumpy, it was only intended as a little jest but obviously it was ill matched to your wit.

Now you’re really embracing the stereotype! 😛

patrick_keogh2:17 pm 26 Sep 11

cegee said :

“In publishing and academic contexts, a “manuscript” is the text submitted to the publisher or printer in preparation for publication, usually as a typescript prepared on a typewriter, or today, a printout from a PC, prepared in manuscript format.” – From the wiki page for ‘manuscript.’ So really, these days, clarifying what type of manuscript is definitely a reasonable thing to do.

Well it would be truly astonishing if contributions from “Machiavelli, Galileo and Goethe, Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, and a rare manuscript by Albert Einstein” were prepared on a computer or even a typewriter, notwithstanding the question marks concerning the General Relativity that the recent news from CERN provides.

What really interests me though (and would probably be indication of a similar academic breakthrough) is your:

cegee said :

But we all know your type loves any excuse whip out a bit of rudimentary Latin.

My type? On what evidence are “we all” able to draw some reasonable inferences about “my type?”
IIRC my contributions to the RiotACT have ranged from factual to playful, occasionally argumentative, frequently not. You know nothing of my age, gender, sexual preferences, race, religion, preferred football code or anything else of consequence other than that when I read the word manuscript it immediately reminds me of its latin roots. You’ve made a logical leap… please show the working 🙂

Even so you are struggling: first in using Wikipedia as an authoritative source, and then in disregarding the primary definition in the same article, preferring instead a narrower and more specialist meaning.

Stop being so grumpy, it was only intended as a little jest but obviously it was ill matched to your wit.

patrick_keogh said :

Hand written manuscripts? Well I’ll be buggered.

manus -us f. [hand]
scriptum, n. [something drawn]

“In publishing and academic contexts, a “manuscript” is the text submitted to the publisher or printer in preparation for publication, usually as a typescript prepared on a typewriter, or today, a printout from a PC, prepared in manuscript format.” – From the wiki page for ‘manuscript.’ So really, these days, clarifying what type of manuscript is definitely a reasonable thing to do.

But we all know your type loves any excuse whip out a bit of rudimentary Latin. What do you want, a bleedin’ parade?

Anyway, this exhibition sounds awesome! I look forward to hearing more about it.

This sounds great. Hopefully the Galileo example will include sketches. Although I imagine there’ll be English translations of all the MS, it’d be great to see his drawings of what he saw through the telescope, that eventually got him into a ‘spot of bother’ (!) with the Church who wouldn’t let their position be challenged by facts.

I remember how crowded the Library was during the ‘Treasures’ exhibition, with people waiting for hours. I wonder if there will be time based tickets?

patrick_keogh10:45 am 26 Sep 11

Hand written manuscripts? Well I’ll be buggered.

manus -us f. [hand]
scriptum, n. [something drawn]

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