Angela Nuovo will be coming to speak in the Book Arts Lecture Series Wednesday, October 27, 2010, on “Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535-1601) and His Library: Book Collecting and the Republic of Letters in Late Renaissance Italy.”

Angela Nuovo is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Preservation of Cultural Heritage at the University of Udine in Italy, where she has taught since 1994. She studied Modern Literature at the Università di Pavia (1981-82) and Bibliography and Library Science at the Università degli Studi di Parma (1985-86). Previously, she has worked at the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense in Milan, taught at the Università degli Studi di Milano and the Università degli Studi di Pavia and given workshops at the Newberry Library in Chicago and the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Professor Nuovo has written a number of publications on the book, book trade and libraries in Renaissance Italy, including: Catalogo del fondo antico della Biblioteca del Collegio Ghislieri di Pavia. Edizioni del XV e XVI secolo (1983); Alessandro Paganino (1509-1538) (1990); Il commercio librario nell’Italia del Rinascimento (1998); Il commercio librario a Ferrara tra XV e XVI secolo. La bottega di Domenico Sivieri (1998); Il libro nell’Italia del Rinascimento (1998); Il commercio librario nell’Italia del Rinascimento. Nuova edizione riveduta e ampliata (2003); and, with Christian Coppens, I Giolito e la stampa nell’Italia del XVI secolo (2005). She is currently researching the privilege system in the book trade of Europe in the sixteenth century, rare book librarianship in neo-Latin countries (France, Spain, Italy) and the library of Gian Vincenzo Pinelli.

Professor Nuovo’s talk is entitled “Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535-1601) and His Library: Book Collecting and the Republic of Letters in Late Renaissance Italy.” Gian Vincenzo Pinelli (1535-1601), a Genoese living in Padua, owned one of the largest private libraries in 16th-century Italy. At the time of his death the library comprised around 9,000 books and around a thousand manuscripts, probably the largest in Italy at that time. Pinelli’s library was considered a monument in the Republic of Lettersand its owner was viewed as an exemplary promoter of culture and a pioneer in collection techniques and bibliographic organization. Pinelli’s modus operandi will be explained by some examples to show the international impact of his activity. In this pioneering phase of the formation of private libraries (the 16th century), what struck contemporary commentators was the collector as an individual, as is shown by the biographies of Pinelli and his most famous follower, the Frenchman Peiresc. The collector was a new figure, one who proposed a path to attaining honor, fame, and immortality, different from the traditional paths of contemporary society. Both men were celebrated as scholars of encyclopedic knowledge and impeccable probity, but were also described as elusive personalities who were in part enigmatic, even to their intimate friends.

Please join us in the Lecture Hall at 38 West 86th Street, between Columbus Ave and Central Park West, at 5:45pm for a reception before the talk.