The Tudor period for Renaissance Island (Ren Island) is 1457-1603 so it includes the reign of Elizabeth I.
 Pi Cheng Bi Sheng 畢昇 990-1051 Chinese inventor (note: there are often more than one translations of Chinese names into English so I listed the two most common for Pi Cheng here | Johannes Guttenberg developed the printing press around 1440. Actually Pi Cheng aka Bi Sheng (990-1051) invented movable type in the eleventh century. He cut Chinese characters into clay cubes and then fired them to porcelain. He placed these into an iron frame to print a block of type. The Chinese alphabet is based on ideagrams and has more than 40,000 letters (unlike our alphabet of 26) which made using a printing press problematic. At that time, China, Japan and Korea continued with woodblock printing with people carving each page as the inking came out better. In 1230, Koreans began making the type in 1230. |
The Chinese Diamond Sutra
, the oldest known dated printed book in the world, printed in 868 AD, the 9th year of Xiantong Era of the Tang Dynasty. The dedication reads "Reverently made [caused to be] for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 15th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [11 May 868]"(wiki) Woodblock printing done on a 16 foot long scroll. The Gutenberg Bible was published 587 years later.Let's back up since I am getting into reading this history stuff (Isn't the web great?)
| We talk about the Library of Alexandria having a lot of books but they were actually scrolls. That library lasted a long time so the books that were first collected were in scrolls so one book may be several scrolls or longer. Now add that up to the fact that at its peak, it supposedly had more than half a million books. Apparently even though codices became popular after 300BC (a codex was parchment bound together and placed between covers -- just like a modern book -- in fact they look like a modern book except thicker mostly. However, the librarians here stuck to scrolls which were papyrus rather than parchment-- one reason is that Alexanderia was had strong links to the papyrus |
| |
| trade. This library had reading rooms, lecture halls, meeting rooms and a dining room along with the stacks (the scrolls were literally stacked on each other in large cubbyholes). It made me think of how modern public libraries are bringing back the forsaken dining room by putting in cafes in the library. The Tempe Public Library in Arizona has a nice little cafe with outlets near most of the tables for people to use with their laptops. I wonder if people brought scrolls into the dining rooms in Alexander with pen and ink to copy the library books. |
"In this reconstruction, the doors from the Museum lead to storage rooms for the Library (of Alexandria). Most of the books were probably stored in armaria, closed, labeled cupboards that were still used for book storage in medieval times."
Now apparently in 2004, an archaelogist team said they have found part of the Alexandria library university. A complex of 13 lecture halls(auditoriums?) could have seated 5,000 students while listening to a speaker at the podium. Isn't that pretty cool, that they are still uncovering important places in our times.
Sources
Ancient university comes to light, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, May 27-June 2, 2004, Issue 692, Cairo, Egypt, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/692/eg8.htm, viewed March 5, 2010
Bi Sheng, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bi_Sheng, viewed March 5, 2010.
Codex Amiatinus, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Amiatinus, viewed March 5, 2010.
Diamond Sutra, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_Sutra, viewed March 5, 2010.
Library of Alexandria, http://www.shekpvar.net/~dna/Publications/Wonders/Wonders/Selected/AlexandriaLibrary.html, viewed March 5, 2010.
Library of Alexandria, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_alexandria, viewed March 5, 2010.
Library of Alexandria discovered, Dr David Whitehouse, BBC News, May 12, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3707641.stm, , downloaded March 5, 2010.
Radio
The Library of Alexandria, BBC In Our time, 21:30 min., last broadcast on March 12, 2009, on BBC Radio 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j0q53
Caveat on the stuff below, google blog service directly links to amazon so I've added it so you can read reviews and whatnot on the books below. If you float your mouse over the link, an image pops up of the cover and clicking it takes you to Amazon. I hope it makes things easier
CD-Roms
The Gutenberg Bible at the Harry Ransom Center: CD-ROM Edition (Latin Edition)
. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, 2004.Biblia Latina [Gutenberg Bible]
by Janet Ing Freeman. CD-ROM. Octavo, 2003. [note from me: if you have never seen an Octavo CD, they are amazing. This CD holds 1971 pages. This is a scan of every page of an original Gutenberg Bible on vellum printed in 1455 which is 1,286 pages (one of the three perfect copies that survived owned by the Library of Congress (LOC): the LOC paid $1.5 million for it in 1930. This copy was first owned by Benedictine monks who threw it out the window of their burning monastery in 1768 during the French Revolution. They took it to Switzerland in a journey through several countries, it came to rest at the LOC ). They also include a translation of the text into English. Anyways as you can see I love the Octavo CDs).Fiction Books
Alexandria: A Marcus Didius Falco Novel (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries)
by Lindsey Davis, Minotaur Books, 2009. A first century Roman, Marcus Didius Falco, investigates the murder of the Alexandria librarian.The Justification of Johann Gutenberg
: A Novel by Blake Morrison. Harper Perennial, 2003. Fictional biography.Nonfiction Books
Library of Alexandria
The Alexandrian library
, glory of the Hellenic world;: Its rise, antiquities, and destruction by Edward Parsons. London, 1952.Book burning: Burning of Books and Burying of Scholars, Library of Alexandria, History of the Qur'an, Samanids, Luther Bible, Gospel, Bible, Nazi Book Burnings
by Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome, and John McBrewster. Alphascript Publishing, 2009.The Decline of the Library and Museum of Alexandria, by Ellen Brundige. December 10, 1991. A book on the web with chapters (free:) )
The Future of the Past
(chapter: "The Return of the Vanished Library"). Alexander Stille. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. 246-273.The Golden Age of Alexandria
by John Marlowe. Trinity Press. London: 1971.The Great Library of Alexandria Burnt
: Towards the history of a symbol by Jon Thiem. Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc., 1979.The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon(chapter: "Destruction of Paganism", "The temple of Serapis at Alexandria" and "Its final destruction, A.D. 389" subchapters)History of Libraries in the Western World
by Harris, Michael H. 4th ed. Metuchen, N.J: Scarecrow Press, 1995.History of Libraries in the Western World
by Emer D. Johnson. Scarecrow Press, Inc. Metuchen: 1970.Kallimachos: The Alexandrian Library And The Origins Of Bibliography
(Wisconsin Studies in Classics) by Rudolf Blum. University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.Libraries in the Ancient World
by Lionel Casson (Yale: Yale University Press, 2001) esp. Chapter 3Library: An Unquiet History
by Matthew Battles, W.W. Norton & Co., 2004.The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World
, Revised Edition, by Roy MacLeod, I. B. Tauris, 2004.Life and fate of the ancient Library of Alexandria
by El-Abbadi, Mostafa (1992). Paris: UNESCO, 2nd edition. ISBN 9231026321.The Memory of Mankind: The Story of Libraries Since the Dawn of History
by Tolzmann, Don Heinrich, Alfred Hessel and Reuben Peiss. (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2001.The seven books of history against the pagans by Orosius, Paulus
(trans. Roy J. Deferrari) (1964). Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America.The Shores of Wisdom: The Story of the Ancient Library of Alexandria
(Volume 1) by Derek Flower, CreateSpace, 2009.The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World
by Luciano Canfora and M. Ryle (California: University of California Press, 1990)What Happened to the Ancient Library of Alexandria?
(Library of the Written Word) by Mostafa El-Abbadi, Omnia Mounir Fathallah, and Ismail Serageldin, Brill Academic Publishers; illustrated edition edition, 2008.Origins of Printing, Gutenberg
Gutenberg and the Impact of Printing
by Stephan Fussel and Douglas Martin. Ashgate Publishing, 2005.Gutenberg and the Invention of Printing: An Anniversary Review, With Special Reference to the Gutenberg Bible
, by Laurence Elliott Tomlinson. Judd & Detweiler, Inc, 1938.Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words
by John Man. Wiley, 2002.The Gutenberg Bible (Illuminated Gift)
by Martin Davies. Pomegranate, 1997.The Gutenberg Bible - A Commentary, Historical Background, Transcription, Translation
. 2 volumes. by Editor Jean-Marie Dodu. Editions Les Incunables, 1985.Johann Gutenberg and his bible
: a historical study by Janet Ing. The Typophiles, 1988Johann Gutenberg: The Man and His Invention
by Albert Kapr and Douglas Martin. Ashgate Publishing; 3rd edition, 1996.A Memoir on the Origin of Printing
by Ralph Willett. BiblioBazaar, 2009.Codex Amiatinus
Codex Amiatinus of the Latin Vulgate Bible and Its Birthplace
(Analecta Gorgiana 20) by H. J. White. Gorgias Press LLC, 2006)by next post will be about books printed before January 1, 1501, are called incunables.
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