Hernándo Colón and the Total Library

This lecture brings together scholars Matilde Malaspina (University of Copenhagen) and Seth Kimmel (Columbia University), who will present new perspectives on the monumental 2019 discovery of the long-lost manuscript copy of Hernando Colón’s 16th-century Libro de los epitomes in the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection at the University of Copenhagen.

The manuscript is just one of various bibliographic tools that humanist collector Colón, son of Christopher Columbus, devised to manage his more than 15,000-volume book collection, one he hoped would come to be a “total library” including every book ever written in every language.

Malaspina is one of the researchers working on the EU-funded “Book of Books” project to edit, digitize, and publish a translation of the manuscript (itself a reference guide Colón prepared with summaries of the books in his collection). Kimmel has recently published a landmark study of the material history of early modern libraries, The Librarian’s Atlas: The Shape of Knowledge in Early Modern Spain, that connects the desire of humanist collectors such as Colón to codify the world through early bibliographic cataloguing to the colonial project.

You may also like the following events from Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library:

• Next Monday, 8th December, 09:00 pm, Artists' Books and Student Learning in New Haven, Connecticut
• Next Tuesday, 9th December, 05:15 pm, Brass Holiday Concert in New Haven
• Next Friday, 12th December, 01:30 pm, Friday Introductory Tours in New Haven