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Treasuries of Knowledge

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Created: 2016-04-08 23:30
Institution: Academic Division
Description: Treasuries of Knowledge: Collecting and Transmitting Information in the Early Modern World
Colloquium, 8 April 2016
Organisers: Jennifer Bishop, Liesbeth Corens, and Tom Hamilton

Early modern people understood collections of information as ‘treasuries’, both in a metaphorical and a material sense. Collecting and storing information created a useful, cumulative repository for present and future reference. Collections were preserved in jewel houses or treasure rooms, their contents locked up in chests or boxes, thus reinforcing the idea that information was a valuable commodity to which access should be moderated. They were situated at the interface between past and future, particular documents and larger structures. They also raise questions of secrecy and access, value and materiality. In discussing treasuries, this one-day workshop directs the conversation towards their utility and value, their form and location, and the hierarchies they constituted. It provides a platform for further exchanges among the diverse scholars working on collecting, and invites scholars to reflect further on the common denominator of the utility of collections and the significance of their location and accessibility. For the full programme, see: https://liesbethcorens.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/final-programme-treasurie.pdf.
 

Media items

This collection contains 12 media items.

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Media items

Brooke Palmieri: ‘A Little World of Strangeness’

   663 views

Discussion of Thomas Leeds's Temple of Wisdom, reflecting on the treasuring mentality and the role of the 'impartial reader' (recording missed the first five minutes, for which...

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Djoeke van Netten: ‘Collecting and Guarding Information just before and after the Establishment of the Dutch East India...

   312 views

Discussion of concealing and revealing, inclusion and exclusion in the history of information gathering of the Dutch East India Company.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Emma Spary: 'Plants as Tributes and Treasures in Early Modern France'

   291 views

Discussion of collecting of spices as curiosities, with only a gradual move to commodities and competition.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Eric Ketelaar: 'A Gentleman’s Treasuries in the Dutch Republic'

   319 views

Discussion of the multiple angles on 'treasuries', office as a social space, and the role of women in the office.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Fabio Antonini: ‘Italian Archives: Administration and Scholarship’

   193 views

Discussion of the access and use of the Venetian secret archives, interrelating the administrative impulses with erudite historical study.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Frances Maguire: ‘Printed Receipts and Personal Solvency: Collecting the Paperwork of Hearth Tax’

   2,233 views

Discussion of the material culture of Hearth Tax, showing the intrusion of the state into households but also the potential for negotiation.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Helen Kemp: ‘All My Manuscripts Papers of My Own Hand to be Carefully Preserved in the Study of the Said Library’

   630 views

Discussion of the manuscript library of Thomas Plume

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Marco Schnyder: ‘Knowledge, Action, and Identity: The Swiss Merchant Nation in Lyon and its Archive (17th-18th...

   184 views

Discussion of the Swiss merchant archives and their use in legal and cultural usage.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Matt Symonds: 'Archeology of Reading'

   705 views

Discussion of the Archeology of Reading project and the digital archive.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Sietske Fransen and Katherine Reinhart: 'Making Visible: The Visual and Graphic Practices of the Early Royal Society'

   634 views

Discussion of the project on The Visual and Graphic Practices of the Early Royal Society.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Stéphane Jettot: ‘Treasuries of Refugees: The Collection of Genealogical Archives by Exiled Jacobites in the Reign of...

   411 views

Discussion of Irish Jacobites' conflicts over the role and ownership of the Great Book of Lecan (fifteenth-century Codex).

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016


Sundar Henny: ‘Masters of Useless Information: Private Papers as Treasuries in Seventeenth-Century Zurich’

   353 views

Sundar Henny Challenges the focus on 'information' and 'knowledge' in the study of archives and libraries, and draws attention to the materiality and symbolic value.

Collection: Treasuries of Knowledge

Institution: Academic Division

Created: Sat 9 Apr 2016